Macaroon Creams

It’s a dark miserable day here in my part of the U.K., I woke up to rain and it hasn’t stopped all day! I thought to cheer myself up a light spot of baking would do me the world of good. My next thought was what should I bake today? Something with bright cheerful colours would be just perfect on a day like today and macaroons with bright colours of pinks, yellows and green buttercream seemed alluring! They are simple to create and in no time ready for eating. Taking one bite of these macaroons lead me into a wonderful almond flavoured slightly chewy creaminess of delight. These little macaroons would make such a great tea time treat and of course you can go wild with whatever colour theme you wish for the buttercream!

Macaroon creams

Makes 18 halves and 9 buttercream filled macaroons

Ingredients
2 egg whites
175g (6 oz) caster sugar
125g (4 ½ oz) ground almonds
25g (1 oz) ground rice
For The Buttercream
50g (2 oz) softened butter
100g (4 oz) icing sugar
Edible food colourings, pink, yellow & green

You will also need 2 baking trays lined with non-stick paper

Method
Preheat oven 150°C/300F/Gas mark 2.
In a bowl free from any grease whisk the egg whites until stiff then add the sugar, ground almonds & ground rice folding in with a metal spoon until all incorporated. Scoop teaspoonfuls of the mixture onto the prepared baking trays but leaving room between each spoonful for the mixture to spread a little when baking. Place the trays into the preheated oven and bake for 20 minutes or until the macaroons are pale golden in colour. Leave to cool for a 5 minutes before placing onto a wire rack to completely cool.

Make the buttercream by putting the butter into a bowl and beat it until soft. Add the icing sugar a little at a time beating at each addition until all the icing sugar is incorporated and the buttercream is fluffy. Divide the buttercream equally into three bowls. Add a couple of drops of pink food colouring to one bowl, a couple of drops green food colouring to second bowl and a couple drops of yellow food colouring to third bowl. Mix the food colourings in each bowl until combined through and not streaking in colour. Spread some of pink buttercream onto the flat side of the macaroon and place a second macaroon on top and squeeze gently together, sandwich all the remaining macaroons in the same way with different buttercream colours.

Note: Depending on how large your teaspoons are you may get more macaroons from this mixture.