Make it Pop Sweets: Pistachio Macarons

I started to get back in the baking mood once October hit and the weather started cooling down. I thought about what flavor macarons I wanted to make for fall and an obvious one is pumpkin, but I also wanted to do something different and experiment with other nuts and went with pistachios. The green colors really remind me of fall.

I used my favorite macaron recipe from Mad About Macarons by Jill Colonna. If you want to make perfect macarons each time, get her book! I also like her recipe, because compared to other macaron recipes I see online, her recipe requires less sugar.

So for pistachio macarons, I used Jill’s basic macaron recipe replacing half of the almond flour with pistachio flour.

From Trader Joe's website

I bought a bag of dry roasted/unsalted pistachio nut meats from Trader Joe's, and blended it to a flour mixture using my magic bullet. Tip: For those who'd like to make pistachio macarons, make sure you take the skin off the pistachios before grinding. I figured the skin was already off but it was not, and if you blend pistachios with the skin on, it leaves a gritty texture. This bag was just enough for the batch of macarons and pistachio buttercream. I did have some left over. (I used 75 grams for macarons).

I also added a bit of green gel food coloring to the macaron batter make it a bit more green. Once mixed, I piped them.

I let the macarons sit for about half an hour and let them form a skin before I put them in the oven.

While the macarons were chillin, I started on the pistachio buttercream. If you follow my blog, you’ll know my go to filling is usually always a Swiss Meringue buttercream. I didn't set any eggs out so I went with a Pistachio buttercream I found here. I changed it up a bit because her recipe used grams and I did not feel like measuring out the butter. It worked out really well. I didn't take pictures of the pistachio buttercream process but the link above has great images.

Pistachio Buttercream
1 cup of butter
1 cup of pistachio paste*
*I made my own. I blended a cup of pistachios in the magic bullet, once it becomes as powdery as you can get it, add 4 teaspoons of simple syrup*
*Simple syrup – In a small sauce pan boil 3 parts water and 1 part sugar on high. Once it boils, lower the temperature until the sugar dissolves and the syrup is clear. This should only take 3 minutes. I used a small amount and it only took a minute.
1 ½ cups to 2 cup of powdered sugar*

*I didn't really measure, I just added enough until it was sweet enough. There is already a lot of sugar in the macarons.

Using my Kitchen Aid mixer with the paddle attachment I mixed the softened butter until it was whipped, I added the pistachio paste until it was well blended and slowly added the powdered sugar until I got it to the sweetness I wanted. The mixture was a muddy brown, so I added a bit of green gel coloring until it turned to a beautiful olive green.

I set the filling aside, and baked the macarons at 320 degrees for 12 minutes. Right out of the oven.

Once cooled, I peeled the macarons off the wax paper, and matched them up by size.

For large batches (this one made 9 dozen 1 inch rounds) I prefer wax paper to silpat, only because I can get an extra row of macarons on the sheet.

I piped on the filling, using a 1 inch tip. I love the olive green color!

And sandwiched!

Aside from the gritty texture, these were delicious! (I’m not biased at all).

Also, I know I’m years behind but I finally got an iPhone! I got the iPhone 5 and I love, love the camera on the phone.