Gotta get this off my chest, macarons are not macarOOns. Okay, now that that is settled, let’s get started on this review for Oreo Macarons.
Before Christmas, I tried a recipe for peppermint macarons and decided I would have to try them a few more times before I could post about them.. even though the review posts aren’t meant to be perfect. Christmas came and went and now we are too far past it for peppermint! I fell upon this Oreo Macaron recipe last week from a Canadian blog called Liv for Cake and chose to give it a go. Let me tell you, it’s a great macaron recipe!
I have been learning that I should use common sense and actually read the entire post before I start making a recipe because there might be things I need to know. Because I had made macarons before, I knew the steps are pretty precise and I should really pay close attention to all of the directions. Unlucky for me, all measurements were by mass and I don’t have a food scale! (Add it to the list along with a food processor). Google helped me out with conversions, and it all turned out okay!
Big tip: don’t forget that the egg whites have to be at room temperature before you start. Like I said, macarons take preparation! I left them on the counter for a few hours.
For these macarons, you need Oreo crumbs which you can actually buy in the baking aisle, but I just crushed up some of the cookies (icing removed!) with a potato masher, since I don’t have a food processor. I wasn’t sure if I would get the crumbs fine enough, but it would appear that I did. So that was good news. I did feel like the egg white mixture was thicker than last time I made macarons, but that is a good thing, because the batter was too runny last time. I think it is because I mixed the flour in with the stand mixer instead of folding it in by hand. Very important!
Sidenote: I’m a dough/batter eater. This batter really wasn’t that appetizing. It mostly tasted like almond flour, which made me a bit skeptical that they would taste like Oreos at all (spoiler alert: they did taste like Oreo). And speaking of batter, next time I make these, I will sprinkle a little bit of Oreo crumb on the piped macarons before I let them dry, just to add a bit of decoration. Some pizzazz, if you will.
I recommend a) making sure your piping bag is big enough for all of the batter and b) making sure that you have a way to close your piping bag because it will just run everywhere if you don’t! I type from experience. Another thing I recommend when you are piping is to use only one baking sheet or have everything on the same rack in the oven, if possible. I had to put two sheets on two racks and one rack came out a little more brown (top rack!) And now that I think of it, I am going to add to my “To Buy” list, one of those silicon macaron templates because I think it make my life way easier.
The recipe recommends cooking for 10-20 minutes so I started out with 15 on the timer. I took them out at 9 minutes because I could really smell them, but they were still too sticky so I put them back in for the remaining 6 minutes. I think that was too long, as they came out looking okay but were quick to crunch and break when I handled them. Next time I make these, I’ll try 12 minutes.
When you are making the buttercream, it’s super easy just to scrape the icing from the Oreos. Just make sure your butter is room temperature – as soft as possible. But don’t put it in the microwave! I learned this lesson in grade nine when I baked a cake with friends as part of a project and the icing was a bust!
I only yielded 12 macarons. I am not really sure what I would do differently to yield the 25 in the recipe except to make them smaller when I’m piping them – this is where the template would be great! I think I should have piped less icing on each one because it was pretty thick …. but that obviously makes it sooooo tasty!! I personally didn’t get a super Oreo-y taste, I think I should have used more crumbs. At the end of the day, I think to save time, I would just buy a box of Oreo crumbs and then I would use a regular vanilla buttercream. But in the same breath, the recipe is fun to follow and I do love Oreos, so it was nice to snack on the cookies while baking…. Have fun and be sure to let me know if you have success with this sweet treat! (Did I say sweet? Cause that is an understatement!) and don’t be afraid to ask if you have any questions!
