I can't believe we are on week number seven of the nailed it or failed it series. Wow, time has really zoomed by. This recipe is from the Bachour book, with a few minor changes. If you have missed some of the past weeks you can catch up. This week we are making the Mascarpone Cream Macaron with Berries and an Almond Pistachio Cake. It is a very nice flavor combo if you love almonds and pistachios as much as I do. There was nothing hard about this recipe. And the only time consuming piece was the berry gel, which needed about 4 hours of refrigerator time to cool. One could easily make this a day ahead of time and just keep it cold in the fridge.
Mascarpone Cream Macaron with Berries
For this recipe we tried a Mastrad brand large macaron pastry sheet. I have never used one of these to make macarons but I gotta say, it worked. The only problem with this was it was a little larger than a half sheet pan, so I ended up having some of the sheet hang off the edge of the pan. Nowhere did the instructions say that I could just place this into the oven without putting it onto a sheet pan. It was also a little lightweight, and I was worried without a sheet pan underneath to support, I would end up ruining the macarons. I do like the convenience of having a ridge to hold the mixture in place, but if you don't have one of these, a good sharpie and a piece of parchment paper work perfectly fine.
Use a cookie cutter that is the size of a macaron you are looking for, and just trace the circle with the sharpie until you have filled the parchment paper with circles that are about 1" from each other. Then turn the paper over so the ink is touching the sheet pan, and start piping onto the circles.
Ingredients
- Mascarpone Cheese
- Whipping Cream
- Eggs
- Powdered Sugar
- Granulated Sugar
- Almond Flour
Macaron vs. Macaroon: What’s the difference?
Macaron and Macaroon are two different cookies with two different, but extremely similar names. A Macaron is a French sandwich cookie made of two flat almond flour based cookies with a jam or ganache filling in between. Macarons are what we’re creating in today’s recipe.
A Macaroon is an American dessert that features shredded coconut formed into a rounded cookie, sometimes dipped in chocolate. Two very similar words, but two totally different cookies!
Macaron Tips
- Weigh and measure all your ingredients before you start.
- Do not skip the sifting step. This is extremely important and keeps any clumps out of your mixture. Lumps in the mixture will flatten your macaron.
- Before whisking anything always make sure your bowl and whisk are spotless and clean. No left over residue from anything should be in the bowl or on the whisk.
- Slowly add the sugar to the egg whites in two or three parts. Don't add all at once.
- When mixing the almond mixture into the egg whites, use a spatula. Gently fold in, do not over stir this.
Almond Pistachio Cake
The almond pistachio cake is VERY dense. We baked this cake in a half sheet pan, but the cake was not as thick as what you see in the photograph. So we changed this to a ¼ sheet pan to get the thicker pieces of cake for the photograph.
Mascarpone Cream
The rosewater mascarpone cream is quite good. In the recipe, Bachour called for 2 tablespoon rosewater. It was overwhelming for my taste buds. I cut it down to 2 teaspoon instead. If you are someone that is sensitive to the smell of flowers, I will advise caution when using this. Before adding the rosewater, taste it. Make sure you like it and start with a small amount. You can always increase, but you can not decrease once it's in there. And if you find that you don't even like it, just leave it out. Heavy cream, cheese and sugar are always a good combo and make for a great filling.
So give this recipe a try, we would love to hear how it turned out for you.
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Mascarpone Cream Macaron with Berries
Ingredients
Macaron
- 125 g almond flour
- 150 g confectioner sugar
- 100 g egg whites
- 100 g granulated sugar
- Red food coloring as needed
Rosewater Mascarpone Cream
- 100 g heavy cream
- 250 g mascarpone cheese
- 75 g granulated sugar
- 2 teaspoon rosewater
Almond Pistachio Cake
- 325 g almond paste
- 75 g pistachio paste
- 35 g inverted sugar
- 15 g salt
- 110 g unsalted butter softened
- 275 g whole eggs
- 260 g all purpose flour sifted
Berry Gel
- 50 g strawberry puree
- 50 g raspberry puree
- 50 g blackberry puree
- 50 g cherry puree
- 30 g granulated sugar
- 2 g agar agar
Instructions
Macaron
- Preheat oven to 300° F.
- Combine the almond flour and confectioner's sugar in a food processor and process to a fine powder.
- Whip egg whites and granulated sugar in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a whisk attachment to medium peaks.
- Add a few drops of red food coloring (we used 20) and whip for another 20 seconds.
- Sift almond mixture over egg whites and fold, using a rubber spatula, until smooth. Do not over mix.
- Pipe circles onto sheet trays lined with nonstick mats and carefully tap trays to flatten the cookies. Set aside to dry for 30 minutes before baking. Bake for 12-15 minutes.
Rosewater Mascarpone Cream
- Lightly whip all ingredients in the bowl of a stand mixer until smooth.
Almond Pistachio Cake
- Preheat oven to 350° F.
- Beat almond and pistachio pastes, sugar, salt and butter in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment until smooth.
- Add eggs slowly, mixing between each addition.
- Add flour and beat until smooth.
- Pour into a half sheet tray lined with a nonstick mat and bake for 20-24 minutes until lightly golden.
Berry Gel
- Bring all the ingredients to a boil in a small pot. Refrigerate for 4 hours to chill before processing in blender until smooth.
Assembly
- Place a dollop of Mascarpone cream onto macaron. Top with raspberries and sandwich with a second macaron.
- Serve with Berry Gel, a few cubes of Almond Pistachio Cake and a few more dots of mascarpone cream.
Notes
Nutrition
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