Tasty Tuesdays: Cinnamon Roll Macarons

My niece had a birthday recently and I helped out with a lot of the food. A few days before the party I spent an entire day just making macarons, which are always a huge hit at a party. While I have a tendency to stick to my tried and true recipe (which you can see in this post), since visiting Paris earlier this year I have become a bit more experimental and enjoy testing out new concoctions. For this party I made my basic macarons, chocolate macarons filled with Nutella, apricot macarons, tiramisu macarons and cinnamon roll macarons. They were all a huge hit but my brother and I agreed that the hands down winner were the cinnamon roll macarons. These were such a huge hit that they will definitely become part of my permanent rotation (especially since they are gluten-free which means everyone in our family can eat them).

Cinnamon Roll Macarons

Ingredients

• 225 grams powdered sugar
• 125 grams ground almonds
• ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon, plus more for dusting
• 110 grams egg whites, aged for at least 48 hours in the refrigerator and brought to room temperature
• 30 grams granulated sugar
• Pinch of salt

Directions

1. Line cookie sheets with parchment paper. Using a pencil, draw one inch circles about 1 inch apart (I actually may have left even less space). Flip the sheets over and return to baking sheets. Set aside.
2. Heat Oven to 325 degrees Fahrenheit.
3. Sift almond flour, powdered sugar and cinnamon into a medium sized bowl and set aside.
4. In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat egg whites on medium speed until they start to foam. Add in the sugar and increase the speed to high. Continue beating on high until stiff, shiny peaks form.
5. Gently fold the almond flour/powdered sugar mixture into the egg whites until the mixture is just incorporated and you can see no egg whites.
6. Transfer the batter into a piping bag fitted with a large, round tip, and pipe the batter onto the cookie sheets, using the templates as a guide.
7. Gently tap the cookie sheet against the counter to release any air bubbles that have formed in the dough (be seriously gentle, it doesn’t take much force to dislodge the air bubbles)
8. Lightly sprinkle each macaron with cinnamon.
9. Set aside for 1 hour so that a “skin” can form on the cookies.
10. Using a wooden spoon to keep the oven door slightly ajar, bake at 325 degrees Fahrenheit for 10 minutes.
11. Remove from oven and allow to cool completely on cookie sheets.
12. Spread about ½-1 teaspoon of cinnamon cream cheese filling (recipe follows) onto a cookie and then sandwich together with one that is similar in size. Continue until all cookies have been filled.
13. Refrigerate for 2 hours or longer so that flavors can meld. Bring to room temperature before serving.

 

Cinnamon Cream Cheese Filling

Ingredients:

• 4 ounces unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 4 ounces cream cheese, at room temperature
• 2 cups powdered sugar
• ½ teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
• ¼ teaspoon salt

Directions:

1. In the bowl of an electric mixer, cream together the butter and cream cheese.
2. Add the powdered sugar in batches and continue mixing until smooth.
3. Add the vanilla extract, ground cinnamon and salt and mix until combined.
4. Use immediately.

I like to double the frosting recipe so that there is some leftover the next day to smooth over toast (or graham crackers or whatever else is laying around).