Macarons

Name: Easiest Vegan Cream Cheese Frosting
Prep time: 1 min
Cook time: 29 min
Total time: 30 min
Yield: 3 cups (enough to frost a 6” double layer cake)
Cuisine: American
Ingredients: 1/2 cup vegan butter, room temperature* (one stick) (113g); 1/2 cup vegetable shortening (113g); 4 cups powdered sugar (450g); 1.5 tbsp white vinegar (24ml); 1 tbsp lemon juice (15ml); 1 tsp vanilla extract (5ml); OPTIONAL: 3 heaping spoons of Pillsbury or Duncan Hines cream cheese frosting - see recipe post for details (DO NOT USE IF AVOIDING SOY)

Everything you need in order to make, fill, sell, and enjoy your vegan macarons. Find recipes and resources here!

Koala Macaron Template & Tutorial

January 13, 2020 // by Meggan Leal// Leave a Comment

To support ongoing bushfire relief efforts in Australia

Printable pdf macaron template and tutorial page. All profits will be donated to The Trustee for NSW Rural Fire Service & Brigades Donations Fund via Celeste Barber’s fundraiser on Facebook.

Name your own price, but donations of all sizes are appreciated – no matter how small. To adjust the price, simply edit the amount in the field below. Once you purchase, you’ll receive an email with the download link.

Use this template and tutorial to make your own koala macarons (also can be used for meringue cookies or royal icing transfers). Be sure to share your creations on social media and tag @cookingoncaffeine and #baking4bushfires.

Tune in to Dream Confections, LLC’s Facebook this Saturday, January 18 to watch her create them live! Click here to view the event.

Get all of my product recommendations in my Amazon Shop.

Grab all my macaron recommendations on the Macaron Recipes & Resources page so that you can feel fully prepared to make some awesome koalas and spread the #baking4bushfires love!

Allergy-Friendly and Vegan Pastry Recipes:

Macaron Fillings

December 22, 2019 // by Meggan Leal// Leave a Comment

From buttercream to ganache and more, find all the dairy and egg free plant-based fillings you need to make your vegan macarons stand out in a crowd:

You can also browse my Amazon Store at www.amazon.com/shop/cookingoncaffeine where you can find all the supplies and ingredients I use and recommend.

American Meringue Buttercream (vegan)

My famous recipe that's no-cook, super easy, and the favourite of bakers around the world; American and Swiss meringue buttercream's perfect lovechild.

Easiest Vegan Buttercream Ever

The easiest vegan buttercream you’ve ever made. Four ingredients and ten minutes gets you perfectly pipe-able frosting for any confection that needs icing!

Quick and Easy Vegan Ganache (Water Ganache)

With a minimum of two ingredients and just a few minutes, you can make delicious chocolate ganache that's both allergy-friendly and stunningly tasty.

Chili Lime American Buttercream (vegan, soy-free)

Spicy, sweet, sour, and salty: the perfect balance strikes in this Mexican treat inspired buttercream.

Easiest Vegan Cream Cheese Frosting (with no cream cheese or nuts)

The perfect filling for your red velvet or carrot cake macarons. Or lemon or chocolate, or pretty much whatever. When is cream cheese frosting ever wrong??

Easiest Vegan Cream Cheese Frosting (with no cream cheese or nuts)

November 18, 2019 // by Meggan Leal// Leave a Comment

Some desserts demand cream cheese buttercream – like carrot cake, spice cake, or red velvet. The flavor is unmistakable and deeply missed if it’s absent, but getting a dairy-free version that tastes great, has a good texture, and pipes well can be a struggle. Even more difficult is trying to find a vegan cream cheese that’s affordable and free from nuts, soy, or coconut (for those who avoid those) – or finding one at all depending on where you live.

So I made it my mission when I ran my bakery to get the same traditional taste of cream cheese frosting locked down, without the need for nuts or coconuts, as well as not needing commercially available vegan cream cheese since I was a Texas home baker and needed a shelf-stable option.

This is what was born out of that mission.

This is my “easiest” cream cheese buttercream – so what that means is that it comes together easily in just a minutes with no weird ingredients. It’s very similar to my Easiest Vegan Buttercream Ever, but with flavor adjustments to trick the brain into thinking you’re eating a real deal cream cheese icing.

This frosting is thick, stable, and quite sweet. It’s perfect for layering cakes, frosting cakes, piping into cupcakes, or sandwiching cookies. It’s also great used as a dessert dip!

Red velvet macarons with cream cheese buttercream

I do have another cream cheese buttercream recipe that isn’t as “easiest” as this one, but comes out lighter and less sweet with even more authentic dairy taste to it (think of this as cream cheese buttercream 101 and the other is 201 – and I’ve even got a 301 I’ll share later!) – and I’ll publish that soon. But in the mean time, I promise this one is delicious! I’ve had folks drive hundreds of miles to have some carrot cake frosted with it, and always sell out of my red velvet macarons which are sandwiched with it.

Ingredients Overview

The products you choose here will depend on what ingredients you need to avoid – but whichever you choose, you’ll still get delicious “cream cheese” buttercream!

Fat

Choose your fats!

I recommend using a mix of veggie shortening and vegan butter here. Traditional cream cheese frosting is made with a mix of cream cheese and butter – so rather than go full butter and overwhelm the senses with the ‘buttery’ flavor, I like to cut it with more neutral shortening.

Carrot cake cupcakes with cream cheese frosting, candied carrot roses, and sunflower seed brittle

You can use all shortening if you’d like to avoid butter, or all butter if you’d like to avoid shortening – but the best flavor comes when you do a mix of the two. Please note that if you opt to use all shortening though, you’ll want to add a half a teaspoon of salt.

Acid

Get your tang!

Dairy cream cheese is what gives the traditional cream cheese frosting it’s distinctive tang. It’s because in order to become cream cheese, the milk is infused with bacteria that produces something called lactic acid as it eats the lactose (sugar) in the dairy. Now, lactic acid in and of itself isn’t dairy or a dairy product (the bacteria in lots of different non-dairy products produce it, too) – but it is what gives dairy products its notable tanginess.

Since we aren’t inoculating anything with bacteria here, or letting it ferment to get full of lactic acid goodness, we are going to fake it till we make it! And we are going to fake it with two other acids: citric acid and acetic acid. Sound scary and sciencey?? Well, sciencey yes – but not scary at all! Citric acid is in citrus fruits – and we are getting it from straight lemon juice. And acetic acid? That’s just vinegar. 🙂

Using the mix of these two acid sources will give your tongue the tang it craves without one flavor being strong enough to be really detectable. So we aren’t getting vinegar-tasting frosting, and we aren’t making lemon frosting, either. Instead, we are making perfectly tangy buttercream the brain will just relate to cream cheese.

Sweet

Gimme some sugar – or erythritol

Some of the most common questions I get regarding my buttercream recipes is whether any sugar substitutes can be used. Yes, you can use confectioner’s erythritol (Swerve) in my buttercream recipes and it works great! You might need to adjust the amount to get the right consistency, though – so add a little at a time until you get it as thick as you’d like.

Confectioner’s monkfruit (another sugar substitute which is popular among the keto, paleo, and vegan crowds) is also a thing, but I haven’t had the chance to play with it as of yet. Once I do, or if you do and let me know how it works, I will update here! Please note that advertises that it’s twice as sweet as sugar, though – so it may take some adjusting.

And regarding confectioner’s vs powdered vs icing vs pure vs starch added sugar: all of the above work! I use 10x powdered sugar with corn or tapioca starch added (depending on if I’m using organic or not), but plenty of folks use pure powdered sugar – even homemade – with great results.

Fondant, candy, and chocolate decorations stick to it perfectly.

Vanilla

It is dessert after all!

Vanilla is a mystical creature in the culinary world that pairs wonderfully with literally every other flavor that exists. And we’ve gotten to where if it’s missing from dessert, well, it just doesn’t taste like dessert anymore. And if you skip out on vanilla here, people will notice and they’ll say something is weird – and they’ll blame it on the frosting being dairy-free. But it’ll be because it’s flower-free!

