When life gives you lemons…

You zest that bitch like crazy and incorporate it in all your desserts.

My favourite colour in the world is yellow, specifically Mustard Yellow. I have several items in this shade scattered around in my room, my house, my car, my office, etc. My latest favourite item is this Moleskine 2013 Le Petit Prince daily planner. Two of my favourite things combined? REALLY?

So you can imagine how enamored I am by these little yellow lemon shaped macaron shells. I’m gonna go right into the recipes for these this post, no back stories to tell, no personal life updates, as well… whatever’s been happening is all still new and exciting, and I’m not up for sharing. Yet.

Let’s get down to business and defeat the Hunnnsssss, and play this track in the background while you bake up these lovely little dots of sunshine 🙂

Lemon Macarons with Cream Cheese filling

• 100g aged egg whites
• 1 tsp powdered egg whites *optional
• 110g finely ground almonds
• 2 tbsp lemon zest (air dried for at least an hour)
• 200g icing sugar
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 50g caster sugar

1. Line two baking trays with parchment paper
2. Run the ground almonds, lemon zest, icing sugar, and salt in the food processor for roughly 30 seconds, then set aside
3. Whisk the egg whites and meringue powder in your large stand mixer bowl until soft peaks have formed
4. Gradually add the caster sugar to the egg whites, and continue to whisk until stiff peaks form
5. Here’s the tricky bit (but easily overcome by watching a few youtube how to vids): dump the dry mixture into the meringue, then with a spatula, just fold it in. Don’t overmix.
6. Once you’ve possibly achieved the correct consistency, transfer the batter into a piping bag, snip off the edge and then pipe out 1″ circles onto the baking trays, roughly 1″ apart. Then quickly, after piping out each circle, use a toothpick to drag out two sides before the shells harden
7. When you’ve piped everything out, bang the trays on the counter 3-5 times, ensuring that all the macaron-to-bes have been banged sufficiently lol 
8. Leave the trays out for 30 minutes to an hour, and then bake in a preheated oven at 150C for 18 minutes
9. Let the mac shells cool completely before removing them from the paper or they will peel and break off from the bottoms
10. Pair the shells up with similar sized ones, then pipe in your filling and sandwich them together

Cream cheese filling (I used leftovers from another cake I’d made)