Strawberry cheesecake macarons are pastel-pink shells filled with punchy strawberry cheesecake buttercream and topped with a drizzle of milk chocolate.
½ozfreeze-dried strawberriesground to a fine powder
¼tsppink himalayan sea salt
Instructions
Weigh your ingredients thoroughly. For the powdered sugar and almond flour, weigh the ingredients after they've been sifted twice for an accurate measure. Then, whisk the powdered sugar and almond flour together into a bowl and set aside.
Fill a medium sauce pan with 1-inch of water, and bring to a simmer.
Whisk together the egg whites and cane sugar in the bowl from your stand mixer until the sugar is no longer clumpy. Place the bowl over your pot of simmering water, and whisk heartily until the mixture starts to look opaque and the sugar is totally dissolved. You can check with your fingers. It should be about body temperature and smooth (and sticky... wash your hands).
Dry off the bottom of the bowl, and set it back in the stand mixer with a whisk attachment. Whisk on 4 until it starts to thicken. Add in the 5 drops of neon pink coloring.
Then, move it up to 6 until the tiniest stiff peak forms. You don't want to go to truly stiff peaks; stop when it starts to look glossy and test for a peak. If you can get a quarter-inch peak, test by tilting the bowl. If you can turn it upside down, you're done.
Fold in the first half of the almond flour-powdered sugar mixture until incorporated. Then, fold in the second half. Continue folding by running your rubber spatula around the bowl and then down through the middle. Rotate the bowl by 90º on each turn. After about 8 turns, begin testing for an unbroken "lava-flow" from your spatula. You should be able to stream a figure-8 pattern with the batter. Fold a couple of times and test frequently.
Transfer the batter to a piping bag fitted with a medium round piping tip. Hold your bag perpendicular to the templated mat, and pipe to fill to the larger circle on the mat. This will give you 44 2-inch macaron shells (22 macarons total). If you pipe smaller, you can get more shells, but you'll need to adjust your bake time. Either way, you'll need 2 trays.
Slam the baking trays on the counter, keeping the pan perpendicular to the surface. The batter shouldn't slide around, but just in case. I do this anywhere from 10 to 15 times until I stop seeing bubbles rise to the surface. Sometimes, there are stubborn ones just under the surface that won't pop. Those ones, I'll pop with a toothpick and push the batter back in.
Preheat your oven to 300ºF. Leave your macaron shells to dry for 20 minutes. Check one of the middle ones to see if the top is dry yet. It should look matte compared to how shiny it was when you piped it.
Bake the first tray for 12 to 16 minutes. Watch for the feet to stop looking wet. The second they look less glossy, pull them out. Bake the second tray. Let the shells cool completely on the tray before moving to a cooling rack.
For the filling, whip together the cream cheese and butter until fluffy. Add in the powdered sugar and ground freeze-dried strawberries and vanilla. Once they're combined, whip for 5 minutes.
Transfer to a piping bag fitted with a star tip. Pipe a swirl of frosting into the center of half of the macaron shells. Top with the other half of the shells.
Optionally, melt ¼ cup of semi-sweet chocolate chips with ½ a teaspoon of coconut oil, and drizzle the melted chocolate over your macarons. I further decorated mine with white sprinkles for fun.
Store your macarons in an air tight container in the fridge. Age them overnight before enjoying.
Notes
Note 1: I specifically use the Amazon Basics macaron template silicone baking mats for my macaron recipes.Note 2: I base my macaron shell recipe on Pie & Tacos. This is the only recipe for shells that works. Credit where credit is due. If you are struggling with your shells, visit her Macaron School.