Beautiful Blueberry Macaron Recipe

I love these macarons, they remind me of the beautiful jam filled macarons they serve with coffee at The Hotel Martinez in Cannes.

I have used a natural blueberry extract to flavour my shells but this is entirely optional, these macarons will still be brilliantly blueberry flavoured without it.

I made these lovely blueberry macarons for the hotels but I also made some adorable tiny tiny, almost blueberry sized ones for my wonderful friend Michelle.

They really were the cutest thing ever and Michelle loved them.

Blueberry Macaron Recipe

(Makes 25-50 macarons depending on their size and obviously loads more if you are making tiny tiny macarons).

200g (7oz) icing sugar

200g (7oz) ground almonds

80ml (2 3/4 fl oz) water

200g caster sugar

2 x 80g (2 3/4 oz) egg whites

1/2 tsp natural blueberry extract (optional)

1/2 tsp blue food colouring paste

1/2 tsp violet food colouring paste

Blueberry & Vanilla Jam Filling

1 vanilla pod

350g blueberries

150g caster sugar

2 tbsp water

For the Macarons:

Line two baking trays with greaseproof paper.

Sieve together the icing sugar and almonds into a large bowl. Mix 80g of the egg whites (unbeaten) with the sieved icing sugar and almond mixture until you have a thick paste. Add both food colouring pastes and mix until the colour is evenly blended.

Place the remaining egg whites into the clean bowl of a stand mixer or a large bowl and have a hand mixer ready.

In a saucepan, bring the water and the caster sugar to the boil. Use a thermometer to ensure that the temperature of the syrup does not exceed 118C. This is very important.

Once the syrup has reached 110C begin to whip the egg whites until they form soft peaks. Decrease the speed of the whisk, then, still whisking, pour the sugar syrup over the egg whites in a thin stream. Be sure to avoid the whisk.

Add the blueberry extract (optional) and continue whisking until the mixture has cooled.

Fold the meringue into the almond paste mixture using a rubber spatula. The batter is ready when it falls from the spatula in a ribbon, this ribbon should disappear back into the batter after about 30 seconds.

Use a piping bag fitted with a plain round tip to pipe rounds onto the prepared baking sheets. Lightly tap the bottom of the tray on the work surface to remove any small air bubbles. Put the tray aside for between 30 minutes and 1 hour to allow the macarons to dry, you should be able to touch the macaron and come away with a clean finger, the macarons will be noticeably firmer.

Pre-heat oven to 150C (125F).

Bake the macaron shells for between 13 - 15 minutes. Remove from the oven and immediately slide the greaseproof paper onto a clean work surface. Leave to cool completely before removing from the sheets.

For the filling:

Scrape the seeds from the vanilla pod and combine with the blueberries, caster sugar and water in the bowl of a food processor.  Sieve the mixture into a small saucepan and place over a medium heat for 10-15 minutes until thick and syrupy.  Remove from the heat and set aside to cool (about 1 hour), it will thicken considerably whilst cooling.

Pair your macarons shells up and sandwich them together with a teaspoon of blueberry and vanilla jam.

Macarons will keep for up to 3 days, store in an airtight container in the refrigerator.

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Beautiful Blueberry Macaron Recipe