So whether you decide to use pure vanilla, imitation vanilla, a baker’s blend, Mexican or bourbon vanilla, or even homemade – it doesn’t matter – just make sure you use it! As long as it’s not made from beaver butts, you’re good to go.

An Extra Boost

Totally optional

Depending on what ingredients you’re avoiding, you can skip over this entirely – but it helps a lot if you’re trying to sway extra anti-vegan judgmental minds: Commercial cream cheese frosting from a tub.

I KNOW, OK. DONT @ ME. JUST TRUST ME.

It holds up beautifully between cake layers

Both Pillsbury Creamy Supreme and Duncan Hines Creamy Home-Style cream cheese frosting in the tubs are free from animal derived ingredients as far as we can tell. I like to add a few tablespoons into the mix at the end because.. why? Well, these frostings have actual lactic acid added. And with just a small addition, it really boosts the cream cheese icing nostalgia feels when you eat it.

Feel free to skip this if you’re horrified at the idea, or if you’re avoiding soy – but I promise that if you don’t need to avoid it, it really does help!

Specific Products to Use

What to use in case you’re avoiding what

THIS IS JUST A TOOL TO HELP YOU – IT IS NOT DEFINITIVE AND WE REFUSE TO BE HELD LIABLE IF SOMETHING IS INCORRECT

I will try to keep this list updated, but please please please double check all ingredient lists before using if you have a medical condition that is your reason for avoiding these allergens. Companies change formulations all the time – even I check ingredient lists for products every time I buy them, no matter how many times I’ve bought them before or how recently. And please let me know if something here is incorrect and I’ll update it!

These are products I’ve worked with here in the United States, but I’ll also try to add more international products to the list as I get confirmation from reputable sources that they work well. For now, check out my Easiest Vegan Buttercream Ever post for info on how to choose your vegan butter.

Avoiding Soy:

Palm Oil Shortening
Country Crock Plant Butter Sticks
Earth Balance Soy-Free Buttery Sticks
Miyoko’s Cultured Vegan Butter

Avoiding Nuts:

Vegetable Shortening
Palm Oil Shortening
Country Crock Plant Butter Sticks – Except Almond
Earth Balance Baking Sticks

Avoiding Coconut:

Vegetable Shortening
Palm Oil Shortening please note that many people who are allergic to coconut also have issues with palm fruit
Country Crock Plant Butter Sticks
Earth Balance Buttery Sticks

Avoiding Palm Oil:

Miyoko’s Cultured Vegan Butter

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Video

Coming Soon

Recipe

Yield: 3 cups (enough to frost a 6” double layer cake)

Easiest Vegan Cream Cheese Frosting

The easiest dairy-free, vegan recipe to mimic the taste and texture of traditional cream cheese frosting without breaking the bank or your spirit. Follow recipe post for soy, nut, and coconut free options.

Prep Time 1 minute

Cook Time 29 minutes

Total Time 30 minutes

Ingredients

1/2 cup vegan butter, room temperature* (one stick) (113g)
1/2 cup vegetable shortening (113g)
4 cups powdered sugar (450g)
1.5 tbsp white vinegar (24ml)
1 tbsp lemon juice (15ml)
1 tsp vanilla extract (5ml)
OPTIONAL: 3 heaping spoons of Pillsbury or Duncan Hines cream cheese frosting - see recipe post for details (DO NOT USE IF AVOIDING SOY)

Instructions

Add butter and shortening to the bowl of your stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment (or a large mixing bowl if using a hand mixer)
Mix on low/stir until completely incorporated
Add the powdered sugar one cup at a time, mixing on low between each addition until incorporated
Add your vinegar, lemon juice, and vanilla extract
Mix on low until completely incorporated
Use a rubber spatula to scrape the sides and bottom of your bowl
Turn the mixer to medium high and let it run for 15 minutes - or until you taste test and there’s no waxy mouthfeel from the shortening
Add the tub frosting if using, and allow mixer to run on low for ten minutes
Taste test! If it needs more tang, add more vinegar by the half tablespoon until your desired level of tanginess has been achieved.
Adjust the consistency by adding water by the teaspoon to thin, or more powdered sugar by the quarter cup to stiffen until desired consistency is reached

Notes

*if you use all butter, you can skip the fifteen minutes of whipping

*feel free to sift your powdered sugar if it’s very lumpy

*this frosting can be kept covered at room temperature for up to a week, in the fridge for a month, or in the freezer for six months

Allergy-Friendly and Vegan Pastry Recipes:

American Meringue Buttercream (vegan)

October 28, 2019 // by Meggan Leal// 37 Comments

This frosting is quick, it’s easy, it’s no-cook, and just so happens to be vegan. It’s American Buttercream’s less teeth-shatteringly sweet, more refined, and just as perfectly versatile meringue cousin. Dairy-free, egg-free, and nut-free, it’s allergy friendly and you’ll love working with it. Plus, the flavor and texture will have everyone who tastes it in awe.

While American Buttercream may be the quickest and easiest of the buttercreams to make, many people find it to be sickeningly sweet because it’s the sugar that gives it structure and body – and it takes quite a lot. So what could we possibly do to it to make that not the case?

Enter aquafaba.

Tips&Tricks Square — I usually use garbanzo/chickpea aquafaba – but any one will do!

Aquafaba is legume (beans, lentils, soy, peas, etc.) cooking or canning liquid – and it is the vegan egg white replacement for perfect meringues. It can be used to make macarons and top meringue pies, and even perfect little meringue cookies and royal icing. And it gets treated just like egg whites do in all of the meringue recipes out there.

And there are some amazing recipes by amazing bloggers for vegan meringue buttercreams like this recipe by Gretchen’s Vegan Bakery which is DELICIOUS and AMAZING, but they all involve a pan on the stove and I’m honestly quite lazy and don’t like to dirty extra dishes or turn the stove on unless I absolutely have to. So I had an idea.

Weighing sugar to make syrup. The bane of my existence.

One day, while making my easy vegan buttercream, I wondered how I could lower the sugar amount but still maintain structure within the frosting.. And I’ve made enough aquafaba meringue to know it COULD provide structure, but was worried it might deflate if I added it to a bunch of fat. Fats and oils kill meringue faster than you can blink your eyes, in case you didn’t know. Plus, aquafaba meringue usually deflates over time unless it’s stablized with something like agar agar. If you don’t add a stabilizer, it starts to melt and get weepy, and NO ONE wants a soggy cake due to deflating meringue.

But I decided to give it a chance anyway, and I did it the lazy way; I just cracked open a can of beans and dumped the liquid straight into the buttercream.

AND IT WORKED. WONDERFULLY. PERFECTLY. MIRACULOUSLY.

Smooooooth.

It fluffs up gorgeously, provides a silky texture and beautiful sheen to the buttercream, and takes the place of a whole bunch of sugar so that the frosting is only about half as sweet as what my original American buttercream recipe is.

Even being a meringue buttercream, it’s still stable enough to go between cake layers or macarons and not squish or slide out everywhere.

This cake traveled an hour by car, was unloaded and reloaded multiple times, and sat in 75-80° F heat for over three hours and did great! It was filled and frosted with American meringue buttercream.

It doesn’t deflate or weep, and colors and takes on flavors like a dream. And if you want a denser meringue, you can totally reduce your aquafaba down before adding it (I don’t because I’m happy with the way it is and I don’t want to dirty extra dishes).

If you want to check out some gorgeous cakes that use buttercream employing this method, check out @justsomethingfancy on Instagram – while she doesn’t use my exact recipe (because I’m just publishing it now, lol) she does add reduced aquafaba to her buttercream to make it lighter, fluffier, and less sweet.

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Pinterest image featuring cupcakes topped with smooth, white, meringue buttercream

As far as butters go, take a look at my Easiest Vegan Buttercream Ever post to check out which ones work and how to make the ones that don’t bend to your will.

Tutorial Video:

So without further ado….

The Recipe

Yield: Enough to generously fill and frost an 8" cake

American Meringue Buttercream (vegan)

No thermometers, no cooking, no weighing, no timing, no fuss. The easiest meringue buttercream to ever exist - thanks to aquafaba. And it just so happens to be vegan. Smooth, pipeable, delicious, and super simple to make.

