A Taste of Fall

A Taste of Fall 

For no specific reason, I recently decided to make a fall-themed dessert. Inspired by the Starbucks Pumpkin Spice Latte, I choose to try a recipe for Pumpkin Spice Macarons. If you have yet to try a Pumpkin Spice Latte, I would totally recommend it. It is by far my favorite autumn drink. It perfectly combines the flavors of cinnamon, cloves, ginger and nutmeg and I was excited to try to reflect those flavors in a dessert.

A macaron, by definition, is a sweet meringue-based confectionery made with egg whites, confectioners sugar, granulated sugar, ground almonds and food coloring. To make the macarons, I decided to use a recipe I found online. This particular recipe imitates the definition of a macaron well and as an added bonus the recipe is clear, concise, and easy to follow.   

Pumpkin Spice Macarons:

The first thing I did was preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

The second thing I did was whisk together both the confectioners’ sugar and the ground almonds. I mixed the ingredients together in a medium size bowl, as it was what I found to be most appropriate.

After that, I placed egg whites and the pinch of salt in the bowl of my Kitchen Aid. Then I whipped the egg whites on a medium speed until the mixture became slightly foamy.

 

I then increased the speed to high and gradually added the granulated sugar and the pumpkin pie spice.

After that, I continued to whip the mixture until stiff glossy peaks formed.

When the stiff glossy peaks formed, I gently folded in the confectioners' sugar mixture with a rubber spatula until it was completely incorporated into the batter.

The next thing I did was line two baking sheets with parchment paper.

Then I transferred the macaron batter into a standard pastry bag and piped 1-inch disks onto the prepared baking sheets.  

After that I let the uncooked shells sit at room temperature until the shiny surfaces of the macarons turned dull, which took around fifteen minutes.

The next thing I did was bake the macarons, which also took around fifteen minutes.

When they were done, I removed the baking sheets from the oven and then I let the macarons cool down on the baking sheets.

When the macarons were cool enough to touch, I gently pulled the macaron shells away from the baking sheets but I first used a spray bottle to spray the baking sheets with water to help release the macarons from the parchment paper.

The final thing I did was construct the actual macarons. To construct a traditional macaron, a filling is used to glue two macaron shells together. The original recipe recommended a pumpkin filling; some other similar recipe recommended a cream filling but I was too lazy to actually create a filling so instead I used a bit of melted white chocolate.     

I was happy with the way the Pumpkin Spice Macarons turned out in the end even though some of them had cracks rippling throughout their structures. In my opinion, the macarons resembled the Pumpkin Spice Latte quite well, which was my original intention and they also made for a perfectly appropriate fall-themed dessert.