Homemade Cookies and Cream French Macarons

My Homemade Cookies and Cream French Macarons are the ultimate treat! Sharing how to make macarons today! With my step by step instructions, you are on your way to making your own French Macarons at home!

How To Make Macarons

So excited to show you how to make macarons today! I adore macarons. Wait, I should say, I adore eating macarons. There is a lovely little macaron shop down the street from my house that I pick a few up on a regular basis and savor every bite. There’s just something about them that makes me so happy. Also, The Bouchon Bakery macarons make my heart sing. If you haven’t had one, be sure to order one in this lifetime. They are amazing. Note, I am not a professional. These are not perfect “French” macarons, but they are DELICIOUS macarons by me 🙂

Try my Cap’n Crunch Macarons recipe too! Follow Picky Palate on Instagram for daily recipe inspiration.

 Here’s everything I used for the recipe. The glass bowls are egg whites and granulated sugar.

How To Make Macarons

1. Preheat oven to 280 degrees F. and line a large baking sheet with parchment paper. Weigh your egg whites, almond flour, powdered sugar, granulated sugar and ground chocolate wafers on your food scale.
2. In a stand mixer with the whisk attachment add your weighed out egg whites, and sugar beating on medium speed. Beat on medium-high until stiff peaks form. Takes close to 5 minutes. See pictures for visuals. Set aside for a couple minutes.
3. Place the powdered sugar, almond flour and chocolate wafers into a large mixing bowl. Stir to combine. Place in a sifter or fine sieve and sift until all dry ingredients have passed through. Gently fold in the egg whites to the dry ingredients, mixing only until just combined. See pictures for visuals
4. Place batter into a large pastry bag with a large round tip attached. Pipe rounds, about 1/2 inch apart onto a parchment lined baking sheet. Give a good tap or two of the pan to remove any bubbles.
5. Bake macarons for 22-25 minutes. You’ll see a shell on top with “feet” around the edges. Let cool completely before removing. Once cooled, take an offset spatula to loosen from parchment. Pair the macarons close in size to each other to prepare for filling.
6. To prepare buttercream, beat softened butter and powdered sugar until creamy and smooth. Add 2 crushed Oreo Cookies to the frosting, beating until combined. Place buttercream into a medium pastry bag with a large round tip attached and pipe a dollop of frosting on the center of a macaron. Top with the cream center of an Oreo Cookie if desired, place one more smaller dollop of frosting over the cream center then top with a second macaron. See pictures for visuals. Serve room temperature. Store any remaining macarons in the refrigerator.

What Tools Do You Need To Make Macarons?

These 3 things are a must when making macarons. You have to invest in a little food scale. Mine is by oxo. Found it at Sur la Table for about $30. I know that Bed Bath and Beyond sell them and you can use those 20% off coupons they always mail out. You’ll also need a large round tip and pastry bag. I believe the tip is a size 10, mine in the photograph is roughly 1/2 cm in diameter. Note:  I used a large ziploc bag with the pastry tip attached–cut a small snip from a corner of the ziploc and push the tip through–a couple days ago and it works great. If you run out of a pastry bag or just don’t feel like buying one, use a trusty large ziploc bag. You will also need a piping tip.

Bob’s Red Mill makes Almond meal/flour that you’ll need. I’m sure you can find it in the bins of any health food grocery store too.

The scale is really easy to use. You’ll first place your empty bowl on the scale then hit the zero button on the right to bring the number back to zero. Place your ingredients in the bowl once that number is zero. To start, you’ll need 95 grams of egg whites (equal to nearly 3 large eggs) and 65 grams of almond flour.

You’ll also need 200 grams of powdered sugar and 25 grams of granulated sugar.

For the macaron batter, I used ground up chocolate wafers. They are basically the cookie part of an Oreo without the cream. I found mine located on an end cap near the ice cream section of my grocery store. As much as I could scrape most of the cream from an actual Oreo cookie, there’s still remnants left. That’s why I chose to use the wafers. You’ll need 45 grams of ground chocolate wafers. I placed a handful of the wafers (between 6 and 8 cookies) in a Ziploc baggie, zipped it closed then rolled over them with my rolling pin until finely ground. If you have leftover crumbs they are great sprinkled over ice cream or cupcakes….or spoonfuls of peanut butter.

Beat Egg Whites

Ok, now that everything is measured out, you’ll start by adding your eggs and sugar to the mixer. Beat on medium high until the egg whites become stiff. This was another topic brought up by Brave Tart. Some people beat the eggs first for a minute or two before adding the sugar, but she just adds the sugar right away with the same results. I did it this way as well and had no problems. *You can tell by now, that if there are time saving ways, I will hunt them down, lol!

In the above picture, the egg whites are not quite done; this is considered soft peaks. However, we are looking for stiff peaks.

This is what stiff peaks looks like. They stand up when you hold up the beater. Set this aside for a couple minutes.

In a large mixing bowl, stir together your powdered sugar, almond flour and ground chocolate wafers. You can place all of these ingredients into a food processor to mix, but I found just stirring them and running them through a sifter worked fine.

Sift Dry Ingredients

Sift all of these ingredients together. A traditional sifter is the easiest way, meaning the type with the handle that you squeeze. For some reason I do not own one, so  I run the mixture through a very fine sieve and that works too. The sieve definitely takes longer. I’ll be purchasing a hand held sifter and report my results. I’m sure it’s the same.

You want your dry ingredients to be nicely sifted like so.

Fold in the egg whites nice and easy. Almost done in picture 2. Note, that you can fold your egg whites into the dry ingredients in batches, but I add them all at once with no problems. Just don’t over mix!!

