Vanilla bean brown butter macarons. Need I say more?
I love French macarons, and at this point I’ve made a lot of them. They are continually requested from friends and family, so I like to think that I’ve kind of perfected my macaron technique over the years. Years ago when I was initially figuring out a recipe I wanted to use, I scoured multiple recipes and pulled tips and techniques from each until I came up with the recipe for my classic fool proof French macarons. Now I like to play around with the flavors, which is how I came up with this recipe for vanilla bean brown butter macarons.
It’s definitely a process to make these, but totally worth the wait. There are a lot of steps to this recipe, but if you follow along and do everything as written, you shouldn’t have any problems.
Note*** I tinted these macarons with turmeric and beet root powder to give them a hint of warm fall color, but it didn’t affect the flavor, so you can choose to use or omit those ingredients.
Ingredients
- 2/3 cup almond meal
- 1 cup powdered sugar
- 2 large egg whites at room temperature
- 2 tablespoons meringue powder
- 1/4 cup granulated sugar
- Seeds scraped from ½ of a vanilla bean, or 1 ½ teaspoons vanilla extract
- ½ teaspoon of ground turmeric (for color)
- ¼ teaspoon of beet root powder (for color)
Vanilla bean brown butter filling
- ¼ cup salted butter, browned and cooled to room temperature
- ½ cup of mascarpone at room temperature
- Seeds scraped from ½ of a vanilla bean, or 1 ½ teaspoons vanilla extract
- 1 cup of powdered sugar
Start by making the brown butter. It needs to cool to room temperature, so it’s easiest to make it first, then let it cool while you do everything else. Using a deep saucepan, melt the butter until it starts to brown.
NOTE** It is very important that you use a deep saucepan for this even though it’s not a lot of butter. The butter will bubble up a lot, and if you use a pot that is too small, it will bubble over. Trust me, I made this mistake the first time I made brown butter.
The browning process should take about 5- 8 minutes over medium heat. Make sure to stir constantly so the butter turns a chestnut brown color, but does not burn. You will smell the nuttiness as the butter browns. Once it is a deep golden brown, remove the pot from the heat and let it cool.
Place almond meal and powdered sugar in a food processor (I used my NutriBullet); process until as fine as possible, about 1 minute. Next, pass almond mixture through a fine-mesh sieve to get out all of the lumps and aerate the mixture. Set the dry ingredients aside. It sounds like a pain, but it needs to happen. I tried making these once without passing the mixture through a sieve and it was a total disaster.
In the bowl of a standing mixer, whisk egg whites and granulated sugar to combine. Next add in the meringue powder turmeric, beet root powder, and vanilla bean seeds, and whisk to combine. The meringue powder helps stabilize the egg whites and makes the macarons less finicky. You can buy meringue powder on amazon (linked) or you can find it at most craft stores. It’s also amazing for to make royal icing.
Here’s a video tutorial on how to scrape the seeds out of the vanilla bean.
Beat the egg white mixture on medium speed (4 on a KitchenAid) for 2 minutes. Increase speed to medium-high (6) and beat for another 2 minutes. Then beat on high (8) 2 minutes more. The beaten egg whites will hold stiff, glossy peaks when you lift the whisk out of the bowl.
Add dry ingredients all at once, folding them into the egg white mixture with a spatula from bottom of bowl upward. Repeat just until batter flows like lava, 35 to 40 complete strokes.
Next, Line baking sheets with parchment paper and lightly spray with cooking spray. Rest a large ziplock bag inside a glass. Transfer batter to bag and cut off the tip, about 1/8 inch up from corner. With the tip of the bag 1/2 inch above sheet, pipe batter into a 3/4-inch rounds, spacing rounds 1 inch apart. This recipe makes about 60 round disks, 30 sandwiched macarons.
If you notice that your macarons slightly resemble Hershey’s kisses and have little peaks on them, wet your finger slightly and just pat them down so they are perfect little disks.
Let the rounds air dry for one hour to an hour and a half so they form a skin/crust on them. THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT! This will ensure that the macarons hold their shape when baking and keep their pretty appearance. I let them dry for an hour and a half for best results, but they should be fine after an hour.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Bake 1 sheet at a time. Rotate the pan after 3 minutes, and bake the macarons for an additional 2 minutes, until risen and just set, (Total baking time of 5 minutes).
Let the macaron halves set on the baking sheet for 5-10 minutes after coming out of the oven then transfer them to a wire cooling rack and let the macarons cool completely before filling them.
To make brown butter filling:
Go back to your brown butter. You can do this by hand or with a stand mixer (I use the mixer). Add the brown butter, mascarpone, and vanilla bean seeds to a bowl and whisk to combine. Whisk in the powdered sugar a little at a time until you get frosting consistency.
Rest a large ziplock bag inside a glass. Transfer the frosting to the bag and cut off the tip, about 1/8 inch up from corner. Pipe the frosting onto a macaron half, then sandwich it with another macaron half. Repeat until the vanilla bean brown butter macarons are complete. You should end up with about 30 vanilla bean brown butter macarons. Enjoy!