Pardon our French, but the macaron trend is just everywhere these days! Jenessa of @dolcecakesconfections uses the CookieCutterKingdom Macaron Cookie Cutter to combine elegant dessert and classic sugar cookie.
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I love macarons! I love everything about them...except making them. The delicate treats are the most finicky little cookies that I've ever tried to make. If you over-mix the batter, they end up flat with no feet. If you under-mix the batter, they end up bumpy. If you don't mix the meringue to the right consistency, they end up hollow. You get the picture. They can be a real pain to make.
With that being said, after trying my hand at several batches of these, I decided that I should just stick to what I'm good at...decorating sugar cookies. If you're like me and would rather decorate a macaron than make an actual French macaron, then keep reading.
French Macaron Cookies
What you'll need:
Directions:
Dust work surface with flour, roll out your dough, and dip cutters in flour before cutting out the french fries. Freeze shapes for about an hour, then bake according to recipe, and cool completely.
To start, pipe a narrow, horizontal rectangle in the center of your cookie. Do not pipe the white all the way to the sides.
Next, use the flooding consistency colored royal icings to pipe the side shells of the macarons. Don't worry about piping all the way in to meet the white in the center. If the shells do touch the white, that is fine too.
Set the cookies aside for 10-15 minutes...just long enough to let the top layer of the royal icing to set.
When the top layers have set, take the colored piping consistency icings and pipe a thick line (about 1/4 of the size of the sides) in between the white and shell. Take a scribe tool or toothpick and even the icing out to make the line look straighter.
Allow the icing to dry for 30 minutes or until there is a hard crust on top. I popped mine in my dehydrator on the lowest temperature setting for 5 minutes to help speed up the process. If you don't have a dehydrator, a small counter top fan works too!
Once the cookies have crusted over, take your scribe tool/toothpick and poke around at the thick line of icing you just piped to create the look of getting those perfect, little feet that you want on your macaron. It's better if the royal icing on the inside is still kind of gooey so the cracked crumb pieces stick to themselves and look more cohesive than a bunch of random holes in your cookie.
When you've finished poking holes into your cookies, set them aside to finish drying completely and you're all done!!
I promise these cookies are 100x easier to decorate than having to make real French macarons! So, for your next tea party or ladies event, make a bunch of these, save yourself the hassle of making actual macarons, but you can still take credit for making "macarons" (wink wink).
Xx,
Jenessa
@dolcecakesconfections
For an easy, no mess option for cookie decorating, try Tipless Piping Bags. Simply cut the tip size you want and discard the bag when you're done. No need for clean up!