Green Tea Macarons
I feel like green-tea-ing everything these days, and macarons, in my opinion, taste the best with green tea flavour because it balances out the sweetness. Before making these today, I baked green tea cupcakes. The frosting from there is what I used for the macarons. Next, if my mood persists, I'm going to make green tea castella...
Anyways, although I like whole muffins and cakes better than little finicky macarons (both in baking and eating), these macarons were the best I've ever done so far. They were full, chewy, a teeny bit soft like cake, and had a crusty crust. They looked really good too, because I've improved in piping without using templates.
Green Tea Macarons (Makes about 18)
Ingredients
SHELLS
110g almond meal
100g powdered sugar minus 1 tbsp.
84g egg whites (2 egg whites plus a little more)
80g white granulated sugar
1 tbsp. matcha powder
CREAM
2 tbsp. milk
1 tbsp. matcha powder
120g butter
1 cup powdered sugar
Instructions
PREPARATION:
Place butter for frosting out in room temperature.
Line 2 baking pans with perfectly fitting parchment paper.
Fit a piping bag with a wide round tip, secure the end with a bobby pin, place in a tall glass, and fold over outer edges.
SHELLS:
1. Whisk together almond meal, powdered sugar, and matcha powder and sift mixture back and forth from bowl to parchment paper about 4-5 times. Discard large bits. Make sure the mixture is fine and goes through the sieve a lot better at the end.
2. Beat egg whites with a hand-mixer on high until foamy. Add granulated sugar and beat until stiff glossy peaks form.
3. Pour in almond mixture and fold and smear with a spatula until incorporated and continue until the mixture is like lava and falls in ribbons.
4. Fill the piping bag half with batter, remove the bobby pin, and pipe onto a baking pan by twirling and lifting. Repeat for the other half of the batter and the other baking pan. Note that the batter spreads as you pipe so space them out.
5. Tap the baking pans on the counter lightly twice and dry for about 2 hours just until a finger can gently glide over the surface.
Preheat oven at this point to 300 degrees F.
6. Bake pans, (I did one at a time) for 13 minutes. You don't want macarons to be torched golden brown.
7. Remove sheets from pans and cool the macarons completely.
CREAM:
1. Sift matcha powder over milk and stir together with a little spoon until a paste forms, try not to have lumps.
2. Cream butter with a hand-mixer.
3. Add powdered sugar and matcha paste, beat slowly, then beat on high until fluffy.
4. With a piping bag fitted with a small round tip, (I only had a star tip) pipe the frosting a little in from the edge on the bottom of a macaron shell, making the center have the most frosting. Sandwich with another shell.
5. Lightly dust all the macarons with matcha powder. Macarons are best enjoyed after about a day, which creates a softening effect to the inside of the shell and a crumbly effect to the outside of the shell.