CHERRY BLOSSOM MACARONS with CHERRY BLOSSOM BUTTERCREAM

This blog post is from 2019 but the pictures have been updated in the year 2022. The blog post has some updates as well.

Cherry Blossoms are blooming everywhere right now! There is something airy, dreamy and beautiful about the blossoms, that make them so gorgeous. I will have to get a couple of plants to plant in our backyard so by next Spring I can see the blooms in my own yard! I am loving all the yellow wildflowers everywhere too, it’s just so pretty and makes up for all the winter cold months and the rain! I am very intrigued by the cherry blossoms! They make beautiful desserts!

Last year I made a cherry blossom lemon roll cake which turned out so beautiful. It had a raspberry buttercream inside. The cherry blossom was pipped on the baking tray first, baked for 5 minutes, and then the cake layer was piped on it. I was stoked with the result!  The link for the lemon cake roll is here.

This year, I wanted to do something more dramatic, something more visually pleasing. I found out that you can get pickled dried cherry blossoms and sakura leaf powder from an online Japanese store. The store also has cherry blossom jam! The bottle is super adorable and the color is a dreamy pale pink. The store link is here. I also bought the cherry blossom extract from a Japanese seller on Amazon. The extract smells absolutely wonderful. I have linked it here.

I wonder if one can make their own cherry blossom extract similar to vanilla extract with cherry blossoms and alcohol. I must do my research so I can make the cherry blossom extract. So that is the flavor profile I went with. I actually put sakura(cherry blossom in Japanese) leaf powder that is more flavorful than the flowers themselves in the macaron shell, along with the cherry blossom extract.

What do the Macaron Shells have:

The ingredients used in the macaron shells are:

• Almond flour : I use Bob’s Red Mill Almond flour, because the flour is just fine enough for the french macarons. The flour does make the best macarons!
• Confectioner’s sugar : Confectioner’s sugar is used in the shells to keep it consistent with the texture of the almond flour.
• Room temperature egg whites : Always use room temperature egg whites, and make sure to weigh your egg whites, to get the right consistency of the batter for the macaron shells.
• Granulated sugar : It is required to make the meringue with the egg whites.
• Cream of tartar: This is necessary to form a firmer meringue.
• Cherry Blossom Extract: I bought the cherry blossom extract from a seller on Amazon. The fragrance is so wonderful, and I love the flavor it imparts to the shell and the buttercream.
• Vanilla extract : I love adding a bit of vanilla extract to my shells, cause again it flavors the shells, which would otherwise just taste sugary.
• Sakura Leaf powder : This is the dried powder of the cherry blossom leaves. I found this powder at the online Japanese store linked above. The shells do have a beautiful subtle flavor because of this leaf powder.
• Americolor : Dusty Rose food gel color. I use a few drops of this pretty pink color, to color the shells.

TIPS for Making good Macaron shells:

• Always weigh all the ingredients. It is absolutely necessary to weigh each ingredient properly. Else you will not be successful in macaron making. 
• When sifting the almond flour and confectioner’s sugar, make sure to sieve it 4 to 5 times. Remove the larger chunks at the end of the sieving, you will get an idea what I am talking about.
• When making the meringue, with the egg whites and sugar, make sure to whip for a good 5 to 7 minutes, until the meringue has a soft peak, when the whisk attachment is inverted. This is an important step.
• When blending the flour mixture into the meringue, make sure to blend it in one direction, and then flattening the spatula against the wall of the bowl. You are removing the air from the mixture. Do not overwhip else your batter will be too runny. You want to be able to form a figure 8 with the batter, but yet have a very slight firmness to the batter. 
• Bake sure to bang the tray atleast 10 times to settle the shells, and if there are an air bubbles on the top, pop them with a tooth pick and smoothen the area.
• I always suggest to bake 3 to 4 shells to know your oven temperature and how long you need to bake it for. My oven takes about 16 to 17 minutes to bake the shells at 310 degrees C.
• I love using silicon mats for macarons. The shells come out perfectly round and even, and they come off the mat easily too. They are not too expensive and they are an investment, especially if you plan to make macarons very often.

