I do love December, here in Germany advent is a special time with each Sunday being celebrated as one step closer to Christmas. I love the fact that, finally, it’s also the season in Germany for cookies. Can you believe it, you have to wait this long? I decided to go a little fancier today. Macarons are a perfect give-away, especially if you go with a strong coffee flavor as I did here, which cuts the sweetness of the macaron shells quite a bit. For that reason I thought salted caramel would be a good partner for coffee. But this is not regular caramel, no, it is dulce de leche, which means it is made of sweetened condensed milk, yum!
I have introduced a few macaron recipes on my blog. I started off with the summer version, which was also the first time I had ever made macarons. This was followed by heart-shaped macarons for Valentine’s. After that I introduced a recipe with real and strong strawberry flavor, until today I went for coffee macarons with dulce de leche filling.
For me it is really important to produce nice flavor without any artifical help. For that reason I originally wanted to add brewed coffee to the macarons, but macarons are very finicky, they really don’t like humidity, sometimes they don’t work out if you add a few drops of food coloring. So that was impossible But then I thought why not add coffee granules? I added them to the almond and icing sugar mixture and you can taste the coffee flavor immediately.
I also decided to make my own dulce de leche, because, believe it or not, dulce de leche is really hard to come by here in Germany. But rest assured, it really is not hard at all, you basically have to boil a can of sweetened condensed milk for about two and a half hours and that’s it. Dulce de leche reminds me of my childhood in Uruguay, it is served on basically everything, I love it!
For the macarons if you forgot to take out the eggs on time, leave them in warm water for a few minutes, then separate them. Choose a metal or glas bowl for the egg whites and make sure it is clean and free of any grease. Put the almonds and icing sugar in a food processor and process for a minute. Sift into a bowl. Don't skip this step. If you have larger almond chunks, put them back into the food processor, process and sieve again. Weigh the regular sugar and put aside. Now start beating the egg whites with a mixer on low for two minutes. Add the salt once they look foamy. Switch to medium speed for three minutes. Once you have soft peaks, add the sugar. Change to high speed for another three minutes. Your meringue should look glossy and form very stiff peaks. Add the almond/sugar mix plus the coffee granules to the meringue all at once and start folding with a spatula delicately. Most important part, the creation of the batter (macronage) This is really important, read carefully! If you undermix the batter, you will not have proper macarons at the end, but this holds also true if you overmix. Finding the right constistency is key for the macarons to turn out beautifully. The first important thing to keep in mind is to only fold the whole mix. First it will look like the almonds and the meringue don't like each other. This is normal. Simply continue folding slowly. Continue doing so until the batter starts moving back slowly if you take out the spatula. Your final batter should have the constistency of honey. It is liquid, yes, but it will move very slowly. If you have pancake batter, you went too far. The best vido for knowing the right constistency is this one in my opinion. Once you are happy with your macronage, prepare two baking sheets with parchment paper and circles the size of a 2-Euro coin onto each. You should be able to fill both baking sheets with macarons. Once you are done, rap and bang the baking sheets to get out any air bubbles. If the macronage has the right consistency, for example any "swirls" will move back into place. Let the macarons sits between 15-20 minutes. This will help them dry and also help to create a shell so they rise properly. If you happen to live in a humid place (I have had problems here in Hamburg), turn on your oven to 120 degrees Celsius, turn off the oven and place both baking sheets in the turned off oven instead. If you touch the macarons with your dry finger, they should feel dry. Take out both baking sheets. Preheat oven to 145 degrees Celsius meanwhile. Place first baking sheet in the middle and bake between 15-17 minutes. Repeat with the second batch. Let cool completely before filling with dulce de leche and sandwiching two macarons together. No idea what to do with the leftover egg yolks? Check out see this blog post including how to freeze them properly. Prepared macarons are kept best in an airtight container in the fridge. They will get soft after about 2 days.
