Pumpkin Pie Spice Macarons

Raise your hands if you like pumpkin. Yes? Woo-hoo I love pumpkin season 😀 Now raise your hands if you like macarons. Same here! LOVE me some macarons always. They are too expensive to buy though, so when am not lazy, I bake them myself 😀

Today’s macarons are flavored with pumpkin pie spice, and soooo good, if I may say so myself 😛 I prepared them for my oldest’s teacher 😀 To be given for Thanksgiving gift 😀

The gist….it is without almond but walnut hahahah I know French Macarons are almond cookies, but these macarons is using almond and walnut! But of course you can use whole almond or whole walnut instead half and half as I do, walnut is much more cheaper though and they still create awesome macarons 😉

If you cannot find pumpkin pie spice, check out the steps to make your own!

Cookies/Macarons Shells

150 g almond flour plus 30 g walnut flour (you can do 180 g almond or 180 g walnut, or half almond and half walnut as long as it becomes 180 g in weight) – I grind the nuts myself

270 g icing sugar

150 g egg whites (no need to age them and even straight from the fridge, works for me as well) – I use pasteurized egg whites from a carton, shake first.

100 g berry sugar (castor)

1 tbsp pumpkin spice (store bought or homemade, or lapis legit spice or allspice)

Method

Sift nut flour, set aside

Sift icing sugar and mix into nut flour

Sift both together and whatever don’t go through the sift, run them in a blender then sift again, and whatever left on the sift, discard

Mix sifted nut and icing sugar with pumpkin pie spice

Beat egg whites until frothy on medium high speed then add in berry sugar a little at a time, beat until firm peaks (5-7 minutes long) – the idea is even when you turn your mixer bowl upside down, the egg white won’t slide off

Fold in nut mixture into beaten egg whites, until you get a smooth mixture

Pour batter into piping bag and pipe batter onto baking sheets lined with parchment paper, nickel size

Let stand at room temperature for 30 mins

Preheat oven 325 F and bake cookies one sheet at a time in middle rack for 12-15 mins

Take out, let cookies cool to room temperature on the sheet

NOTE: cookies are done when they are easily off of the parchment paper. please check your oven temperature, as sometimes the heat shown on oven isn’t the same as the heat inside the oven

Homemade Pumpkin Pie Spice:

3 tbsp ground cinnamon

2 tsp ground ginger

2 tsp ground nutmeg

1 ½ tsp ground allspice

1 ½ tsp ground cloves

Mix all and use as needed!

Ganache

For these pumpkin pie spice macarons, I use double chocolate ganache

1/4 c milk

2 tbsp butter

100 g milk chocolate

100 g dark chocolate

1 handful baking chips

Heat milk and butter in microwave for 40 seconds, stir butter to melt

Let stand for half minute and add in the chocolate, stir to melt fully

Let stand to room temperature until thickened, stirring occasionally

To speed up the process, you can store in the fridge for a bit!

Place ganache into piping bag and pipe some filling on cookies and sandwich them!

Happiness is……

…when your macaron is perfect! No hollow 🙂

Note: Macaron is ALWAYS best served the next day. Chill them in the fridge overnight before serving!