Cook Time 15 minutes

Total Time 15 minutes

Ingredients

2 cups (4 sticks, 450g) vegan butter*, room temp
5 cups (550g) powdered sugar
2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2ish c (125ml) aquafaba, room temperature**

Instructions

In a large mixing bowl or the bowl of a stand mixer with the paddle attachment, cream your butter on low speed until lighter in color and smooth, then turn off mixer.
Add all the powdered sugar and mix on low speed until completely incorporated. Turn off mixer.
Add in your vanilla and aquafaba and mix on medium high for five to ten minutes, until your preferred level of fluffiness has been achieved. Keep in mind that the fluffier it gets, the less weight the buttercream will be able to hold. I usually go about five minutes.
Mix on low/stir speed for five minutes to get rid of bubbles.

Notes

* Country Crock plant butter sticks or equivalent. For more on vegan butters and how to make them work, check out my Easiest Vegan Buttercream Ever post (please note that Earth Balance and Miyoko’s are both too soft for this recipe alone. Use 50/50 butter and shortening if you’re unsure if your butter will work)

** I add my aquafaba straight from the can - no reducing. Feel free to reduce yours first if you want, though.

*** The perfect amount of aquafaba to use depends on your climate, your tastes, and your needs. If your buttercream feels too soft, reduce the aquafaba to about 1/3c and/or reduce whipping time. You can also add extra powdered sugar to stiffen it.

Allergy-Friendly and Vegan Pastry Recipes:

Chili Lime American Buttercream (vegan, soy-free)

October 15, 2019 // by Meggan Leal// Leave a Comment

This buttercream not only has an addictive spicy kick, but its tangy sweetness will have you looking for new and creative combinations and vehicles for getting it from bowl to mouth. It’s dairy-free, vegan, soy-free as long as you use the recommended ingredients, and I won’t tell anyone if you accidentally make a double batch.

Best coupled with fruit flavored confections, it uses fresh key lime juice in place of your usual cream or milk as well as the vanilla in American buttercream. I like to add yellow coloring to mine, since I most often pair it with mango smoothie cake for my famous Mangonada Cake and Mangonada Macarons. If you want to avoid dyes, use turmeric to turn it vivid yellow!

For the fruit chili powder, Trechas is my favorite brand (when I lived in Mexico, my host families only used Trechas brand, so that’s all I buy, now). If you’re wanting to avoid sugar or dyes, Tajin is a great choice as well.

And as far as butter goes, I use Country Crock Plant Butter sticks now, and it’s what I recommend. If you don’t have access to it or want to use something else, check out this post that covers vegan butters and how to make them work for your buttercream.

Video Tutorial

My buttercream tutorial on YouTube for the visual learners

Recipe

Yield: 2 cups (enough to frost a two-layer 6” cake)

Vegan Chili Lime Buttercream

The easiest vegan buttercream you’ve ever made - in sabor loco chili-lime! Four ingredients and ten minutes gets you perfectly pipe-able frosting for any confection that needs a spicy-sweet punch of tangy Mexican flavor!

Prep Time 1 minute

Cook Time 10 minutes

Total Time 11 minutes

Ingredients

1 cup room temp high-fat vegan butter* (two sticks)(I prefer Country Crock Plant Butter sticks for best and soy-free results)
3 cups powdered sugar (use Swerve Confectioner’s for a sugar-free version)
2 tbsp + 1 tsp lime juice
1-2 tsp chili lime fruit seasoning
Yellow gel food color

Instructions

Add butter and two cups of powdered sugar to the bowl of a stand mixer equipped with the paddle attachment
Mix on low/stir until completely incorporated
Add the final cup of the powdered sugar and chili lime seasoning, and mix again on low/stir until completely incorporated
Add your lime juice
Mix on low until completely incorporated
Use a rubber spatula to scrape the sides and bottom of your bowl
Mix on low just until the mixture is fully combined and smooth
Adjust the consistency by adding more juice by the teaspoon to thin, or more powdered sugar by the quarter cup to stiffen until desired consistency is reached

Notes

*For more info on vegan butters to use, check out my post at www.cookingoncaffeine.com/easiest-vegan-buttercream-ever

*If you use shortening, whip the mixture for 15 minutes or until it no longer has a greasy/waxy mouthfeel

*if you want the buttercream as silky smooth as possible, turn the mixer on low/stir and let it go for about a half an hour after you’re done mixing it

*for butter without palm oil, give Miyoko’s cultured butter a try

*for butter without soy, use Country Crock Plant Butter Sticks, Earth Balance Soy-Free, or Miyoko’s cultured butter.

*feel free to sift your powdered sugar if it’s very lumpy

*for crusting buttercream, add another one to two tablespoons of liquid, and use powdered sugar to bring back to consistency

Allergy-Friendly and Vegan Pastry Recipes:

Easiest Vegan Buttercream Ever (Dairy & Soy Free)

October 3, 2019 // by Meggan Leal// 6 Comments

This vegan buttercream is so easy, it should be a crime. Really. The stand mixer does all the work, and in about ten minutes (less if you don’t care about it being super silky smooth) you’ve got delicious, crave-worthy, allergy-friendly, infinitely customizable, perfectly pipe-able frosting to use on all your cakes, macarons, cookies, cinnamon rolls, and other confections.

It’s an American buttercream, but this icing is so good that I’ve sold it by the bucketful and even offered it as 2oz “frosting shots” to a begging and drooling clientele.

It CAN be made with just a hand mixer (if that’s all you’ve got), and it can also be turned into a “crusting buttercream” if you need that for your creation – just see the notes in the recipe.

Yes, it’s a weird photo. I acknowledge that.

Vegan Butter?

Yeah, yeah, I know. “It’s not actually butter because it’s not made from dairy,” say the purists. Well, neither is peanut butter or apple butter, so let’s just go with it here. If it really bothers you *that* much, just imagine I’m calling it margarine.

Now, for this to be the “Easiest Vegan Buttercream Ever” you need a good quality, high fat butter. Most vegan butters are actually mostly water – so when they’re room temperature, they are EXTREMELY soft. The tell tale sign of this is if it calls itself a “spread”. These will not work well in this recipe.

Two good options for this recipe would be Earth Balance sticks and Country Crock Plant Butter (my personal preference). If you have another butter that’s at least 79-80% oil/fat though, it should be fine. Miyoko’s cultured butter should work well based on accounts I’ve read of it, but I’ve never tried it myself as the exclusive fat in a buttercream.

If you’re in Australia, Lis Armstrong of Treat Dreams, which specializes in vegan chocolates, treats, and desserts, advises that Nuttelex is a good choice. “For the oil percentage in Nuttelex it depends if you’re buying retail or food service…” She adds, “Retail sizes available from most grocers like Aldi (best price), Coles, Woolies and Costco (5kg tubs).

Food service comes in a 15kg box with plastic liner. It has a higher fat content of 80% and is used by some commercial bakeries in Sydney to produce vegan croissants.

Even with the food service version, melt is a factor in the warmth, so a little shortening can help, so personal trial and error really pays off.”

What if I can’t find a high-fat butter?

Great question. If you can’t find a vegan butter with a fat content of 79-80% or more, I have had success with Smart Balance (64% fat) for frosting cupcakes. Note that the buttercream will be EXTREMELY soft, and won’t hold up in between cake layers or macarons. But for cupcakes and frosting shots, it’s wonderful.

Another option is to cut your butter with veggie shortening or straight palm oil. I usually use a 50/50 ratio for easy maths’ sake. If you go this route, it won’t be the “easiest” anymore, as it’ll take an extra step and a good chunk of time, but it’ll still come out just as high quality and delicious as the full butter version (yes, I promise).

Don’t want to use shortening? There is another, final option. It’s going to take some time, and you’ll feel like you’re wasting money, but it’s a viable option for those who don’t have vegan shortening options OR high-fat vegan butter available (I’m looking at you, South Africa!) – you’re going to make your own.

You can definitely make your own butter from scratch if you feel like it, but I never do. So what is my alternative route? I cook the water out of my high-water butter and it suddenly turns high-fat.

