French Buttercream Recipe

I used this recipe to make the filling for unicorn macarons. Not all of them were successful but for the most part not too shabby!

I made not only macarons but also fuckarons which happens when you take a photo of your neatly piped macarons on the tray and then your mobile phone falls straight onto the top of it! Nevertheless we carried on and pleased to say that I only lost about 4 shells. The rest turned out okay… just passable for a home baker.

Recipe

Makes enough for 2 batches of my macaron recipe found here.

• 160g caster sugar
• 8 large egg yolks
• 380g unsalted butter
• 5 Tbsp water

Method

Place the egg yolks in a stand mixer and beat on high until light, pale and fluffy.

To make the sugar syrup place the sugar and water together in a saucepan and swirl to evenly distribute the water. Heat on medium to 114°C.

When the syrup reaches the required temperature, take it off the heat and pour down the side of the mixing bowl containing the egg yolks, in a steady stream… all while the beater is running on high.

Leave the beater running on high for 5-10 minutes so that the mix cools down. I like to have the doors and windows open at this stage.

After 10 minutes the mixture will be glossy and this is now a beautiful egg yolk meringue called Pâte à Bombe. Continue beating and when the mix is cooled, slowly add the butter one small cube at a time until well mixed.

Now it is time to add the flavouring and colour. I used several drops of pink to get the colour I wanted. Stop the mixer to add the colour then mix again, repeat until you attain the correct shade you are after. And I used several drops of Candyfloss flavour.

Recipe credit: Cupcake Jemma

Note

The unicorn macaron shells are not flavoured, the flavour comes from the filling.

The shells are made using my recipe but then divided into three bowls to be coloured pink, blue and purple.

After the final mix of each bowl, the coloured batter is put into 3 piping bags: 1 x pink, 1 x blue, 1 x purple.

Cut off the tips of 3 piping bags: 1 x pink, 1 x blue, 1 x purple and fit into one large piping bag fitted with a 1cm round tip.

Pipe away as usual.

The macarons above are decorated with a drizzle of white chocolate and some have sprinkles.

Ka kite anō