Cherry Blossom Buttercream:

The buttercream is very easy to make. I used:

• Unsalted room temperature butter
• confectioner’s sugar
• cherry blossom extract
• vanilla extract
• dried and chopped cherry blossoms

For removing the salt pickling from the cherry blossoms, you put them in cold water in a bowl, and let the pickled cherry blossoms for an hour. Gently remove each flower, rinse them, and squeeze out the water and lay them on a paper towel. Do the same for the remaining flowers. Pat them dry with another paper towel and let them dry overnight. For the buttercream, I used cherry blossom extract, as well as finely chopped cherry blossoms in the buttercream. I piped the buttercream in dollops on the macaron ring, and put the cherry blossom jam in the center. I put homemade strawberry and hibiscus jam for some of them!

If you want to use Royal Icing to make a simple Cherry Blossom Macaron decoration:

We used royal icing to decorate the tops. I made a slightly stiff royal icing. I used the Wilton Royal Icing from their website. I had to add a little bit more water, since the icing was way too stiff to pipe. The icing was divided into 3 bowls, and I used Americolor Fuschia, Deep Pink to create the 2 shades of pink and Brown for the branches. My kids and I had a blast pipping the branches and cherry blossoms on the macaron. I gave them their own shells and they did their own decorations and buttercream pipping and ate their own macarons.

If you want to pipe cherry blossom flowers, use American buttercream:

I used #103 and #104 for the petal tips, to get the lighter pink and fuschia color for the cherry blossom flowers. I also used #2 for the brown stalk. The tips that I use are Wilton tips, and are available at the www.wilton.com site or on Amazon. For the brown color, I use Chocolate Brown in Americolor, along with a smidge of black in it to get that dark brown color. 

For the pink variations for the 2 kind of pink cherry blossoms, I played around with Americolor Dusty Rose, Soft Pink, Deep Pink and Fuschia to get the 2 colors that I have on the shells. I also used 12 inch wilton plastic piping bags for the flowers. I lined the inside with 2 streaks of fuschia, using a tooth pick, so that I can get a toned variation on the flowers as you can see in some of the flowers. It gives this beautiful shaded flower pattern look. 

My 9 year old has a mind of her own – loads of thoughts, opinions and suggestions always! I love seeing her creative thinking process, and how she works on her little craft projects on weekends. It is fascinating to watch. Whenever I am brainstorming a recipe, or an idea, she has to chime in with her suggestions. Quite a few of my decorating ideas stem from her input! It is really cute to hear! While we were shooting these macs one weekend, and I got the cherry blossom branches(hoping no passer-by noticed me!), she said to put the macs as if they were cherry blossoms on the tree, and show a couple ‘flying away’ with a few flowers around it! So I listened to her and I love the idea and how it turned out! All credit goes to the cutie! 🙂

If you have any questions regarding making macarons, please feel free to let me know and I will be happy to answer all your questions. I have gone through my fair share of loads of bad macarons, and it has taken be a long time to get to this stage, so any help that I can give would be useful for you.

Happy Spring!

XO

Amisha

Cherry Blossom Macarons with a Cherry Blossom Buttercream and Cherry Blossom Jam

March 26, 2019

by Amisha

Category Brunch Cookies Dessert Gluten-Free Macarons Spring

Notes

NOTES:

1) Make sure that you whip the meringue thoroughly. The best way to check after 7 minutes of whipping is to remove the whisk, stir the meringue vigorously with the whisk and turn it upside down. The meringue should stay stiff like a peak with a slight curve at the end of the peak.

2) Make sure that you fold the almond mixture and it is well incorporated with the meringue and the end mixture is smooth and falls off the spatula with ease. It should look like a ribbon falling off the spatula. It should form a figure 8, and give it 20 seconds to settle and merge into the rest of the batter. If that happens, you know your batter is perfect.

