Lemon Macarons with Chocolate and Caramel Filling

Learn how to prepare homemade French Macarons with delicious creamy fillings!

Course Dessert

Cuisine French

Drying 30

Servings: macarons

Author: Daniela Lambova

Ingredients

For the shells:

▢ 62 g egg whites, from two medium eggs
▢ 80 g almond flour
▢ 99 g confectioners sugar
▢ 38 g granulated sugar, or 48 g if not using lemon sugar
▢ 2 teaspoons finely grated lemon zest, ideally dried
▢ yellow food coloring, optional: powder or gel, but not liquid

For the Chocolate filling:

▢ ½ cup/ 120 g cream cheese
▢ 1.75 oz/ 50 g dark chocolate
▢ 2 tablespoon confectioners sugar
▢ 1 tablespoon rum extract, optional

For the caramel filling:

▢ Salted Caramel sauce
▢ 1.75 oz/ 50 g white chocolate

Instructions

Shells:

In a food processor blend together almond flour, confectioners sugar and lemon zest until well combined. Sift the mixture and set aside.
With an electric mixer beat the egg whites until foamy. Add the granulated sugar and continue beating until stiff peaks form.
Add the food coloring and beat for just a few seconds.
With a rubber spatula fold in the almond-sugar mixture in 3-4 times. At the end the mixture must be smooth and all ingredients well combined. It is important not to overmix, because the macarons will not create feet during baking.
Pipe round macarons onto trays lined with baking sheets or silicon mats and then leave the macarons to dry out for 30-40 minutes.
Preheat the oven to 320° F/ 160° C and bake the macarons for about 10-15 minutes (the exact time depends on the oven). They should be dry but not changed in colour.
Let the macarons stay for 5 minutes on the pan and then remove them and let cool completely on a rack.

Chocolate filling:

Break the dark chocolate and melt it in a bowl over a pan with simmering water.
Add the cream cheese, confectioners sugar and rum extract. Mix well.
Let the filling cool 1-2 h in the fridge before applying it to the macarons.

Caramel filling:

Break the white chocolate and combine it with the salted caramel sauce. Heat the ingredients in a bowl over a pan with simmering water or on a very low power in the microwave.
When the mixture becomes homogeneous let cool at room temperature for an hour.
Cover with plastic wrap and transfer to the fridge for 12-24 h before applying to the macarons (the filling should be thick and creamy).
Use a butter knife, a spoon or a piping bag to fill the macaron shells.
I found that the best method for me is to put some filling on one shell with a butter knife, to cover it with another shell and to twist the second one: that way the filling stays all inside and doesn’t spread out.

Notes

Proportions for the recipe:

1 part egg whites
1,3 parts almond flour
1,6 parts confectioners sugar
0,8 part granulated sugar

You can change the weight of each ingredient accordingly, following the egg whites' weight (not volume!). 62 grams are approximately 2 medium egg whites but the weight will certainly vary so please measure them and afterwards measure accordingly the rest of the ingredients.

Baking the macarons: If it’s not easy to remove the baked macarons from the pan without breaking them, place the baking sheet on a damp cloth for 5-10 minutes and they will come out easily. However if they are baked well, you shouldn’t have this problem, so returning them to the oven for 2-3 more minutes should solve the issue.

Storing: Store the macarons in airtight container in the fridge for up to 3 days. They taste better 12-24 h after having been filled.

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