Put your delicious-but-too-soft butter into a shallow pan and melt it. Let it cook over medium heat until it starts to boil, and let it go until it stops bubbling. You’ll be left with nearly 100% fat that’ll work great in your buttercream! Just pour it (carefully! It’s hot oil!) into a heat-proof container or butter stick molds and pop them into the fridge to solidify, and then proceed as normal.

What about flavors?

The sky is the limit! I add whatever liquid I feel like, up to the two tablespoon per stick limit. Coffee creamer, coffee concentrate, fruit juice, protein shake, citrus juice, chamoy, jellies and jams, and more!

And powders can pop in with ease, too! Freeze dried fruit powders, powdered drink mixes, matcha tea, cocoa powder, instant coffee, protein powder, etc. Just make a paste with them with a tiny bit of liquid before adding so they distribute evenly and don’t cause drying out or texture issues.

Some tangerine zest going into the base buttercream for one of my bakery clients.

And what about food coloring?

For food coloring, I recommend using either gel or powder. You can use liquid, but any liquid you use will affect the consistency of your buttercream at the expense of flavor.

Some of my favorite vegan food coloring options are AmeriColor gels, ProGels, and Artisan Accents gels. Ultimate Baker has an amazing line of powdered colors that are both vegan and all natural, if you prefer the natural route!

Just remember that your colored buttercream will get darker and more vibrant overnight. This is especially important if you’re trying to make a dark color like black, navy, red, or burgundy. Try to make your buttercream a day early, get it to a few shades lighter than what you need, and let it “develop” in a covered container overnight.

The other side of the token though, make sure if you don’t want a dark color to not make your buttercream too far ahead of time! I once had to make a navy blue cake; I let the cake sit overnight and it was black by morning. Oops. If this does happen to you though, you can add in some white buttercream to lighten it a bit (unless it’s already on the cake like mine was).

My beautiful navy blue cake before it darkened.

And how do I store it?

In a bowl with a tight fitting lid or plastic wrap.

It can be kept at room temp for a week, in the fridge for a month, and in the freezer for six months. Just give it a quick stir before you frost your confections.

I’m so ready, but I forgot to take my butter out of the fridge!!

Don’t panic! And don’t microwave! I’ve got you covered:

(If you don’t have a blow torch, you can use a hair dryer!)

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Video Tutorial, Extended:

Yield: 2.5 cups (enough to ice a 6” cake)

Easiest Vegan Buttercream Ever

The easiest vegan buttercream you’ve ever made. Four ingredients and ten minutes gets you perfectly pipe-able frosting for any confection that needs icing!

Prep Time 1 minute

Cook Time 10 minutes

Total Time 11 minutes

Ingredients

1 cup room temp high-fat vegan butter* (two sticks) (230g)
4 cups powdered sugar**** (450g)
2 tbsp liquid - any liquid you want (check the post above for suggestions)***** (30ml)
1 tsp vanilla extract (5ml)

Instructions

Add butter and half the powdered sugar to the bowl of a stand mixer equipped with the paddle attachment
Mix on low/stir until completely incorporated
Add the second half of the powdered sugar, and mix again on low/stir until completely incorporated
Add your liquid and vanilla extract
Mix on low until completely incorporated
Use a rubber spatula to scrape the sides and bottom of your bowl
Mix on low just until the mixture is fully combined and smooth
Adjust the consistency by adding more liquid by the teaspoon to thin, or more powdered sugar by the quarter cup to stiffen until desired consistency is reached

Notes

*if you use shortening, whip the mixture for 15 minutes or until it no longer has a greasy/waxy mouthfeel

**if you want the buttercream as silky smooth as possible, turn the mixer on low/stir and let it go for about a half an hour

***for butter without palm oil, give Miyoko’s cultured butter a try

***for butter without soy, use Country Crock Plant Butter Sticks, Earth Balance Soy-Free, or Miyoko’s cultured butter.

****feel free to sift your powdered sugar if it’s very lumpy

*****for crusting buttercream, add another one to two tablespoons of liquid, and use powdered sugar to bring back to consistency

Allergy-Friendly and Vegan Pastry Recipes:

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Quick and Easy Vegan Ganache (Water Ganache)

June 20, 2019 // by Meggan Leal// Leave a Comment

This ganache is the bomb dot com. It’s ultra customizable for whomever is going to be eating it: it can be sugar-free/keto. It can be made to accommodate any allergies or diet restrictions (except chocolate) as long as you choose a chocolate that is acceptable. It pipes and spreads while still warm so you don’t have to wait hours to use it. It’s just the best.

Ganache is my most requested macaron filling recipe (yes, I actually ran a poll) – and it’s easy to know why: Ganache is chocolate. Everyone loves chocolate. And more than that, it has the potential to be a bajillion times less sweet than typical American buttercream, it sets firm (which is great for frosting cakes – especially carved cakes because it helps to hold them together), and did I mention that it’s chocolate?

Use it on my chocolate whacky cake or to sandwich my vegan Italian macarons. Make s’mores with it. Sandwich vegan sugar cookies. Spread it on toast. Eat it with a spoon.

Alterations

If you need to use it for a cake drip, add 5ml of additional liquid at the start and omit the butter. Wait for the ganache to cool to about 90 degrees before applying the drip to the well-chilled cake with a squeeze bottle, piping bag, or with a spoon.

If you need to avoid soy, you can use palm oil or soy-free Earth Balance for your ‘butter’. And if you need to avoid coconut, you can use palm oil. If there are no real safe solid fats for you, then avoid it completely!

And remember that the sweetness of your ganache will depend on the sweetness of the chocolate that you use!

What’s the texture like?

While it’s still warm, the ganache has a very mousse-like texture in the mouth, but firms up pretty quickly. If you’re going to be using it between cake layers, you may want to wait until it’s completely cooled before adding layers on top. It can be piped and spread while warm (hello, game-changer!) and holds up well in hot environments – as long as it’s not in direct sunlight or left in a car.

Check out the video below to see how wonderfully it pipes and spreads – while still warm.

Storage

Once it’s made, keep it an airtight container in the fridge for a month or in the freezer for up to six months. Yup! Six months!

Recipe video:

So without further ado, here’s the recipe; let me know what you make with it!

Quick and Easy Vegan Ganache (Water Ganache)

A rich, luscious, and indulgent dairy-free and vegan chocolate ganache. Great for cake drips, pipes like a dream and sets semi-firm. Use it to top cupcakes, frost cakes, sandwich macarons, or eat with a spoon. Super allergy-friendly. Gluten-free. Keto option.

Makes enough ganache to top about four cupcakes, or create a drip and ganache top for a 6" cake.

Prep Time 5 minutes

Cook Time 15 minutes

Additional Time 30 minutes

Total Time 50 minutes

Ingredients

1/2 c (100g) your favorite chocolate*
1/4 c (50ml) your favorite [unsweetened, non-carbonated] beverage**
1 tsp (5g) softened vegan butter (optional)***

Instructions

Measure out your chocolate and liquid, and get your butter out of the fridge (if using). Break up chocolate bars into smaller pieces.
Pour a couple of inches of water into a saucepan and put over a medium-low flame.
Add your chocolate and liquid into a heatproof glass or metal bowl and set it on the saucepan - making sure the bottom doesn't touch the water. If it touches the water, pour some water out until it no longer does.
Using a whisk or rubber spatula, continually stir the chocolate and liquid until the chocolate is fully melted and smooth.
Turn the heat off, remove the bowl from over the pan, and dry the bottom
If using, stir in your butter until incorporated
Line a small pan or bowl with plastic wrap if planning to pipe the ganache later, otherwise get out any reusable bowl with a tight-fitting lid.
If using for a drip, wait until the ganache is around 90F before using a piping bag, squeeze bottle, or spoon to add around the edges of your cake.
Pour the liquid ganache into your container (or piping bag) and allow to sit at room temperature for a half an hour to an hour (depending on the temperature of the room) before piping or spreading on cakes, toast, cookies, and more! It will firm as it cools even more.

Notes

NEW MICROWAVE METHOD!!
Just an FYI: last night I decided to try it in the microwave and it TOTALLY worked.

