I have never been drawn to floral flavorings. Though often beautiful, the fragrance never enticed me to eat, until I entered my tea phase. Before my move to Chicago, I had never indulged in tea as I do here. It is probably because my apartment complex has free tea bags in our business center, and I can’t resist trying new things. Regardless, when I saw earl grey tea appear one day, I just knew I would have to try to make something with it. With some brainstorming, I came up with my earl grey, rose, and honey macarons. They are such a delightful, indulgent treat, and I have never felt more fancy than eating one of these. The filling is a rose and honey buttercream. The earl grey tea is dispersed throughout the macaron shells. The pairing of the three is simply divine.
If you are curious as to how I got my earl grey, rose, and honey macarons filling to look so interesting, let me indulge you. I chose to pipe my filling with a star tip. I think it gave an overall fancy appearance to match the fanciness of the flavoring.
Troubleshooting Macaron Batter
I am sure you have heard that macarons are notoriously finicky. I myself have experienced the woes of a disorderly batch of macarons, split on the top, no feet, too much feet, flat, cracked, and anything else you might imagine. But with a lot of repetition and a desire to understand macaron batter fully, I have finally perfected macarons. But how?
One thing is that you need to know your oven.
For the longest time, I would only bake macarons at my boyfriend’s house because they would bake perfectly in his oven, but the tops would crack in my oven. What I soon came to learn was that my oven runs hot, so while I could bake my macaron shells at 310F at my boyfriend’s house, my oven at home had to be set to 290F if I did not want cracked tops.
Another is understanding the consistency of your batter.
You want to know exactly how it should be when you finish the macaronage stage. Almost every place that talks about macaron batter mentions you being able to stop the macaronage (or “folding” stage) when you can make a figure “8” with the batter, or when it drips off the spatula in a “V”. Both of these are okay measures, but I kept overmixing my batter due to these metrics.
You want your batter to “flow” SLIGHTLY off of your spatula. If its flowing like a river, quickly, and spreading fast when it builds up in the bottom of the bowl, it is over mixed. You want to mix until you can just barely make a figure “8”, or maybe right before you can make a full one. Another metric is you want the batter to run off your spoon slowly, and you want the drips to stay pretty much on top of the other batter, and take about 10 seconds to sink back in. This is because by the time you transfer your batter to the bag, you will have finished the mixing process enough that you will have perfect macaron batter for piping.
Earl Grey, Rose, and Honey Macarons
Ingredients
For the Macaron Shells:
- 3 Egg Whites 100 grams
- ½ cup Granulated Sugar 100 grams
- 1 cup Almond Flour 100 grams
- ¾ cup Powdered Sugar 100 grams
- 1 bag Earl Grey Tea
For the Buttercream:
- ½ cup Unsalted Butter room temperature
- 2 cups Powdered Sugar
- ⅛ teaspoon Salt
- 2 tablespoons Honey
- 2 teaspoons Dried Rose Petals ground to fine powder
Instructions
For the Macarons:
- Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper. For best accuracy, trace 1-inch circles onto the paper. Flip it over so the side that was drawn on is on the bottom and will not touch the food side.
- In a medium-sized bowl, sift together the almond flour and powdered sugar, set aside. Cut open the tea bag, and pour the earl grey tea in a mortar and pestle. Grind until no large chunks remain, and whisk this into the almond flour and powdered sugar mixture. Set aside.
- In a small or medium sized bowl, combine the egg whites and granulated sugar. Place over a pot of boiling water to form a double boiler. Whisk the mixture until the sugar completely dissolves and the mixture is warm to the touch and frothy. This will take 4-6 minutes.
- Take off the heat and using a hand mixer, whip the egg whites until you achieve stiff peaks. This will take 4-10 minutes.
- Once you have stiff peaks, pour in the sifted almond flour and powdered sugar mixture.
- Using a rubber spatula, fold in the dry ingredients into the meringue in a “U” shaped motion. Continue folding until the batter becomes “drippy”, but not “runny” and you can consecutively form a figure “8” in the batter. Youtube tutorials are very helpful for determining when your batter is just mixed enough, and when it is overmixed.
- Once the batter is totally mixed, fill a piping bag with the batter. The piping bag should have a ¼-inch circle tip, or something around there.
- Pipe macaron circles onto the parchment paper on the baking sheet. If you drew circles on it, follow the outline. If you did not, try your best to make them the same size.
- Once all of the macarons are piped, bang the tray on the table top hard. You want to make sure all of the air bubbles are out of the macaron shells, so you want to bang them at least 10 times to make sure there are no hidden bubbles.
- Once you have hit the air bubbles out of the batter, the tops should be fairly flat. Carefully pat down any points that might have resulted from piping them, but they will probably resolve themselves in the drying stage anyways.
- Next, preheat the oven to 310°F and allow the shells to dry for 20-40 minutes until the tops are not sticky when touched. While the shells are drying, you can make your curd and buttercream.
- After the shells have dried, bake the shells in the preheated oven. Rotate them after 5 minutes, of baking, and allow them to bake for a total of 16-20 minutes depending on your oven.
- Once the macarons are baked, take them out of the oven and allow them to cool before filling.
For the Buttercream:
- Add the butter, powdered sugar, salt, and honey into a bowl. Beat together on medium high speed until fully combined. Add the ground, dried rose petals. Beat until evenly distributed throughout the batter. Transfer to piping bag, and fill your macarons.
Follow me on Instagram @BAKINGWITHLEMON and hashtag your posts #BAKINGWITHLEMON if you make one of my recipes! I adore seeing you guys get creative with baking!
