Supplies

  • 125g icing sugar, sieved
  • 75g fine ground almonds, sieved
  • 2 egg whites
  • Pinch of salt
  • 50g caster sugar
  • 3-4 dabs of yellow food colouring gel
  • Vanilla buttercream
  • Orange stars/ sweets/ piped icing
  • Black & orange piping icing

Steps

  1. Macaron method: with an electric hand mixer, whisk the egg whites until soft peaks start to form. Add a pinch of salt, then add the caster sugar gradually - mixing thoroughly after each spoonful.
  2. Once the sugar is incorporated, add the food colouring and whisk the mixture to firm peaks. You want a vibrant yellow colour as it will fade slightly when you cook them.
  3. Carefully sieve in the almond and icing sugar mix, then fold this through, taking care not to knock the air out of the egg whites. Make sure there are no big air bubbles or lumps of egg white.
  4. Once mixed together, put the mixture into a piping bag fitted with a 1cm nozzle.
  5. Pipe 3.5cm rounds onto the a baking sheet lined with non-stick baking paper (leave a few cm between each one - for perfectly sized macarons you can use a template underneath the baking paper).
  6. Slam the macaron tray down on the counter a few times - to help shape them and get rid of any bubbles, then let them sit for around an hour, so that a dry skin forms on the tops.
  7. Preheat the oven to 120C, then cook the macarons for 15-18 minutes.
  8. Remove the trays from the oven and immediately slide the paper off the hot trays. Let the macarons cool completely before you remove them from the paper.
  9. Assembly: once cool, pipe buttercream in the middle of two macarons to sandwich them together.
  10. Use the orange piping icing to secure two orange stars for the feet.
  11. Pipe a beak shaped ‘V’ with the orange piping icing.
  12. Finish by piping black dots for the eyes.