3) When using the pastry bag to pipe the macarons, hold it absolutely vertical, and center to the holes on the template and slightly above it, and not touching the paper to pipe it. You need to squeeze just a tad bit to release the batter onto the parchment paper. Increase the pressure, and reduce it immediately.

4) Make sure that you tap the tray atleast 6-10 times to release any air bubbles in the macaron shell. Pop out any air bubbles with a toothpick.

5) You HAVE to let the macarons rest for atleast 30-45 minutes to form a nice shell. It must dry out.

6) It is very important to rotate the tray halfway through baking to make sure that the macarons are baked evenly.

7) DO NOT remove the shells off the parchment paper as soon as the tray comes out of the oven, else you will break the shell. Wait for 2-3 minutes atleast for it to cool down.

8) You can keep the shells covered and do the frosting the next day as well. The shells will keep for a couple of days.

Ingredients

• For the Cherry Blossom macaron shells:
• Makes 60 2 inch macaron shells
• 7 ounces confectioner’s sugar
• 5 ounces almond flour
• 1 tbsp sakura leaves powder(found on a Japanese website – link in blog post)
• 4 large(4 ounces) egg whites, room temperature
• Pinch of cream of tartar
• 4 ounces granulated sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/2 teaspoon cherry blossom extract(found on Amazon)
• few drops of pink color
• Cherry Blossom Buttercream filling:
• 8 tbsp unsalted butter, room temp
• pinch of kosher salt
• 4 cups confectioner’s sugar ( the buttercream should not be runny, it should be firm, but pipeable at the same time)
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 1 teaspoon cherry blossom extract
• 6-8 pickled cherry blossoms, rinsed, dried and chopped into tiny pieces
• 4 to 6 tbsp whole milk (depending upon the consistency of the buttercream)
• 1/3 inch Wilton round tip for piping the macarons
• 16 inch piping bag
• 1/4 inch Wilton french star tip for piping the buttercream on the flat side of the macaron
• 12 inch piping bag
• FOR PIPING FLOWERS USING AMERICAN BUTTERCREAM:
• Wilton petal tip #103
• Wilton petal tip #104
• Wilton round tip #2
• Wilton round tip #1
• 4 12 inch piping bags
• (IF YOU WANT TO USE ROYAL ICING TO DECORATE THE MACARON SHELLS)
• Royal Icing:
• (Recipe from Wilton Cakes)
• 4 cups confectioner’s sugar
• 3 tbsp meringue powder
• 6 tbsp warm water
• Cherry Blossom Jam or strawberry jam to fill the center of the macaron. Cherry Blossom jam available online at a japanese website(link in blog post)

Instructions

For the macaron shells:

1. Preheat oven to 310 degrees. Line baking sheets with the paper templates, and top with the parchment paper, or you could use silpat.
2. In a bowl of a food processor fitted with a metal blade, pulse 1/2 of the confectioner's sugar with the almond flour and sakura powder until a fine powder is formed. Transfer mixture to a mixing bowl and mix in the remaining confectioner’s sugar. Using a drum sieve, sift mixture four times into a large bowl. Set aside.
3. To make the meringue: In a bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a whisk attachment, whip whites and cream of tartar on medium speed until foamy. Gradually add granulated sugar. Once all the sugar is incorporated and the mixture is thick, scrap down the sides of the bowl, add the vanilla extract, cherry blossom extract and the drops of pink color and increase the speed to high, whipping until stiff, firm, glossy peaks form for atleast 5 minutes. You can remove and turn the whisk and the meringue should hold.
4. To complete the macaronnage step: Sift the almond flour mixture, one-third at a time, over the egg white mixture, and fold using a large spatula until the mixture is smooth and shiny. Once all the almond flour mixture is incorporated check for the correct consistency, the batter should be firm, have a glossy shine and drip smoothly from the spatula. Make sure that the entire almond mixture is incorporated. Take in the batter with your spatula and press it against the bowl in the same motion to remove the air from the batter. This step is very important. If you overwhip the batter will be too runny so do not overwhip. It should flow like lava, slowly but form ribbons.
5. Transfer the batter to a pastry bag filled with the 1/3 inch round tip, and pipe 1 1/3 inch rounds on parchment-lined baking sheets. Gentle tap the bottom of each sheet on work surface to release trapped air. Do this step atleast 10 times. If they have a tip, gently pat it down with your wet finger. Let stand at room temperature for 30-40 minutes atleast. Check for a slight crust to form on the macaron. The macarons should not stick to your finger when lightly touched.
6. Bake one sheet at a time, rotating halfway through, until macarons are crisp and firm, about 16 minutes.
7. Allow macarons to cool on the baking sheets for 30 minutes and transfer to a wire rack to cool completely before filling.

