Every year a few weeks before Easter, I suspect minions of bunnies are dispatched from headquarters, sneak into supermarkets, and fill the shelves with delicious chocolate-covered candies that somehow magically jump into your shopping cart as you pass by.
Hm...perhaps they work in cahoots with the gremlins in the closet that sew clothing tighter while you sleep.
In either case, it is the day for chocolate-covered candies, like the coveted Cadbury creme egg. So to celebrate Easter and continue my March of Macarons series, here is a new macaron of my own: the Cadbury Creme Egg Macaron!
Cadbury creme eggs are like liquid gold, rare and hard to find out-of-season. But while it seems like they're working with precious minerals, the creme recipe is actually surprisingly easy to make.
(Chocolate swiss roll)
All it takes is mixing together the good things in life: butter, sugar, vanilla extract, salt, and corn syrup.
Are you ready for a confession? I've never worked with corn syrup before, not ever. I was mesmerized by the strange elastic quality of the viscous liquid. When I first started mixing together the creme filling, I just couldn't help picturing Slimer's ectoplasmic trails from Ghostbusters. Hardly appetizing, I know.Don't worry, these macarons will fix that.
So much delicious sugar! Once the powdered sugar is added in, the creme becomes gooey and delicious, just like the real stuff.
Cadbury Creme Egg French Macaron
100g aged egg whites at room temperature
110 g almond meal
190 g confectioner's powdered sugar
10 g Dutch process cocoa powder
50 g granulated sugar
pinch of cream of tartar
1/4 cup light corn syrup or golden syrup
1/2 cup butter, softened at room temperature
1 1/2 cups confectioner's powdered sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/8 teaspoon salt
three drops of yellow food coloring and a drop of red food coloring
1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees Fahrenheit. Sift and mix together confectioner's powdered sugar, cocoa powder, and ground almond flour in a food processor. Set aside.
2. Whip egg whites on medium speed in a stand mixture. Add a pinch of cream of tartar for extra stability (optional). Whip until egg whites are foamy and cream of tartar is dissolved (1 - 2 minutes).
3. Slowly add granulated sugar to egg whites while beating on medium high (about 1 tablespoon every 30 seconds). Continue whipping on medium high until meringue forms and becomes glossy, stiff, and can form strong peaks (about 4 - 8 minutes).
4. Pour half of the almond flour/cocoa/sugar mixture into meringue and gently fold together with rubber spatula. Once combined, add second half of almond flour mixture. Fold until lumps are removed, but not more than 40 times to avoid removing too much air. Mixture should flow like lava when complete.
5. Pipe batter with a round piping tip onto parchment- or silicone-lined baking sheet. Pipe evenly sized circles about a 1/2 - 3/4 inch apart. Tap baking sheet against table when done to remove air bubbles from macarons.
6. Let macarons rest for 30 minutes or up to 1 hour to let the top of the shell dry. When it is no longer tacky to the touch, it is ready to be baked.
7. Bake at 300 degrees for 10 - 15 minutes until baked solid through the center. Let cool on wire racks. When baked solid, the macaron cookie should remove very easily from the parchment or silicone.
8. Combine corn syrup, butter, vanilla, and salt in stand mixer with mixer attachment.
9. Slowly add sifted sugar and mix until incorporated.
10. Split the batch into a larger and smaller batch (about 2/3 and 1/3 of the creme). Add yellow and red food coloring to one third and mix until it reaches desired color. Larger portion will remain milky white.
11. Put creme fillings in the fridge to chill for hour or overnight.
12. Spoon small portions of yellow creme and roll into balls (about 1/2 tablespoon size). Place ball in center of macaron cookie. Roll portions of white creme into long tubes (about 1 tablespoon size) and wrap around the yellow yolk on the chocolate macaron cookie. Sandwich together with top macaron.
Serve immediately or put in refrigerator to mature overnight. Maturation makes the mac taste better as the insides become soft and delicious. The Cadbury creme egg macarons can wait in the fridge for a week or in the freezer for two or three weeks. Serve at room temperature so the creme is soft and smooth.
Thank you to Steph over at Rasberri Cupcakes for the basic recipe for the chocolate macarons and to Scoochmaroo over on Instructables for inspiration on the cadbury creme recipe.
Rating of Difficulty: 4 out of 5. Macarons are always a bit tricky, so it's a welcome relief when the filling is not. There's no cooking, no slicing, and no mashing involved here. Just mix the ingredients, chill and spread onto the macaron. You don't even have to pipe the creme since this icing is so solid when chilled that it can just be laid onto the shell directly by hand.
Thanks for dropping by! Enjoy the Easter holiday and God bless.
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