Welcome to The White Whisk! The holiday season is upon us, and today I’m excited to share a tutorial for these festive textured Christmas Tree Macarons! I did a similar series back in the fall for textured pumpkins and was blown away by how many bakers were excited about the designs. It was then I knew I definitely had to do a Christmas version!
So here we are today. I’ve shared these Christmas tree designs on Instagram and cumulatively, they’ve received over 2 million views! These designs add so much detail and dimension to a macaron, but honestly, they’re surprisingly easy once you know the tips to make the process go smoothly. So let’s get started.
All of these macaron designs require the no macaronage method. Nicole of Bake Toujours was the first baker I saw experiment with this fun method and it’s been a blast experimenting with different ways to implement it!
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If you need a macaron recipe to get started or just want to brush up on the process, head over to my Basic French Macaron recipe! BUT REMEMBER THIS IMPORTANT TIP…the key difference in these textured tree macarons is that you do NOT continue folding until the batter is flowing. You ONLY fold the dry ingredients into the meringue until they are just combined.
The result of skipping the macaronage is a batter that is much stiffer and retains it’s shape! It also tends to require more rest time (and maybe a pinch extra bake time) if you are piping designs with more crevices. If you want to balance your macaron texture out to have more of the traditional macaron bite, you can fully macaronage half of the batter and pipe the back shell in the traditional consistency.
To create these shades of green in my batter, I used a combination of Americolor Leaf Green, along with Wilton Brown and yellow. I’ll throw the links below!
When it came to piping, I chose not to use a tree specific template and just based my starting/ending points on the circles. If you feel that a template would be best for you, I’ve seen some on Etsy that would work great like this Christmas Tree Macaron Template from Macs By Christina!
Let’s get rolling with the designs. Once you have your macaron batter prepped, colored, and bagged, here are some options for shapes you can create!
This design was responsible for the majority of those 2 million views! I decorated these with Sweet Tooth Fairy Gold Non Pareils available at Michaels.
Important note, I do NOT recommend putting larger pearl sprinkles on before baking. I decided to be risky and give it a go even though I’ve had issues in the past, and unfortunately they did melt a little bit as you can see in the video! Save the big boy sprinkles for decorating after those macs have baked and cooled.
Thanks for stopping by to check out these tutorials! Tag me on Instagram if you give any of them a try. I love to see how people put their own spin on these designs!
No, you do not want to tap your trays! You want your batter to hold it’s shape and tapping the trays will cause the texture details to settle.
The biggest differences are that you ONLY fold the dry ingredients into your meringue until there are no streaks of them remaining. You do NOT continue folding as you would with traditional macarons. This is what helps the batter hold it’s shape for piping! The other main difference is that you need to rest longer to dry out the surface. You also don’t tap your trays like you usually would!
The texture of a no macaronage macaron is a bit different from the traditional method. I’ve found that the outer layer feels a bit more crisp, and they do turn out a bit less “full” on the interior. The interior is usually about half full for me when I use the no macaronage method. (Honestly it’s surprising that it’s not completely hollow!) Something you can do to add a bit more of the traditional macaron texture is to add a shell piped with fully macaronaged batter in the same shape to pair with the textured no macaronage shell.
You can use the same temperature you normally use! I use 295 F. I do find that baking them an extra minute or so is needed sometimes. Do the wiggle test detailed out in the recipe to make sure they’re done!
Use a fan to speed up the drying process! Rotate trays to ensure even drying. If there are any stubborn crevices on the tops that are taking extra long, you can prop up one side of the tray with a kitchen towel or oven mitt to angle the tray so the tops of the shells receive more direct air flow from the fan! (Just be sure they’re secure so they don’t go sliding off the counter)
I’ve found that increasing the rest/dry time is usually the solution to this problem. Every time I’ve been impatient and put my trays in early, I’ve regretted it and ended up with cracked or wonky shells. Patience is key!
Try folding a bit less. The key is to only fold the dry ingredients into the meringue until there are no dry streaks remaining.
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