For the cherry blossom buttercream filling:

1. In a stand mixer, fitted with a whisk attachment, add the butter and salt and whip until light and creamy about a minute. Add in the chopped cherry blossoms and whip for 30 seconds.
2. Add the confectioner's sugar, 4 tbsp of whole milk, vanilla extract and cherry blossom extract to the whipped butter and mix until the ingredients are well combined and the mixture is smooth about a minute. Add the Americolor Soft Pink food gel into the buttercream and mix well.
3. For the Flowers on the macaron shell:
4. Take about 1/2 cup of the buttercream and put it in a bowl. Add the Americolor Soft Pink food gel and mix with a small rubber spatula. Put the buttercream into a 12 inch piping bag, fitted with a Wilton petal tip #103.
5. Take another 1/2 cup of the buttercream and put it in a bowl. Add Americolor Dusty Rose with a smidge of Deep pink food gel, mix with a small rubber spatula. Put the buttercream into a 12 inch piping bag, fitted with a Wilton petal tip #104.
6. Remove another 1/4 cup of the buttercream and remove it in another bowl. Add Americolor Chocolate Brown with a smidge of black food gel, mix with a small rubber spatula. Put the buttercream into a 12 inch piping bag, fitted with a Wilton round tip #2.
7. Repeat again for another 1/4 cup of the buttercream. Add Americolor Mauve, mix with a small rubber spatula. Put the buttercream into a 12 inch piping bag, fitted with a Wilton round tip #1.
8. Using the piping bags, decorate each shell with the different cherry blossom flower colors, add the brown stems. Add the mauve dots as stamen on each flower. Repeat on half of the macaron shells.
9. Use a pastry bag to pipe the flat side of the undecorated macaron shell on the rim. Fill the center with strawberry jam or cherry blossom jam. Use the same sized decorated macaron shell to cover the icing.
10. (If you want to go with a simple design)

Royal Icing:

1. In a stand mixer with a paddle attachment, beat the confectioner's sugar, meringue powder and water, first on low speed until combined. Increase the speed to medium and continue mixing the icing until it is light in color and holds a stiff peak, 3 to 5 minutes. Do not overmix the icing.
2. Use the stiff consistency as-is for the outline of the cookie. Divide the mixture into 3 bowls, for a dark pink, light pink and brown color. Put the icing in a 12 inch pastry bag with a very tiny pipping tip. Scrap the icing down with a bench scraper. Secure the top tight. Use the pipping bag to decorate the macarons with royal icing.
3. The bags can be kept in the refrigerator for 10 days. Keep the tips well secured, so as not to dry out the icing.
4. NOTE:
5. The macarons can be kept in an air tight container at room temperature in the winter, for upto 10 days. IF it is warm, then they should be kept in the fridge. Remove them 20 minutes, to get them to room temperature before eating.

Tags

brunch,

cherry blossom,

cherry blossom buttercream,

cherry blossom flavor,

cherry blossom macarons,

Dessert,

French,

japanese,

Macarons,

sakura

https://thejamlab.co/2019/03/26/cherry-blossom-macarons/