Pistachio and Blueberry Macarons For The Win!

I've been extremely busy these past couple of days trying to make delicious treats for my momma. The person I really love the most in this world. Two things I know that my mom loves are pistachios and blueberries. I know that after making strawberry curd I had egg whites leftover so I wanted to make these for her. I also didn't want to make one batch of the same flavor so I split my macaron recipe to make two flavors. Another thing I did was make the pistachio ganache like 2 weeks ago and placed it in a pipping bag and placed it in the freezer. I like to make fillings before because that saves time and you don't have to stress or wait for fillings to set. So for the pistachio macarons they have a pistachio white chocolate ganache. The blueberry macarons have a blueberry cheesecake filling with blueberry jam center. They are really delicious.

Pistachio + Blueberry Macarons

So Lets get started

Pistachio Macaron Shells + Blueberry Macaron Shells

• 150g of powdered sugar
• 150g of almond flour/meal
• 150g of granulated sugar
• 50g of water
• 120 g of room temperature egg whites separated into two bowls (60g each)
• 35 g of granulated sugar
• Blue food color gel
• Green food color gel
• crushed pistachios
• Blue Sprinkles
• 5g of powdered pistachios

Ok for the macarons

First take your powdered sugar+almond meal and run that through a fine mesh sieve. Then take a whisk and mix all the ingredients after they have been sifted, then just set aside.

Take 60g of your room temperature egg whites and fold it into your dry ingredients. This is going to form a thick almond paste, after folding just set the almond mixture aside.

Now take your other 60g of egg whites and place them in your stand mixer on medium until they start to get foamy.

When your egg whites get foamy add in the 35g of granulated sugar slowly and mix on medium to high speed until soft peaks form.

when you achieve soft peaks turn down the speed of your mixer and keep your egg whites beating on low speed (like 1-2 speed)

Now take your 150g of granulated sugar and 50g of water  and place it in a saucepan on your stove on medium heat. 

Let this boil until the temperature on your thermometer hits 240F (soft ball on candy thermometer)

Carefully take your sugar syrup and pour it down the side of your stand mixer ( in a slow steady stream) while the egg whites are whipping.

Continue whipping this mixture on high speed until your bowl cools down and stiff peaks form so about 10-15 minutes you should have a very glossy, shiny merengue, flip the bowl over and it shouldn't move.

Now take 1/3rd of the egg whites and fold it into your almond paste

Now once your 1/3 meringue  and almond paste combine you can add all of the meringue and continue folding.

Now I divided the macaron mixture into two bowls for the two different flavors.

For the blueberry macaron shells I of course added blue food gel coloring ( be careful not to overmix the batter)

For the pistachio macarons I added 5g of pistachio dust and green gel food coloring

Take your macaron batter and place in a large piping bag with a round tip attached.

On a parchment lined tray pipe out 1.5 inch circles, tap your tray on the counter top once finished piping. I then placed crushed pistachios and sprinkles on some shells for garnish so they would let you know what flavor macaron you are eating. I really think the color contrast looks amazing.

Waiting to be baked

So pretty

Preheat your oven to 300F

Let them sit on your counter to create a skin (I like to let them rest at least 30 minutes, normally an hour as I clean up the kitchen) You will know they are ready when you touch the macaron shell and nothing sticks to your finger. The macaron will also turn a flat matte finish.

Place your macarons in the 300F oven for 14-16 minutes (I rotate the tray at the 7 minute mark)

I then take them out of the oven and off of the baking tray and place them on the counter top still on the parchment paper to cool 

After a few minutes I like to match up the macaron shells of similar size and get them ready to be filled.

Match up those shells

I love the spring colors

Now for some filling

Pistachio White Chocolate Ganache

• 1 cup white chocolate
• 1/2 cup of heavy cream
• 4 tablespoon of pistachio dust

Let the cream come to a slight boil, pour over white chocolate and pistachio dust. Let sit for one minute, then mix to combine everything. Let cool, will thicken and place in a piping bag.

Place the ganache in a piping bag and place it in your fridge to chill and firm up. This can be made ahead of time. 

Just pipe a bit in the center of your pistachio macaron

Pistachio macaron with pistachio white chocolate ganache

Now for the blueberry cheesecake macaron filling

It's a really simple recipe.

• 4oz (half a package of cream cheese)
• 1 cup of powdered sugar
• and 3 tablespoons of blueberry preserves

Just mix everything together until fluffy and place in a piping bag.

I love the way the blueberries turn purple

I just piped some of the blueberry cheesecake filling around the macaron and placed a little bit of blueberry preserve in the middle

Blueberry Macarons with Blueberry cheesecake filling with blueberry preserves

Pretty and tasty

They turned out great and of course they taste amazing. I placed all of these in the fridge to mature and we enjoyed them on mother's day.