Macaron Hearts with Raspberry Buttercream

Hello everyone! Hoping you are all having a wonderful Saturday. It was a bit snowy here in Edmonton but the light in the condo thankfully allowed me to take a quick photo of these beautiful heart macarons this morning before the day's festivities. This year's Valentine's day ended being different as we celebrated a friend's wedding! To celebrate I made these heart shaped macarons.

To make the macaron shells follow the instructions I have in my Macaron 101 post and in the Macaron 102 post. 

It has been a while since I made macarons let alone piping heart shaped macarons! They were a bit tricky to pipe by hand as you need to use a smaller piping tip. To pipe the hearts I piped two individual tear drop shapes for each heart. 

Raspberry Buttercream Recipe

Ingredients: 

• 80g (approx. 1/2 cup) superfine sugar 
• 25g water 
• 1 whole egg 
• 1 egg yolk 
• 160g soft butter (cut into cubes) 
• 1 Tbsp freeze dried raspberries 

Instructions:

1. Bring sugar and water to a boil in a small pot. Heat the sugar to 250F(120C) using a candy thermometer. If it boils, clean the sides of the pan with a damp pastry brush. Try not to mix the solution, but allow it to heat on its own.
2. In another bowl or the bowl of your KitchenAid whisk the eggs and egg yolks until it lightens in colour.
3. Once the hot sugar mixture reaches 250F pour immediately into the whisking egg mixture. Then, increase to a higher whisking speed. Continue whisking until the mixture has cooled down completely. It will start to look like a meringue and be glossy.
4. Keep whisking the meringue until it has cooled. Meanwhile, cream then whisk the butter until it has thickened. Once the egg mixture-meringue has cooled, add the butter. Add the whisked butter slowly into the meringue.
5. Continue whisking until the buttercream is smooth. It may curdle slightly but this is okay. Keep whisking and the buttercream will come back together. Add in the tablespoon of freeze dried raspberry. Take a look at this video for making the buttercream.
6. Once the buttercream has come together, immediately transfer the raspberry buttercream into a piping bag fitted with a nozzle (Here is a quick visual tutorial on piping bag basics). Match macaron shells by size, then pipe a small mound of raspberry buttercream onto each half shell using the smaller piping tip.

I really hope you end up making these macarons! They don't have to be heart-shaped like these ones, even the circular ones will be awesome! With the freeze-dried raspberries in the buttercream they tasted just like fresh raspberries. The sweetness of the shells balanced quite well with the tartness of the raspberry buttercream. 

Homemade Candied Cranberries Step by Step

Here are some neat treats to make for others, to serve at gatherings or to bring to potlucks that we have been making. These are essentially "raw" cranberries that have been candied. Think of them being a cranberry center with a crispy sugary shell.

I brought some of these to a work potluck and they were very well received! So, here is the recipe as even those that don't bake can make these creations! 

Ingredients

• 2 Cups of fresh (never frozen) Cranberries
• 1 Cup of Water
• 1 Cup + 1/2 Cup of Sugar
• 1 teaspoon of lemon zest

*We bought our fresh, never frozen cranberries from Costco! They had the best looking cranberries around!

Instructions

1. Create the simple syrup by pouring water and 1 Cup of sugar into small pot. Add lemon zest to pot. This will will help add more dimension to the flavour. Heat mixture until sugar has dissolved into boiling water.
   
   
   
2. Let the mixture cool for 10 minutes. Add cranberries to the simple syrup.
   
3. Cool the cranberries in the syrup until room temperature. Put cranberries and syrup into air-tight container. Rest in the fridge for at least 8 hours or up to 48 hours (2 days).
   
   
4. Strain cranberries out from syrup - this same syrup can be reheated and reused again. Let cranberries dry for about 5 minutes.
   
   
5. Put 2-3 tablespoons of sugar into a small dry cup. Placing one cranberry in at a time, roll the cranberry in the dry sugar. If you add too many cranberries at once you'll get clumping.
   
   
   
6. Keep the candied cranberries in an air-tight container in the fridge. It should keep for a few days in the fridge before getting soft. Alternatively, you can package them off as gifts in an air-tight container.
   
   

Hope you enjoyed these candied cranberries!