Meyer Lemon Macarons

by Stephanie

If you follow us on Twitter, you probably know about my adventures in macaron-making. I’ve been experimenting with these for a while, and you know I already made David Lebovitz’s chocolate macarons, but if you’re looking for a fruitier version, here you go!

The issue with buying groceries online is that sometimes you don’t know how much of something you’re going to get. Sometimes you end up having to run to the store anyway to buy extra lemons, and sometimes you’re left with way too many lemons than you know what to do with.

Well, it’s not usually a problem to get rid of lemons, especially delicious meyer lemons—they’re a sweeter variety of lemon, with an almost orange-y flavor. So when I got way more lemons than I expected from Fresh Direct, I started googling some desserts.

I’m not sure why I don’t browse for recipes on Food52.com more often. So far, every recipe from there that I’ve tried has been a winner. Literally. This recipe won the “Your Best Almond Macaron” contest!

I had so much extra lemon curd after filling all of my shells. Now I have a jar in my freezer. I’m thinking of trying something new with it, but of course I may just use it as an excuse to make some more macarons!

Meyer Lemon Macarons from Food 52

For the lemon curd:

Ingredients:

  • 2 eggs
  • 2 egg yolks
  • 1/3 cup sugar
  • 1/3 cup fresh meyer lemon juice (from 2-3 lemons)
  • 1 tablespoon meyer lemon zest (from 1-2 lemons)
  • 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
  • 6 tablespoons unsalted butter, cubed

Directions:

  1. Whisk all of the ingredients except for the butter together in a glass bowl.
  2. Set the bowl over a pan of boiling water, making sure not to touch the bowl to the water, and stir constantly until the mixture is 170 degrees.
  3. Remove the bowl from heat and mix in the butter, a few cubes at a time, allowing them to melt in before adding more.
  4. Press plastic wrap onto the surface of the curd and refrigerate overnight.

For the macarons:

Ingredients:

  • 68 grams of egg whites, room temperature (the original recipe calls for aged-at-room-temperature overnight, but I didn’t do this)
  • 34 grams granulated sugar
  • 75 grams almond meal
  • 136 grams powdered sugar

Directions:

  1. Line two baking sheets with a silicone baking mat and/or parchment paper.
  2. Whisk the egg whites in the bowl of a stand mixer on medium-low speed. Slowly add in the granulated sugar, and when all of it is all in, increase the speed to medium and whisk until the egg whites form stiff peaks.
  3. To get rid of any lumps, combine the almond meal and powdered sugar in your food processor and pulse until completely blended.
  4. Thoroughly mix in half of the almond mixture to the egg whites. Gently fold in the second half.
  5. Put the batter into a “piping bag” aka a zip-top bag, and snip off the corner.
  6. Pipe about 1-inch rounds onto your prepared baking sheets.
  7. Heat the oven to 300 degrees. When it’s hot, your meringues will be set and ready to bake. Bake them for 10-12 minutes.
  8. When the shells are completely cool, put the curd in another one of your fancy piping bags (this time i used a smaller zip-top) and pipe on the flat side of the cookie, then sandwich another on top.
  9. And there you have it, you made macarons! See, that wasn’t so bad!