Cobblestone Cupcakes: MACARONS!! (not macaroons)

A macaron is a French sandwich cookie, where the outside is made of egg white, sugar, and almond paste, and the inside can be anything you want! I chose a plain almond macaron cookie, and I made my favorite Nutella buttercream for the filling.

This recipe calls for 2 lbs. of almond paste, which can be expensive/difficult to find--so instead, I made my own!

Almond Paste (source)

Makes 1 lb. of almond paste--so make sure that you double it if you're using it for this recipe! I doubled the recipe, but I made it in two separate batches because it fills up the food processor pretty quickly.

1.5 c whole blanched almonds (we could only find slivered blanched almonds, but they worked perfectly well)
1.5 c powdered sugar
1 large egg white, lightly beaten, at room temperature

1. Place the whole blanched almonds and 1/2 cup of the powdered sugar in a large food processor.

Process the nuts and sugar until the nuts are very finely ground, stopping periodically to scrape the sides of the processor bowl. Be careful of over-processing.

2. Once the almonds are very finely ground, add the rest of the powdered sugar and pulse until it is completely mixed into the ground almonds.

3. Stop the processor and add the egg white. Turn the processor back on and process the almond paste until it comes together in a clump in the food processor.

I then used my freshly-made almond paste to make delicious, chewy macarons.

Almond Macarons (from Brown-Eyed Baker)

2 lbs almond paste (again, this is double the above recipe)
1 lb granulated sugar
6 to 8 egg whites (I ended up using 6)

1. Preheat the oven to 410 F and line baking sheets with parchment paper or silicone mats (I used parchment paper with much success).

2. Place the almond paste and the sugar in a mixing bowl (a large one).

Blend the sugar and almond paste as well as possible. The mixture will be pebbly, but you can get the lumps out once there is more moisture. Using the paddle attachment (if available) or the regular beater arms, blend in 1 egg white at a time.

The batter after 5 egg whites.

Add as many egg whites as the batter will absorb without getting runny. This will vary.

3. Beat for a few minutes at high speed to a creamy consistency.

4. Place the batter in a pastry bag with a 12 mm plain tip (I used a fluted tip because it was the largest I had--the cookies still smoothed out just fine). Pipe the batter into 1-inch mounds onto pans. They will spread out (especially as the piped mounds get larger), so don't put them too close together.

These are the batter mounds that I used to make the smaller cookies.

5. Bake the cookies for about 10 minutes or until light brown.

I had various sizes and various degrees of brownness, but all were delicious!

6. Let the macarons cool attached to the parchment paper. To remove, turn them upside-down and peel the paper away from the cookies.

Finally, I made my favorite Nutella buttercream to sandwich the cookies.

Nutella buttercream (from Leanne bakes)

1/2 c butter, room temperature
1/2 c Nutella
3 c icing sugar
1-2 tbsp milk or cream, if needed

Whip butter and Nutella until creamy. Gradually add in icing sugar until desired consistency is reached. Add milk if needed.