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Recipe: lemon and rosemary macarons

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The theme of this month’s Mactweets Macaron Challenge was “spring flowers”. I have deviated from this a little and taken my inspiration from what spring means to me, it’s Mother’s Day and my mother’s birthday always follows shortly afterwards.  My mother’s name is Rosemarie so I decided to make this month’s macarons using rosemary paired with lemon.

I have been very fortunate to have my mother visiting this Mother’s Day weekend. She lives 100 miles away on her boat and I look forward greatly to her trips to London.

 

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A Mother’s Day Gift

I recently received an invitation to review a Mother’s Day gift from Interflora, their “Luxury Breakfast Tray” including smoked salmon, bucks fizz and more. Now, if like me, you thought Interflora only sent flowers, let me enlighten you that they will also spirit chocolates, alcohol and foodie gifts to your loved ones.

First the positive points; it’s always exciting to receive presents by post. The brands of the jams, tea and coffee are all good quality. I do not usually drink tea but I found the Duchy Originals tea very pleasant. The salmon tasted fresh and the two champagne flutes were a pretty shape.  There were a couple of substitutions from the published list of contents; pain au chocolat instead of crossiants and two small jars of Tiptree jam instead of one larger Duerr’s one but these changes were acceptable.

I was not a fan of the bucks fizz. Made from perry and orange juice, the perry flavour was too strong compared with the more usual sparkling white wine mix.

For grandparents or relatives who are tricky to buy for, especially those living further away, I can see the attraction of sending a present like this by post.

Is the gift good value for money? The profit margin on the contents of these sorts of gift sets is often swung in the favour of the retailer and whatever the gift is presented in, be it a bag, a box or in this case a tray, make all the difference whether the package is worth buying. So the wooden tray, which was neither white nor stained, let this gift down. This is a shame since the other items were all nice enough.

Am I expecting too much? Should I bothered about the tray? Or is it just that thirty pounds doesn’t buy you that much these days?


Anyway… here is the macaron recipe…

Lemon and Rosemary Macarons


Ingredients: The ingredients for the shells have been adapted from Ottolenghi, The Cookbook, “Lime and Basil Macarons” although my method departs from theirs in that I’m from the “beat it to death” school rather than softly softly. The buttercream was leftover lemon cupcake frosting. This quantity of buttercream makes enough to cover 12 cupcakes so you will need to scale the amounts down if you only want a small amount to fill macaron shells. 

I have used dried rosemary here simply because I could not buy fresh in my local shop (darn you Spar… You let me down!) and had hoped that I could “steal” some from my neighbour’s front hedge but unfortunately she’d given it a thorough pruning and I had to rely on dried rosemary instead.  Naturally I would use fresh rosemary were it available to me.

 


 for the shells
110g icing sugar
50g ground almonds
1 tsp dried rosemary finely ground (I use a coffee grinder reserved for nuts/seeds etc)
Finely grated zest of a lemon
1/2 tsp natural lemon flavouring
2 free range egg whites (60g worth), left to age for 2 days
40g caster sugar
A touch of yellow gel food colouring (optional)
for the lemon buttercream – blend the following:
80g butter
250g icing sugar
40ml milk
1 tbsp lemon juice



Method: 1. Sift the icing sugar, almonds and rosemary into the food processor and blitz to give yourself an even finer powder.
2. In a large mixing bowl, whisk the egg whites to a foam using an electric mixer then add the caster sugar gradually and continue beating until you have a meringue that stands in soft peaks. Add the gel food colouring on the end of a cocktail stick and then continue beating once more until you get stiff peaks and the colour has been mixed throughout.
3. Tip all the icing sugar, almonds and rosemary on top. Using a silicon spatula, sweep around the bowl in a circle and then cut sideways strokes with the thin blade of the spatula through the centre backwards and forwards ten times. Repeat sweeping around the edge of the bowl and doing your ten strokes five times so that you’ve done fifty strokes.  Your batter should be roughly ready by this point, you are looking for a flowing lava effect. If it is too stiff continue sweeping around the edge of the bowl and doing another ten strokes until you are happy with the flow. (This recipe seemed to require a  lot more strokes than usual… Maybe 80… I’m not sure why this happened today)
4. Fix parchment paper to your baking sheet with a blob of meringue batter in each corner.  Fill piping bags with the batter, I use disposable ones with around 1.5cm width snipped of the end.
5. Pipe discs in a circular movement around the size of a two pound coin. Allow a similar distance between the piped circles incase they spread. Pick the tray up with both hands and rap on the table firmly to make the circles settle.
6. Preheat the oven to 150c.  Leave the piped circles near a radiator for twenty minutes to dry out (winter only). In summer, leave for 30 minutes (apparently, I haven’t done this properly in summer yet but this is what everyone else says).  The surface of the circles should dry out so that they are no longer sticky to the touch.  The feet develop as the surface has toughened before the centre has cooked, the pressure that builds up under heating forces the top of the macaron to rise, then you should get feet.
7. Bake for 12-18 minutes depending on size. The length of time really is trial and error.  I put mine on the lowest oven shelf but again you will need to experiment.
8. Hopefully, if you’ve cooked them enough but not too much, you’ll have that happy medium of a surface that peels beautifully off the baking parchment but a meringue which remains soft and gooey like a truffle inside. If you are having trouble removing them from the paper, some drops of water sprinkled under the parchment whilst still warm will help steam the macarons off. But I find that they come off best when completely cool and don’t need this. So don’t be impatient!
9. When cool, spread your filling on the flat side of a shell and sandwich with another, squeezing gently.  Allow to set for a couple of hours. I find they keep in an airtight tin for a week. If you can resist them.