Done! Be sure to not over mix. Just fold and stir until combined.

Place Macaron Batter In Piping Bag

 You want to place the macaron batter into your piping bag with the round tip attached.

Place parchment paper over a nice large baking sheet. I used the half sheet size. Please note, I tried double stacking my baking sheets (known to bake your macarons more evenly) and I tried just baking on one. Same results, so no stacking of baking sheets needed. Also note, I recommend using the traditional white parchment. I ran out and used the “natural” version above, which I didn’t love.

I count to about 5 seconds while piping each. The picture shows me just starting the piping. They were all pretty close in size.

Here’s my macarons after they were piped. You’ll notice after you pipe them they’ll have a little “hat” or “hershey kiss top”  as I think it looks like. That little hat falls as you finish piping.

A little close up of the cookie bits sprinkled throughout. Once your done piping, give the pan a good firm tap or two to remove any bubbles.

Let Macarons Rest For 30-45 Minutes

So, here’s the part where I used to let these sit for 30-45 minutes before baking them. I tried it both ways and I am telling you, I got the same beautiful results baking them right after I piped them! No more waiting, yippee! Bake them in a 280 degree preheated oven for 22-25 minutes.

Here’s what they’ll look like out of the oven. You’ll notice a shell on top with the little “feet” around the edges. A couple things I’ve learned. If you take them out too early, they’ll be REALLY hard to remove from the parchment paper and the centers are somewhat hollow. I did this with one batch a couple days ago that I took out right at 20 minutes. I waited a couple hours and they were still really “sticky” underneath. I found the best results when I gave them 24 minutes. After 5 minutes they practically came up from the parchment with minimal resistance. So, learn from my mistakes 🙂

Oreo Buttercream

While the macarons are cooling let’s make the buttercream. Whip a stick of softened butter with a cup of powdered sugar.

 Crumble 2 Oreo cookies into the buttercream and beat until combined. Make sure you crumble them pretty good or it’s hard to pipe them through.

Once the macarons are cooled and loosened from the parchment, pair them up with others that are the same size. Place your buttercream into a pastry bag with the same size round tip.  Gently flip the macaron over and pipe just a little dollop of Oreo Buttercream in the center.

Totally optional, you can scrape the Oreo Cream from the Double Stuf Oreo and add it on top of the frosting. I highly recommend it.

Place a small dollop of frosting on top of the Oreo cream layer to help the second macaron stick.

Easy Macaron Recipe

Let’s just say these are little bites of heaven. Store your macarons in an airtight container in the refrigerator. They are great for 3-5 days. Some say they are best eaten on the third day. I say they are best eaten any day, all day 🙂

Homemade Cookies and Cream French Macarons

My Homemade Cookies and Cream French Macarons are a delicious macaron you can make right at home! Just like the beautiful macarons you find at your favorite bakeries.

Course: Dessert

Cuisine: French

Prep Time 30 minutes mins

Cook Time 25 minutes mins

Servings: 24

Calories: 86kcal

Author: Jenny

Cost: 20

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Ingredients

• 95 grams egg whites close to 3 large egg whites
• 65 grams almond meal/flour
• 200 grams powdered sugar
• 25 grams granulated sugar
• 45 grams finely ground up chocolate wafers

Oreo Buttercream

• 1 stick softened unsalted butter
• 1 cup powdered sugar
• 2 whole Oreo Cookies I used Double Stuf

Instructions

• Preheat oven to 280 degrees and line a large baking sheet with parchment paper. Weigh your egg whites, almond flour, powdered sugar, granulated sugar and ground chocolate wafers on your food scale.
• In a stand mixer with the whisk attachment add your weighed out egg whites, and sugar beating on medium speed. Beat on medium-high until stiff peaks form. Takes close to 5 minutes. See pictures for visuals. Set aside for a couple minutes.
• Place the powdered sugar, almond flour and chocolate wafers into a large mixing bowl. Stir to combine. Place in a sifter or fine sieve and sift until all dry ingredients have passed through. Gently fold in the egg whites to the dry ingredients, mixing only until just combined. See pictures for visuals
• Place batter into a large pastry bag with a large round tip attached. Pipe rounds, about 1/2 inch apart onto a parchment lined baking sheet. Give a good tap or two of the pan to remove any bubbles.
• Bake macarons for 22-25 minutes. You’ll see a shell on top with “feet” around the edges. Let cool completely before removing. Once cooled, take an offset spatula to loosen from parchment. Pair the macarons close in size to each other to prepare for filling.
• To prepare buttercream, beat softened butter and powdered sugar until creamy and smooth. Add 2 crushed Oreo Cookies to the frosting, beating until combined. Place buttercream into a medium pastry bag with a large round tip attached and pipe a dollop of frosting on the center of a macaron. Top with the cream center of an Oreo Cookie if desired, place one more smaller dollop of frosting over the cream center then top with a second macaron. See pictures for visuals. Serve room temperature. Store any remaining macarons in the refrigerator.

Notes

Please note that all ovens are very different. These tips and instructions are a reflection from my kitchen and my oven. Play around with my tips but baking time may vary depending on individual oven temps. Good luck and have fun!!

Nutrition

Calories: 86kcal | Carbohydrates: 17g | Protein: 1g | Fat: 2g | Saturated Fat: 1g | Cholesterol: 1mg | Sodium: 25mg | Potassium: 13mg | Fiber: 1g | Sugar: 15g | Calcium: 6mg | Iron: 1mg

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