Lemon Poppyseed Macarons

First day of Macaron Week! So many new and exciting things happening today =) I officially have my own domain name (sorry if some of you are subscribed to my Blogger still, just delete that one and add this one!). I switched over to WordPress because I wanted my own domain and I liked the other WP blogs I’ve seen. I want to add a life-related blog to this, and Blogger doesn’t really let you do that; you can only have different “pages” but not different blogs on the same blog. Whatever. Anyway. YAY! IT’S MACARON WEEK! I’ve made 6/7 macarons so far, and the seventh one is SUPPOSED to be lavender, but I can’t find lavender anywhere that doesn’t cost an arm and a leg. Therefore I went with black sesame seed because the other ones I’ve seen are super pretty so I wanted to make some!

But I digress.

If you guys have any suggestions or comments about the new layout of my blog (sorry about the lack of “Recipes” page, I needed to revamp it anyway. Besides, there’s a handy new “Search” option in the top right there so you can find different recipes in the meantime there). I’m super excited for this week!

For those who have no idea what’s going on this week, I made myself an event called MACARON WEEK! This week I’m going to post a different flavour of macarons per day until Saturday, based on the ones you voted on a couple weeks ago. The winners of the poll were:

Peanut Butter
Nutella/Hazelnut
Lemon Poppyseed
Rosewater
Salted Caramel
Raspberry Dark Chocolate
Lavender

But as I mentioned before, I can’t find lavender, so I replaced that with black sesame seed. So yes. I hope you guys enjoy the different posts! Please keep checking back this week for all the different flavours!

But about this recipe:

These cookies were lovely. They were the first batch of the week, and they have this light, buttery lemon flavour thats tinged with the nutty taste of poppy seed. Poppy seeds make everything better. So does lemon. Naturally. (I doooo love me some lemon) I had a really hard time with the Swiss Meringue Buttercream (SMB), I could only get it to this weird, lumpy texture that had some white-ish liquid-ness in with the buttercream. It was really confusing, but what I think happened was that the butter was too cold going in, so it goes kind of a weird texture. I can’t remember which blog I was reading, but I read from a blog that when this happens, just take a 1/4 cup portion of the buttercream, heat it in the microwave for about 15 seconds, then stream it back into the mixer and it’ll turn into a beautifully fluffy buttercream. (You’ll see an example of a successful batch of SMB later this week!)

But yes. Definitely one of my favourites. Would make again.

Recipe inspired by Honey and Soy

Ingredients:

150g almonds (or almond meal if you can afford it)
150g icing sugar
150g granulated sugar, + 35g
50g water
120g egg whites, divided 60g and 60g
2 tbsp poppy seeds

Swiss Meringue Buttercream (bane of my existence) from Beantown Baker

4 oz egg whites (3-4 of them)
1 cup granulated sugar
1 lb unsalted butter (I used about 450g), room temperature
2 tsp lemon extract

Adapted from Lemon Curd from My Kind of Food (you can use the egg yolks from the SMB)

3-4 egg yolks (depending on what you had used above)
1/3 cup sugar (add more if you like it a bit sweeter. I like sour things)
juice from 2 lemons (about 1/2 cup)
zest from lemons
4 tbsp butter, separated

Directions:

To make the buttercream (from now on referred to as SMB), gently stir the egg whites and sugar in a metal mixing bowl over a pot of simmering water. Remove once the sugar has dissolved (it’ll be kind of tepid and if you rub the mixture between your fingers you won’t feel any granules of sugar)
Using a whisk attachment (or just a whisk), whip the meringue on medium-high speed until doubled in volume. It should be around stiff peak stage, or if you can’t tell, then it won’t slide around when you tilt the bowl. Switch to the paddle beater instead of the wire whisk.
One by one, add chunks of the butter (1-inch/tablespoon chunks) and beat until incorporated. If your icing is kind of pukey looking, take about 1/2 a cup of it, heat in the microwave for about 20 seconds until liquidy, and then stream it back into the icing while beating the rest of it. Your butter was probably too cold going in. HOWEVER, if your mixture is too liquidy, put it in the fridge for about half an hour to cool down the butter and try beating it again.
Add the lemon extract and poppyseeds and beat on low until incorporated. Transfer to a piping bag and store in fridge.
To make the lemon curd, stir egg yolks, sugar, lemon zest, and lemon juice over a pot of simmering water until thickened. It’ll coat the back of your spoon.
Add the butter, tablespoon by tablespoon, and mix until incorporated.
Let stand for about 10 minutes for the curd to thicken, then transfer to a jar or cover with plastic wrap to prevent a skin from forming. Refrigerate once cooled.
Preheat oven to 350F
For the macaron shells, process almonds with icing sugar until you get a fine powder. Sift into a bowl (you may need to process it multiple times to get all the lumps out) and mix 60g of the egg whites with it until you get a paste. Set aside.
Whip the remaining 60g egg whites with 35g of sugar until almost stiff peak stage. Meanwhile, heat 150g sugar with 50g water until 230F, then slowly stream the sugar syrup into the meringue with the beater running. Whip the meringue until stiff peak or until the meringue stays inside the beater when you pull it out.
Add a dollop of the meringue into the almond paste and mix to loosen it up. Then incorporate the remaining meringue, folding until you get a lava-like texture that flows in thick ribbons that’ll sink back into the batter within 20-30 seconds.
Transfer to a piping bag fitted with a Wilton 12 round tip, pipe 1 1/2 inch circles on a parchment-paper lined baking sheet. Rap the pan against a table 2-3 times to get some of the bubbles out, this will prevent your macs from cracking. Bake for 12-14 minutes (you’ll know it’s ready when you touch the domes of the shells in the oven and they don’t wobble much).
Once baked, let cool on a wire rack for about 2 minutes, then gently remove from the baking sheet and let cool completely before filling.
Fill with a dollop of SMB. Make a tiny well for the lemon curd and add a bit of the lemon curd. Gently squish the top of the macaron down to spread the filling. Refrigerate in an airtight container. Flavours will mellow overnight and will taste deliciousss <3 OMNOMNOM.