Comments

  2. Lovely macarons Sarah! Your macarons shells are so smooth and the feet so beautifully risen. The flavors are intriguing – rosemary & lemon! I have to try this combo soon!

  3. You have gotten really good at this daaaahling. THey look excellent.
    Hope you had a fantastic mother's day.
    *kisses* HH

  5. Ah! Your macs are lovely, Sarah, and they sound scrumptious! Hope you enjoyed your Mother's Day (ours isn't till May!). :-))

  6. Gosh Sarah, can see how beautifully you've mastered the art of making macarons. Cest magnifique darling. Love that you were inspired by your Mum's name for a choice of flavours…what better gift could one do for Mother's Day. They are utterly gorgeous…and PERFECT! Lovely pictures too.
    Love the gift you received for review; well done with it. I guess 30 pounds doesn't buy much these days, and the contents do look good.
    Hugs my friend. Thank you for joining Jamie & me at Mac Tweets!

  7. Bonjour Sarah,
    So glad you could spend the special day with your Mom, and how lucky she is to have her very own macaron now. Your macarons do look so good, they're perfect. I've been collecting all your recipes but I've yet to work up the nerve to actually try them – I need to just do it! (Isn't that from a Nike ad or something?)
    Great job on the review, how nice to hear honest comments.
    Have a fabulous week!

  8. Sarah – I notice this is similar quantities to the chocolate one, only with herbs instead of cocoa. If I want plain vanilla shells, can I just add the seeds from a vanilla pod and make up the cocoa/herb wait with almonds, or should I add a tsp of cornflour as a replacement?

    Help, please! 🙂

  9. Wow. I'd never have thought of using rosemary in macaroons. Delicious. Not sure I'd pay the £30 for the Interflora gift. So good to know your opinion.

  10. @deeba, Thank you, you and Jamie have been my inspiration for plugging away with the old macs!
    @mrp You could make this recipe up by subbing vanilla for lemon flavouring and don't worry about making up the weight of the other ingredients. So long as you stick to the same quantities of egg white, icing sugar and nuts, you seem to have a bit of leeway for 15-20g worth of flavouring.

  11. Wow you are becoming an expert on Macarons these look fantastic. We had lime and passionfruit macarons at our wedding – they were amazing.

  12. Happy Mother's Day, Sarah! It's so awesome your mom is spending the day with you. And your macaroons……so perfect!

  13. Wow what a lovely colour and the flavour you've chosen is just wonderful. Your macs look perfect. Great job.

  14. What a wonderful post, you're so thoughtful about your cooking. The flavor comination is wonderful and they look perfect.

  15. These look amazing looks like you have cracked it and your flavour sounds really interesting.

  16. Such beautiful feet! 🙂 Lovely colours as well, the gel food colouring seems to have worked a treat. Well done my lovely! x

  17. I love that you did this in honor of your mother, Sarah. 🙂 And I love the not-so-sweet rosemary to balance out the lemon. Perfect.

  18. Happy Mother's Day to your both! Looks like you got this mac thing down pat. They look perfect!

  20. LOL you make me laugh so much! Hope you had a fabulous Mother's Day and I hope you were well-pampered, both you and your mom! And I have to say, your mom is living my husband's dream on that boat!

    Your macs are beautiful, not just pretty to look at but the thought of making them with rosemary for your own mom is just lovely! Thanks for sharing!

  21. OOooh me likey the sound of this flavour! And what a treat getting to see your mum on Mother's Day. Will she get to try these? I bet she'll love them! 😀

  22. Fresh out of the oven – they all have feet. However, the tops are slightly peaked. I think I'll flatten them with a pallet knife next time. Can't wait to try them!

  23. Wow. They are really impressive. One day when I grow up, I want to make macarons like yours!

  24. you are such a good daughter Sarah! Gorgeous Macs!!! And, you mom lives on a boat???!!! Waaayyy cool!!

  25. You did it! No more mac-sadness… this calls for celebration! They are beautiful and seem like a savory/sweet combination. Happy Mothering Day to you!

  26. Love the flavor combination of lemon and rosemary! I know I'm late but better late than never- Happy mama's day xx

  27. They look lovely………..and I would definitely go for the flavours 110% – herby and citrusy.

  28. Hello, Thanks so much for visiting my blog recently and your advice on where to get a 3 column blog, I will look into it. But never mind my blog, look at those macarons, they look gorgeous. Funnily enough today I watched the tv cook Giada de Laurentis make a biscuity (is that a word?)/ cakey combo using Lemon and Thyme. I will have to try your recipe for sure! X

  30. Pretty pretty macarons. You put me to shame! 😀 Once i'm reunited with my oven, i know i'm gonna be referring to recipes from you, mowie, jamie,deeba for macarons! Awesome!

  31. Just the other day I stuffed myself with Lavender and Bluberry flavored! deelish!

  32. absolutely love this! they look incredibly good and can so taste the lemony rosemary flavor! gorgeous going!

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