Waves and Sun Macaron Mosaic Tutorial
An intricate and stunning macaron cake that doubles as a mosaic art piece.
Ingredients
- 130 grams egg whites
- 120 grams granulated sugar
- 200 grams almond flour
- 200 grams confectioner's sugar
- ½ tsp cream of tartar
- 1 tsp Wilton Brown Gel Food Coloring (divided)
- 7 drops Americolor Sky Blue Gel Food Coloring (divided)
- 11 drops Americolor Lemon Yellow Gel Food Coloring (divided)
- 2½ cups buttercream or sturdy filling of your choice
Instructions
- Sketch out your template. I used a bowl that was 7 ¼ inches across as the basic shape for my macaron mosaic. To replicate what I made, print out the photo in the post and resize so the circle will be 7¼ inches across when printed.
- Place template on a baking sheet underneath a silicone mat.
- Prep 6 medium piping bags with couplers. Pinch off the piping tip ends with a clip, and place piping bags in a bag holder or cup with the large end of the bag held open so it’s ready to load your batter into.
- Place egg whites, granulated sugar, and cream of tartar into your mixing bowl, and begin beating with a whisk attachment using either a handheld mixer or a stand mixer for 2 minutes on a medium low speed (Kitchen Aid Speed 4).
- Turn up the mixer to a medium speed (Kitchen Aid Speed 6) and beat for an additional 2 minutes.
- While meringue is mixing, sift almond flour and powdered sugar into a medium size mixing bowl, and whisk well to incorporate.
- Turn mixer up to medium high speed (Kitchen Aid Speed 8) and beat for 3 more minutes, or until peaks are very stiff and the meringue clumps up in a ball in the center of the whisk. Test stiffness by removing whisk and pointing it upward. Once the peaks can hold their shape flipped upright, your meringue is ready.
- Add half of your dry ingredients into your meringue and fold 15 times, scraping around the edge of the bowl and dragging your spatula through the center each fold.
- Add remaining dry ingredients and fold JUST until your batter has no dry ingredients remaining. Do NOT continue folding yet as you would with regular macarons. Your batter should be stiff, but not have any dry ingredient streaks.
- Divide batter into 6 bowls.
- To your first bowl, add 1 small smudge of Wilton Brown, and 1 drop of Lemon Yellow and fold until batter mostly settles back into itself when you wiggle your bowl back in forth. Batter should still have soft lines and ridges but not be super stiff. Load into a piping bag with a coupler and use a rubberband to tie off the opening.
- To your second bowl, add 2 small smudges of Wilton Brown, and 2 drops of Lemon Yellow and fold until batter mostly settles back into itself when you wiggle your bowl back in forth like mentioned in step 11. Load into a piping bag with a coupler and use a rubberband to tie off the opening.
- To your third bowl, add 4 small smudges of Wilton Brown, and 4 drops of Lemon Yellow and fold until batter mostly settles back into itself when you wiggle your bowl back in forth like mentioned in step 11. Load into a piping bag with a coupler and use a rubberband to tie off the opening.
- To your fourth bowl, add 1 small smudge of Wilton Brown, 1 drop of Americolor Sky Blue, and 1/2 drop of Americolor Lemon Yellow and fold until batter mostly settles back into itself when you wiggle your bowl back in forth like mentioned in step 11. Load into a piping bag with a coupler and use a rubberband to tie off the opening.
- To your fifth bowl, add 2 small smudges of Wilton Brown, 2 drop of Americolor Sky Blue, and 1 drop of Americolor Lemon Yellow and fold until batter mostly settles back into itself when you wiggle your bowl back in forth like mentioned in step 11. Load into a piping bag with a coupler and use a rubberband to tie off the opening.
- To your sixth bowl, add 4 small smudges of Wilton Brown, 4 drop of Americolor Sky Blue, and 2 drops of Americolor Lemon Yellow and fold until batter mostly settles back into itself when you wiggle your bowl back in forth like mentioned in step 11. Load into a piping bag with a coupler and use a rubberband to tie off the opening.
- Begin preheating oven to 295 degrees.
- On your baking sheet with the template under the silicone mat, pipe dots in each section of your mosaic with the appropriate color using a small round piping tip (size 3 or 4 recommended) making sure to leave enough space between each dot that the batter will not merge together when baking. Pipe quite a few extra dots to use as fillers as shown in photo in post.
- Set tray aside to rest until dots have formed a dry skin and are no longer tacky to the touch. To speed up the process, place a gentle fan near your trays and rotate them every 5 minutes or so to ensure even air flow to each side.
- While dots are resting, pipe your larger circle layers by switching to a larger piping tip. You can either awkwardly hold a much larger tip over your open coupler while you pipe, or you can place your filled bag with the open coupler into a larger bag fitted with a large round piping tip.
- Pipe your circles beginning on the rim of the circle about 1/4 inch in from your template line. Continue working your way in, switching to your other colors if needed until you’ve piped the full circle. Bang your trays on the counter to remove any air bubbles and pop any large bubbles remaining. Set your first circle layer aside to rest and repeat with your second circle layer.
- Once the oven is preheated and your dots have a formed a dry skin, bake for 11-13 minutes, or until your dots no longer wiggle when you gently tap the side of them. Bake for one extra minute at a time and check if you need to add more bake time. Repeat until fully baked.
- Repeat baking process with larger circles using a bake time of roughly 20-24 minutes.
- Wait until circles have cooled completely before attempting to cautiously remove them from the mat. I found it worked well to hold my hand on the macaron circle and then flip the tray over, and THEN peel the mat from the top while I held the macaron layer with my hand.
- Using a large round tip, pipe your choice of buttercream or filling in dollops on the top side of the first macaron circle layer. Place second macaron circle on top of the dollops, and then spread more buttercream or filling on top of that using an offset spatula.
- Used a toothpick, lightly sketch where your sections are to create a reference point for dot placement. Then, carefully remove one section of your piped dots at a time, and place them in the appropriate section. Once you’ve repeated this process with each section, go back in with more buttercream or filling and pipe the dividing line between your sections
- Mature in an airtight container in the fridge for 24 hours to achieve optimum texture and flavor. Enjoy within 3-5 days.
Tried this recipe?Let us know how it was!