If you wanna do it that way, microwave your liquid until it’s piping hot, add your chocolate and butter, and stir until it’s smooth! ❤

NOTES:

*I have not encountered any chocolate that doesn't work with this method. My favorites to use are King David vegan candy melts, Enjoy Life semi-sweet chips, and Lily's sugar-free dark chocolate (for keto ganache). Some may contain trace allergens, so check the labels!

**I love using espresso or strong coffee to enhance the chocolate flavor. Other options include your favorite plant milk (soy may curdle due to the acidity of the chocolate, though), tea, or just plain water.

The butter makes the ganache creamier and more rich - but it is totally optional. It may be swapped for shortening, or pure palm oil if avoiding soy, If you prefer not to add a fat, just use a half a teaspoon (2-3ml) additional liquid instead.

You can also mix with nut or seed butters for a peanut butter cup flavor. You may also add various flavoring oils or reductions! Have fun and experiment!

Keep refrigerated in an airtight container for up to a month, or in the freezer for six months.

Recommended Products

As an Amazon Associate and member of other affiliate programs, I earn from qualifying purchases.

Nutrition Information:

Yield:

Serving Size:

1
Amount Per Serving: Calories: 233Total Fat: 13gSaturated Fat: 8gTrans Fat: 0gUnsaturated Fat: 4gCholesterol: 12mgSodium: 41mgCarbohydrates: 25gFiber: 1gSugar: 22gProtein: 3g

Each serving is an estimate of the amount that would be on top of a cupcake. Your piping will vary. These numbers will vary depending on what chocolate and what liquid you use, and whether you decide to add butter/additional fat or not. For keto/sugar-free, Lily's chocolate is your best bet.

Check out some more of my popular dessert recipes!

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Hollow vs Full Macarons

April 25, 2019 // by Meggan Leal// 2 Comments

So many times, seeing people post their macaron-making results, they comment on how they look good and have good feet and smooth tops and are perfect circles and are perfect.. EXCEPT THEYRE HOLLOW.

They weep, they cry, they beg for advice: “How do I get full macs?! How do I make them perfect?? I just want to get rid of the cursed hollows!”

This breaks my heart.

For those worried about their macarons being hollow:

Even the finest macaron bakeries in the world have hollow macs. 99% of the 1% of macs that come out of the oven full do so because of additives like starches or gums, anyway. Not that that’s bad (my macs have tapioca starch in the sugar and I’ve used xanthan gum on stormy days), but you shouldn’t be striving for that because it’s a mystical unicorn.

Sure there are varying techniques in making the meringue or temp spikes and drops, or triple sifting and baking your almond flour, or pulsing it all in a food processor, but honestly? It doesn’t really matter. I promise. And there’s a reason.

If yours are hollow when they come out of the oven? Ain’t no thang. Fill em and pop em in the fridge to mature (this is a vital part of the macaron making process). They get better and better every day for about a week as the filling becomes one with the cookie.

Here’s a look at one of mine opened on the same day vs one of my yellows from three days ago that I just took a bite of; it has filled in considerably and is the yummiest I’ve tasted so far:

So stop crying over your “otherwise perfect” macs that have hollows. Heck, even if they came out lopsided, celebrate that at least one side has a foot! Maybe they don’t have feet, but you made circles? Celebrate that! Maybe they look like amoebas but they taste amaaaazing? CELEBRATE IT! If you’re not celebrating your small victories, maybe that’s whats keeping you from making progress. 😉

Then one day when your macs come out full, look back and celebrate the journey you’ve been on to get there (and teach me how you did it).

May you and your coffee both be strong,

Meggan

Want my recipe for vegan Italian macs? Here ya go!

Vegan Italian Macarons with Aquafaba

March 27, 2019 // by Meggan Leal// 65 Comments

After over a year of trying to perfect the vegan macaron, going through countless recipes and recipe variations, I’ve finally gotten them figured out! And funny enough, it was by jumping off of the very first recipe I had ever tried and making some tweaks.

So first off, I want to thank Jasmine Lukuku over at The Blenderist for figuring her recipe out and sharing it with the world. If you want to check it out, it’s here and it’s wonderful if you’re starting.

Beautiful shells, but lopsided. I needed to figure out how to fix them.

It made some nice macs for me – better than any other published recipe I tried, but they weren’t absolutely perfect. And I need perfect. I want my vegan goodies to be so unbelievably great that even non-vegans and non-allergic people prefer them over the conventional version. So I set out to do that. And this recipe is the result.

If you don’t want to see the step by steps or photos, and don’t care to read my explanations for everything, go ahead and click here to skip down to the recipe card below. Otherwise – buckle up for a wild and crazy ride!

CHAPTER ONE: WHAT IS A MACARON?

The perfect macaron: Beautiful smooth shell with gorgeous ruffled feet that are less than half the height of the shell.

First off, an explanation of what a macaron is and what a macaron isn’t. A macaron is a little cookie made from meringue (traditionally, whipped egg whites and sugar) and almond flour.

There are three varieties of macaron: Italian, French, and Swiss. They are called as such based on what type of meringue is used. Italian meringue adds molten sugar to fluffed egg whites (or in our case, aquafaba fluff). French meringue adds raw sugar into the fluff. And Swiss, the least used method, melts the sugar together with egg whites over a double boiler, and then whips them up together.

No matter the meringue method used, they turn out almost the same – those who don’t make or obsess over macarons would never be able to tell the difference. That said, Italian macarons seem to be the most stable and the easiest to get right for beginners, so that’s where I’m starting in the blog.

Can you tell that these are French macarons? Didn’t think so.

Now, what are they like? I think of the texture as being a bit like a Milky Way candy bar: it has a crisp (but not hard) shell that breaks easily, melts in your mouth, but the whole cookie still has a good bit of chew to it. They are extraordinarily sweet, and the shells can be flavored but usually it’s the filling that gets the flavor and the shells are left to be “plain” sweet almond to compliment the filling.

Macarons also have iconic “feet” – a cute little ruffle along the bottom of the cookie that is formed as steam builds up inside of it during baking, causing it to rise up from the baking tray. The space between the cookie shell and the tray fills in with the raw batter which bubbles from the heat and makes the adorable little frilly feet everyone who makes macarons desperately craves and seeks out in their confections.

I wish I knew whom to credit for this image! If you know, please let me know. It’s genius!

Macarons are not macaroons. Macaroons are also made with meringue, but rather than being mixed with almond flour, macaroon meringue is mixed with shredded coconut. Then they are usually dipped in and/or drizzled with chocolate.

Macarons will self destruct in any manner they see fit. Here are a few examples of my fails.

Macaroons are easy. Macarons are not. Macarons are jerks who don’t like to play nice and you should not feel bad if your first batch does not turn out. Or your second. Or your eleventy sixteenth. That’s just the way this cookie crumbles (or melts, or explodes, or burns, or crystallizes, or implodes, or any other manner of destruction which they might dream up).

I’m hopeful that this guide will help you to succeed right off the bat. But that’s all I can guarantee: that I’m hopeful. I’m going to try to outline my exact process and ingredients, and hopefully it will help you to make beautiful macarons much sooner than a year after you first set out to do it. If not, don’t give up – change up your oven temp, try different brands of ingredients, search the internet for answers. Join my vegan macaron group on Facebook. Feel free to even send me a message to help troubleshoot if they’re really getting to you. We will get you making gorgeous vegan macarons!

My favourites are the ones filled with coffee flavored buttercream!

CHAPTER TWO: OVERVIEW OF INGREDIENTS

Macarons are, at their most basic level, three ingredients: almonds, sugar, and egg whites (aquafaba, in our case). Anything else extra is added to make the process easier and give more consistent results.

My recipe, adapted from that of The Blenderist, consists of almond flour, powdered sugar with tapioca starch added, sugar, garbanzo bean (chickpea) aquafaba, cream of tartar, and/or vinegar. Gel or powder food coloring may also be used.

These are the exact brands I use in case you want to replicate what I do to the T:

• Almond flour: Bob’s Red Mill superfine, blanched [UPDATE: I now use Blue Diamond almond flour, as that’s what Sam’s Club carries. It has worked marvelously!]

