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Add DIXIE CRYSTALS to Home Screen
Ingredients
Macarons
- 4.5 ounce (1 3/4 cup) almond flour or meal
- 7.5 ounce (2 cups minus 3 tablespoons) Dixie Crystals Confectioners Powdered Sugar
- Pinch salt
- 1/2 cup egg whites, no yolk traces
- 2 tablespoons Dixie Crystals Extra Fine Granulated Sugar
- 4 drops green food color in gel or paste form
Lemon Basil Curd
- 1/2 cup fresh lemon juice
- 1 cup Dixie Crystals Extra Fine Granulated Sugar
- 3 large eggs
- 1 teaspoon cornstarch
- 3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, very soft
- 5 tablespoons fine to coarse chopped fresh basil
Directions
- Preheat oven to 325°F. Set aside 2-3 cookie sheets lined with silicone baking mats or lined with parchment paper.
- Fit a pastry bag with a 1/2 inch (Ateco 806) plain round pastry tip and set aside.
- Combine almond flour/meal, powdered sugar, and salt in a food processor and mix until almond flour super fine. Set aside.
- In a bowl whip egg whites and granulated sugar to very stiff peaks.
- Stop whipping and immediately add food color and almond meal mixture. Using a rubber spatula mix until batter is smooth, but do not overmix to avoid making batter too runny. Batter should appear like thick pancake batter.
- Fill pastry bag with filling and pipe quarter size and dome shaped mounds onto prepared sheets about 1 inch apart. Macarons will spread a little just after piping.
- Allow macarons to sit at room temperature for 15 minutes before placing in oven. However, if you notice that macarons are still spreading and not holding their shape place immediately in oven.
- Bake for about 15-17 minutes or until you can lift one up from baking sheet without tearing it apart. If you see golden or light brown color develop on surface they are completely done.
- Allow to cool on sheets they were baked on.
- To prepare curd, pour lemon juice and about half of sugar in a saucepan and bring to a boil.
- In a bowl large enough to hold all ingredients whisk eggs until very smooth. Add remaining sugar and cornstarch and mix until cornstarch is no longer visible.
- Pour about half of boiled mixture into egg composition and whisk rapidly. Pour it all into saucepan and whisk constantly until it boils and makes visibly thick bubbles.
- Remove from heat and let cool until 130°F (lukewarm). Add soft butter and stir until butter dissolves. Adding butter when mixture is still too hot will result in a runny curd.
- If butter refuses to dissolve, place bowl for about 5 seconds in a microwave oven and stir smooth. Add chopped basil.
- Place in refrigerator until curd is firm. Fill a pastry bag with a small pastry tip and pipe curd on half of macarons.
- Sandwich macarons and store in refrigerator.
Dixie Crystals Insight
Obtaining a perfect shiny and smooth surface at the first time of making these darling cookies may be a challenge. However, even if the outcome is not picture perfect, they still will impress your friends. Make them a couple of times and you will master these before you know it! Chef Eddy highly recommends using a scale for optimum results.
For more macaron tips, read Chef Eddy's Tips for the Perfect French Macaron.