Macarons also freeze beautifully. I like to freeze the macaron shells. Take them out 20 minutes before serving.Coffee Macarons with dulce de leche
Ingredients
Instructions
Notes
So what kind of cookies are you preparing, have you started yet? Any you plannning on giving some away?
12 Comments
Simone
Sunday December 16th, 2018 at 11:21 AMHallo Jenny,
ich würde keine Kekse sondern die selbstgemachten Dominosteine in die Dose füllen und diese dann meiner Mama schenken, sie liebt Dominosteine ?
Ich wünsche Dir einen schönen 3. Advent ???
LG Simone
Tine
Sunday December 16th, 2018 at 01:37 PMHi!
Ich liebe so hübsche keksdosen!
Und karamel auch! Den Kaffee würde ich weg lassen.
Ich würde dieses Jahr Plätzchen aus dem Waffeleisen und traumstücke darin platzieren! Ich wünsche dir einen schönen dritten Advent! Vlg Tine
Ramona Höynck
Sunday December 16th, 2018 at 04:05 PMLiebe Jenny,
Dein Rezept klingt himmlisch und erinnert mich auch an meine Kindheit in Kolumbien. Ich glaube ich würde selbstgemachte zimtsterne rein, da sind eine meiner lieblings Plätzchen 😉
liebste Adventsgrüße,
Ramona
Julia
Sunday December 16th, 2018 at 09:12 PMGuten Abend an einem wundervollen 3. Advent- ich würde die wunderschöne Dose, sie löst ja so viele Weihnachtsgefühle in mir aus- mit Pfeffernüssen oder Vanillekipferl füllen!
Das sind meine liebsten Plätzchen! Ach, aber eigentlich esse ich ja alle gerne…
Allerliebste Weihnachtsgrüße, Julia
Jana Ziesmer
Friday December 21st, 2018 at 08:22 AMLiebe Jenny.
Wow, das ist ja ein geiles Rezept.
Bin leidenschaftliche Hobby Bäckerin und probiere gerne neue Rezepte aus.
Dein tolles Rezept wird Weihnachten ausprobiert.
Habe Macarons zum ersten Mal in Frankreich probiert und es war ein träumchen.
Geschmacksexplosion pur.
Wünsche euch ein schönes Weihnachtsfest.
Mach weiter so.
Lg
Jenny
Friday December 21st, 2018 at 08:28 AMDanke, Jana, Macarons zicken ja manchmal, ich hoffe sie klappen zu Weihnachten!
Lena
Sunday December 29th, 2019 at 03:40 PMHallo 🙂
Ich weiß gerade nicht, ob ich es überlesen habe, aber wann kommt der Kaffee hinzu?
Herzliche Grüße
Lena
Jenny
Sunday December 29th, 2019 at 03:45 PMLiebe Lena, ups, das hab ich tatsächlich vergessen, danke, gerade hinzugefügt, zum Zeitpunkt, wenn man die Macronage macht.
Lena
Monday December 30th, 2019 at 04:00 PMVielen Dank für die schnelle Antwort 🙂
Da mein Granulat ziemlich grob war, habe ich ihn nun mit in den Mixer getan…
Mein erstes Mal Macarons, mal gucken ob es etwas wird 🙂
Jenny
Monday December 30th, 2019 at 04:04 PMOha, na dann viel Glück! Wenn du magst, kannst du mir auch per info at jennyisbaking punkt com schreiben und/oder ein Bild schicken.
Lena
Monday December 30th, 2019 at 06:55 PMDanke, aber dei e Anleitung war wirklich super und sie sind tatsächlich gut geworden 🙂
Hätte vielleicht nur die Dulce de Leche länger kochen lassen sollen, die ist nicht ganz so fest, wie ich es gerne hätte…aber nun gut 🙂
Jenny
Monday December 30th, 2019 at 09:06 PMDas ist ja toll, das freut mich sehr. Frohes neues Jahr!