• Powdered sugar: H-E-B Organics

• Sugar: Zulka

• Garbanzo beans: Walmart’s Great Value organic

• Cream of Tartar: McCormick

• Vinegar: whatever store brand I have

• Food color: Some of my favorite vegan food coloring options are AmeriColor gels, ProGels, and Artisan Accents gels. Ultimate Baker has an amazing line of powdered colors that are both vegan and all natural, if you prefer the natural route! Make sure you use gels or powders though, not liquid.

As far as the almond flour goes, I have also heard great things about Costco’s Kirkland brand flour. I would not recommend Nature’s Eats brand as it has large pieces and doesn’t pass through the sieve well. ~~I also don’t recommend Blue Diamond brand because it is quite oily and will result in splotchy, fragile macarons.~~ [UPDATE: I now use Blue Diamond and have been having fantastic results!]

For powdered sugar, if you’re not fortunate enough to live in Texas and have an H-E-B nearby, Wholesome 365 has an identical organic powdered sugar with tapioca starch added. If you don’t need a vegan sugar, any powdered sugar should work – whether it has corn starch, tapioca starch, or no starch at all.

The same goes for the granulated sugar; I use Zulka because it is made without bone char. If you’re not concerned about bone char use in your sugar, any granulated sugar should work fine.

For your aquafaba (aquafaba is the cooking liquid from beans – NOT the soaking liquid. It can either be the broth from homemade beans, or be poured from a can of beans) any canned or homemade aquafaba should work. As long as you’ve whipped it up successfully before, consider it a worthy candidate for macarons. I’ve also never noticed a difference in results from salted vs unsalted. I use the Great Value organic garbanzos because they have pop-tops and are easier for me to open.

As far as your cream of tartar and vinegar go, they are acids and help to stabilize the meringue. I don’t think the brand matters at all here, I just grab whatever is easiest to reach and is the cheapest. If you can’t find cream of tartar, then just use vinegar in its place. We will also use the vinegar to wipe out our mixing bowl which will help with the fluffing process.

CHAPTER THREE: OVERVIEW OF SUPPLIES

Check out my Amazon Shop to browse all the ingredients and supplies I actually use and recommend.

First of all, you need an oven. You don’t need a fancy one, but you do need one that can hold a consistent temperature. Make sure you’ve tested the internal temperature with a reliable oven thermometer (here’s one that’s NSF certified in case you need that). Macarons will fail if the temperature is even two degrees one way or another; it needs to be exact and it needs to be consistent. My oven offers both conventional and convection baking. For my macarons, I use the conventional setting – NOT the convection/fan setting. I’m working on figuring out what temp convection needs to be on in order for the macs to turn out, but I haven’t gotten it yet. I will update once I do. The heat from my oven also comes from the bottom coils.

Second, a working stovetop.

Third of all, you need a mixer with a whisk attachment. I recommend having a stand mixer because it’s going to be going for a loooooong while. I have two KitchenAid stand mixers: a smaller tilt-head mixer and a larger Professional Series mixer with a lever to raise and lower the bowl. Unless you’re going to be making a double batch, I highly recommend using the smaller mixer. While it’s possible to use the larger one, the whisk has a harder time reaching the aquafaba to whip it up. If you don’t have a stand mixer, you can totally use a handheld mixer! Just expect to be standing there holding it for a while.

You absolutely need a kitchen scale that weighs grams.

A large metal or glass mixing bowl.

A fine mesh sieve. I use metal, and have never had luck with the plastic ones.

A silicone spatula.

A small, very clean saucepan.

A food thermometer that goes up to at least 400°F. I have a thermometer with a probe that connects to a timer. I can set a target temperature and it will alert me when it reaches it. I got it for about $15 at my local grocery store, and I highly recommend it because you can walk away from the stove and focus on other things without worrying about burning your sugar. A conventional candy thermometer will work just fine, however.

Next, you need piping bags. I love my tipless bags I grab from Amazon, but any piping bags will do. These are the bags I use:

Mseeur 200 Pcs Disposable Cream Pastry Bag

As far as tips go, yes I use them. With my tipless bags. I know it sounds like an oxymoron, but as I said earlier – I want perfect macs, and to get those perfect circles I need to use tips. I use Wilton 10 and 12. These are smaller than most people use but I’ve found the smaller the tip, the fewer bubbles I get in my macarons. If you don’t want to use tips, feel free to snip the bags so you have an opening about 3/8 to 1/2″ wide. If you want to use tips, grab a few here:

Wilton 12 Round Decorating Tip

A tall glass with a wide mouth. This will help you fill your piping bags with batter.

Light colored aluminum cookie sheets or baking pans. I have commercial half sheet pans that I bought at Sam’s Club. You can use any light colored aluminum pans you have, though. I’ve even used upside down cake pans! These are the types of pans I use:

Nordicware Natural Aluminum Commercial Baker’s Half Sheet (2 Pack), Silver

Silicone mats or parchment paper to line your baking pans with. I recommend silicone mats. Parchment paper will cause your macarons to cook into oblong shapes with wrinkled bottoms. They will be just as delicious, but not perfect. You may also have to adjust your cooking time with parchment since the macarons will cook quicker and burn easier. Mats are relatively cheap on Amazon. The ones I use are these:

Macaron Silicone Baking Mat – Set of 2

A cooling rack.

And finally, probably the most important supply: Patience. A lot of it. Sorry I don’t have an Amazon link for that. 😉

CHAPTER FOUR: PREP

1) Reducing your aquafaba:

The first thing you need to do is prep your aquafaba. If you’re using canned beans, give them a quick shake to distribute all the proteins first. Drain the beans and add the liquid to a saucepan. If you’re using homemade, you need at least 225ml. I don’t like to be exact here though, and usually make a big batch so I don’t have to prep aquafaba every time I make macarons. All we are going to do here is reduce our aquafaba by about a third. I eyeball it. It’s totally fine if you do, too. I do it on a low simmer so that it doesn’t boil up and over. That cleanup is not fun.

Also, if your reduced aquafaba isn’t gelatinous, that’s totally fine! It won’t be unless you refrigerate it (which I don’t do before I use it. It just use it!). I refrigerate the leftover aquafaba if I’m going to be making more macs in the next couple of days, otherwise I freeze it.

My reduced aquafaba. I judge by the line around the pan as to when it’s been reduced by about a third.

2) Cleaning your mixing bowl and whisk:

Even the smallest speck of grease or fat of any kind will kill your meringue before it even starts. To prevent this, make sure you wash them really well in hot water with a good lathering dish soap. Dry them with a clean paper towel, and then pour about a teaspoon of vinegar into the bowl. Using your paper towel, wipe the vinegar all over the inside of the bowl and then use the same paper towel to wipe down the tines of your whisk. It’s also a good idea to wipe down your silicone mats with your vinegar, too.

Skipping this step may mean your aquafaba never fluffs up.

3) Having all your supplies at hand:

Once you get started with the recipe, you need everything at arm’s length and ready to go. This isn’t something you can walk away from for long. Make sure all the dishes you’ll need are washed and dry and that you have all the ingredients you’ll be using.

CHAPTER FIVE: MAKE THE MACARONS!

Ingredients:

150g reduced aquafaba
200g granulated sugar
1/4c water
200g powdered sugar
200g almond flour
1/4 tsp cream of tartar OR 1 tsp vinegar

Method:

1) Preheat your oven to 310°F if you’re using silicon mats, 300°F if you’re using parchment paper.

2) Add 75g of reduced aquafaba to your mixer’s bowl along with your cream of tartar or vinegar. Turn the mixer up to medium high speed. You want to get it to soft peaks. That means that when you lift the whisk out of the fluff, it forms little mountains that fall over and wiggle a lot. They remind me of the waves in Japanese art.

75g of reduced aquafaba goes into the mixer bowl. I used 1tsp of vinegar for this batch because I ran out of cream of tartar.

3) While your fluff is fluffing, pour your granulated sugar into your clean saucepan along with 1/4 cup of water and put it over medium low heat. Do not stir. Add your thermometer – making sure the actual thermometer doesn’t touch the bottom of the pan but sits in the middle of your sugar mixture. We want to bring this to 245°F. I set my target temp for 225°F so that I can check my aquafaba fluff to see if it’s at soft peaks yet. If it’s not, I turn the heat down to low under the sugar and kick the mixer speed up by one.

200g of granulated sugar. Make sure the pan is extremely clean or it may burn.

4) While waiting on all of this to happen, measure out your dry ingredients. Use your spatula to push 200g of powdered sugar and 200g of almond flour through your sieve into a large mixing bowl.

200g of powdered sugar. (ok, 201. whatever.)

200g of almond flour.

Mixed together.

4) Once your sugar reaches 245°F, take it to your fluff and slowly pour it in while the mixer is on medium. Don’t worry about the sugar that sticks to the sides of the bowl. Turn the mixer back up to medium high and let it go until the outside of the bowl feels cool to the touch. At this point, the meringue should be glossy and white and it will be ribbony and sticky when you lift the whisk out of it.

5) Pour in the remaining 75g of aquafaba into the dry mix and combine it well. Congratulations, you’ve just made marzipan!

75g of reduced aquafaba added to the dry mix.

We now have almond paste! AKA marzipan!

6) Remove the mixer bowl, and using your spatula move 1/2 of the meringue into your marzipan, being careful not to grab any of the candied sugar on the sides of the bowl. Stir it until it’s mixed well and you don’t see any white meringue or chunks of marzipan.

Mixing the marzipan and the first half of the meringue. I added a few drops of AmeriColor “violet” into this.

7) Now is the part where you need to be careful. The macaronage. Macaronage is the careful folding of the meringue into your almond mixture so that we can knock out just enough air to form a perfect macaron batter.

Add the rest of your meringue into your almond mixture – again, being careful not to grab any of the candy bits on the side of the bowl. Tilt your bowl 3/4 on its side so that the batter slides down from the bottom of the bowl and rests along the side. This way, gravity is going to help us with the folding.

Use your spatula to scrape along from the top of the bowl, around the side, around the bottom, and back up the other side to the top of the the bowl. You should be cleanly picking up the whole mixture and folding it over onto itself. Do this gently until everything is incorporated. The batter should be relatively thick at this point. If you want to add gel color, you can do it now. You can add up to a teaspoon and it shouldn’t affect the macarons.

Now, alternate between smushing the batter along the sides of the bowl and scraping and folding – slowly and gently, until you can lift the batter with the spatula and draw a figure 8 with the batter that falls off. Once you can do this, STOP. Your batter is done. Err on the side of undermixed if you’re not sure.

I can make a figure 8 with my batter falling off the spatula, so this is where I stop mixing. It’s ready to bag!

8) Line a tall glass with your prepared piping bag/tip (just like a bag in a trash can). If using a tip, I like to twist the bag just above the tip and smush the twist down into the tip. This prevents batter from leaking out. Pour your batter into the bag and either twist or tie it closed. There should be enough batter to fill the bag two or three times. Cover what’s left in the bowl so that it doesn’t dry out.

9) Grab your prepped baking pan lined with a silicone mat or parchment (but remember that with parchment the cookies won’t come out as perfect circles).

Holding the piping bag perfectly perpendicular (up and down) to the baking pan, gently squeeze until you’ve made a circle about an inch in diameter. Stop squeezing, and quickly make a small circle with the piping tip as you lift it. This will prevent your macarons from having nipples.

Pipe your next macaron about 2.5″ from your first one. Continue until you’ve filled your tray.

Freshly piped macarons. And my babies in the background.

10) Now comes the fun part! You’re going to slam the tray down on a flat surface to bring all the bubbles up and out of your macs. I like to do it two or three times on one side of the tray, rotate, another two or three times, rotate, so on and so forth until I feel like the bubbles are all gone. I probably hit the tray around 20-30 times. If you have stubborn bubbles, you can pop them with a toothpick, clean sewing needle, or cookie scribe.

11) Once you’re done slamming the tray and popping bubbles, set your tray on a flat surface and wait for the macarons to form a dry skin. This is imperative because without the skin, the macarons will probably explode in the oven. This skin keeps all the steam inside the cookie and allows them to lift and form feet. I like to set mine on the (now cool) stovetop with the exhaust fan running above them.

12) Once you see that the cookies are no longer shiny and you can lightly run your finger along the surface without it sticking to you, set a timer for 20 minutes. Once that goes off, put your cookies into the oven on the lowest rack (if using parchment, you may need to use the middle rack). Set another 20 minute timer (22 if you’re using parchment).

Now sit impatiently outside of your oven, staring into its belly hoping and praying that your macs form feet (around 6-7 minutes is when this should happen) and that they don’t explode. If your oven has hot spots, you may want to rotate your tray at about 12 minutes.

Watching them in the oven without blinking.

At 20 minutes, the feet should appear dry (no longer shiny) and if you give one a gentle poke with your finger, it shouldn’t jiggle.

13) Pull the tray out and set it on a cooling rack. Do not attempt to remove your macarons yet! Wait until they are totally cool, and they should peel right off. If they don’t, pop the tray in the freezer for 3-5 minutes and then they will.

14) Find matching pairs and fill with whatever your heart desires – buttercream and ganache are the most common fillings. I’m also a fan of cookie butter. If you plan on using something a bit more wet like jam or curd, form a barrier on the cookie with some buttercream or chocolate first so that it doesn’t make the macaron soggy. Put into an airtight container and IF YOU CAN, place them into the fridge for at least 24 hours before enjoying. This process is called maturation and it helps to fill hollow spaces in the shell and lets all the flavors mingle and marry and become infinitely yummier.

Finished macarons ready to pop into the fridge for maturation.

If you can’t wait that long, they’re perfectly yummy straight away though.

This recipe makes between 70 and 85 shells depending on how large you pipe them. They can be put into an airtight container and refrigerated up to a week and frozen for up to six months.

Three Hour Video Tutorial:

Join me as I make a batch of macarons, from beginning to end.

Pin it for Later:

5 from 9 votes

Vegan Italian Macarons with Aquafaba

Allergy and vegan-friendly macaron cookies.

Course Dessert

Cuisine Italian

Ingredients

150 g reduced aquafaba see recipe notes above
1/4 c water
200 g granulated sugar
200 g powdered sugar
200 g almond flour
1 tsp vinegar OR
1/4 tsp cream of tartar

Instructions

Preheat your oven to 310°F.
Add 75g of reduced aquafaba to your mixer’s bowl along with your cream of tartar or vinegar. Turn the mixer up to medium high speed. You want to get it to soft peaks. That means that when you lift the whisk out of the fluff, it forms little mountains that fall over and wiggle a lot. They remind me of the waves in Japanese art.
While your fluff is fluffing, pour your granulated sugar into your clean saucepan along with 1/4 cup of water and put it over medium low heat. Do not stir. Add your thermometer – making sure the actual thermometer doesn’t touch the bottom of the pan but sits in the middle of your sugar mixture. We want to bring this to 245°F. I set my target temp for 225°F so that I can check my aquafaba fluff to see if it’s at soft peaks yet. If it’s not, I turn the heat down to low under the sugar and kick the mixer speed up by one.
While waiting on all of this to happen, measure out your dry ingredients. Use your spatula to push 200g of powdered sugar and 200g of almond flour through your sieve into a large mixing bowl. Give it a good stir with your spatula until they look well combined.
Once your sugar reaches 245°F, take it to your fluff and slowly pour it in while the mixer is on medium. Don’t worry about the sugar that sticks to the sides of the bowl. Turn the mixer back up to medium high and let it go until the outside of the bowl feels cool to the touch. At this point, the meringue should be glossy and white and it will be ribbony and sticky when you lift the whisk out of it.
Pour in the remaining 75g of aquafaba into the dry mix and combine it well.
Remove the mixer bowl, and using your spatula move 1/2 of the meringue into your marzipan, being careful not to grab any of the candied sugar one the sides of the bowl. Stir it until it’s mixed well and you don’t see any white meringue or chunks of marzipan.
Add the rest of your meringue into your almond mixture – again, being careful not to grab any of the candy bits on the side of the bowl. Tilt your bowl 3/4 on its side so that the batter slides down from the bottom of the bowl and rests along the side. This way, gravity is going to help us with the folding.
Use your spatula to scrape along from the top of the bowl, around the side, around the bottom, and back up the other side to the top of the the bowl. You should be cleanly picking up the whole mixture and folding it over onto itself. Do this gently until everything is incorporated. The batter should be relatively thick at this point. If you want to add gel color, you can do it now. You can add up to a teaspoon and it shouldn’t affect the macarons.
Now, alternate between smushing the batter along the sides of the bowl and scraping and folding – slowly and gently, until you can lift the batter with the spatula and draw a figure 8 with the batter that falls off. Once you can do this, STOP. Your batter is done.
Line a tall glass with your prepared piping bag/tip (just like a bag in a trash can). If using a tip, I like to twist the bag just above the tip and smush the twist down into the tip. This prevents batter from leaking out. Pour your batter into the bag and either twist or tie it closed. There should be enough batter to fill the bag two or three times. Cover what’s left in the bowl so that it doesn’t dry out.
Grab your prepped baking pan lined with a silicone mat (or parchment if you haven’t gotten a mat yet, but remember you may have to adjust your baking time and your cookies won’t come out as perfect circles).
Holding the piping bag perfectly perpendicular (up and down) to the baking pan, gently squeeze until you’ve made a circle about an inch in diameter. Stop squeezing, and quickly make a small circle with the piping tip as you lift it. This will prevent your macarons from having nipples.
Pipe your next macaron about 2.5″ from your first one. Continue until you’ve filled your tray.
Slam the tray down on a flat surface to bring all the bubbles up and out of your macs. I like to do it two or three times on one side of the tray, rotate, another two or three times, rotate, so on and so forth until I feel like the bubbles are all gone. I probably hit the tray around 20-30 times. If you have stubborn bubbles, you can pop them with a toothpick, clean sewing needle, or cookie scribe.
Set your tray on a flat surface and wait for the macarons to form a dry skin. This is imperative because without the skin, the macarons will probably explode in the oven. This skin keeps all the steam inside the cookie and allows them to lift and form feet. I like to set mine on the (now cool) stovetop with the exhaust fan running above them.
Once you see that the cookies are no longer shiny and you can lightly run your finger along the surface without it sticking to you, set a timer for 20 minutes. Once that goes off, put your cookies into the oven on the lowest rack (if using parchment, you may need to use the middle rack).
Bake the macarons for 20 minutes. If your oven has hot spots, rotate the tray at around 12 minutes.
After 20 minutes, pull the tray out and set it on a cooling rack. Do not attempt to remove your macarons yet! Wait until they are totally cool, and they should peel right off. If they don’t, pop the tray in the freezer for 3-5 minutes and then they will.
Find matching pairs and fill with whatever your heart desires.
Put into an airtight container and IF YOU CAN, place them into the fridge for at least 24 hours before enjoying.
This recipe makes between 70 and 85 shells depending on how large you pipe them. They can be put into an airtight container and refrigerated up to a week and frozen for up to six months.

Recipe Video

Allergy-Friendly and Vegan Pastry Recipes:

Vegan Royal Icing

December 20, 2018 // by Meggan Leal// 23 Comments

Fiiiiinally I’ve got this recipe posted for you all! Thanks for your patience, and sorry for the delay – but I think you’ll find it worth it!

This is my version of a vegan aquafaba royal icing. It dries hard and is suitable to decorate my no-chill, no-spread, vegan rolled sugar cookies with, can hold together a gingerbread house, can be used to decorate cake, can be painted on with edible paints or gel colors mixed with strong alcohol, and is easily colored, flavored, and manipulated to suit your needs (as I’ll get into in a later post).

Scroll down to get the recipe or just take a look at the video here if you prefer that method:

Some gorgeous cookies I made with royal icing for a baby shower; these were actually colored with homemade Skittles vodka!

Equipment:

So here are the things you’ll need:

Stand or hand mixer with a large bowl
Rubber/silicone spatula (more than one is preferred if you’ll be mixing multiple colors)

Ingredients:

One can of garbanzo beans
Vegan powdered/confectioner’s sugar
Vinegar, lemon juice, or cream of tartar
Water or lemon juice
Gel or powdered food coloring, if using

The Method

The method is really quite simple:

1. Drain (and keep!) the water from your garbanzo beans. This is known as “aquafaba” and is our egg white substitute in this recipe. Put the beans away for something else.

2. Add about 1/4 cup of the aquafaba to your mixing bowl. The rest can be put into the fridge for up to a week or the freezer for three months.

3. Add about 1 tsp of vinegar (or a 1/8 tsp cream of tartar or 1 tsp lemon juice if you don’t have it) and the aquafaba and mix with a whisk attachment (you’ll see in my photos I have the paddle attachment connected – these photos are from before I knew better) just until frothy.

4. Add about a pound of powdered (confectioner’s) sugar to the bowl, and mix on low until incorporated.

5. Stop the mixer and add in another few cups of sugar, and mix on low until incorporated. Add more powdered sugar to the bowl a cup at a time, mixing on low between additions, until the mixture is about the consistency of school glue. Add in your 1 tsp of vanilla and white gel coloring at this stage.

6. Turn your mixer on medium high and let it go for about 8 minutes. You’ll end up with the perfect stiff consistency royal icing for piping words and fine details.

7. Thin your royal icing with water or fresh lemon juice (my favorite) to desired consistency. Thicken it with powdered sugar if you need to pipe flowers, use stencils, or glue gingerbread. You can also add any gel or powdered food color at this stage. I’ll add another post later getting more into coloring and consistencies, so be on the lookout for that.

That’s it! It’s that easy! You can keep the prepared icing at room temperature in a sealed container or bag for up to a week, in the fridge for a month, or in the freezer for pretty much forever. Just make sure to stir it well before you use as the water will start to separate from the marshmallow fluff you’ve created.

Consistency Tutorial:

This recipe will make AT LEAST a couple dozen cookies’ worth of icing. Us cookiers are always making too much icing because we really have no idea how many cookies it covers. Lol.

Have fun and please share your creations with me on Facebook!

Pin it for later:

Vegan Royal Icing

An eggless royal icing made with aquafaba. It can be used in all the same ways as tradition egg white royal, including decorating cookies, gluing gingerbread houses, decorating cakes, and making sprinkles and royal icing transfers.

Course Dessert

Prep Time 12 minutes

Total Time 12 minutes

Author Meggan Leal

Ingredients

1/4 cup ish Aquafaba (the cooking or canned liquid from beans; I prefer garbanzo)
2 lbs ish Powdered/Confectioner’s Sugar
1 tsp ish Vinegar (may be substituted with cream of tartar or lemon juice)
1 tsp ish Vanilla (I use clear for bright white icing, but you can use natural)
1.5 tsp ish Gel or Powdered Food Coloring (optional, though I always add AmeriColor Bright White to mine)
Water or Lemon Juice to thin prepared icing

Instructions

Add about a teaspoon of vinegar to your mixing bowl
Pour in about a 1/4 cup of aquafaba
Mix on medium to high speed with a whisk attachment just until the top of your aquafaba is frothy/foamy
Turn off the mixer and add in about a pound of your powdered sugar (half a standard sized bag)
Turn the mixer on low until the sugar is mostly incorporated into the aquafaba
Turn the mixer off and add half of what’s remaining of your powdered sugar
Turn the mixer on low until everything is incorporated
Turn the mixer off and lift the whisk to check the consistency of your icing. We are trying to get a school-glue type consistency. If it’s not there yet, add more powdered sugar about a cup at a time until you achieve it
Once you achieve the school-glue consistency, add about a teaspoon of vanilla and a teaspoon and a half of white gel coloring (if you’re using it)
Turn the mixer up to medium-high speed and let it go for about eight minutes
After eight minutes or so, turn the mixer off. You should have nice, stiff royal icing! It’s perfect for coloring and thinning out to decorate cookies or thickening up for flowers, or using as is for writing and other fine detail work.
Store the icing in an airtight container right away – it dries out very quickly – at room temperature for up to a week, in the fridge for a month, or the freezer for pretty much as long as you want

Recipe Notes

Find a video tutorial on our YouTube channel!