These pie macarons are so classic American with cherry, blueberry, and apple pie filling, a cookie crumble, and cookie flavored buttercream. We celebrated the 4th of July with these very American flavored and themed macarons!
Tools you’ll need
To make the shells you’ll need a mixer with a whisk attachment, sifter, kitchen scale, baking pans with mats or parchment paper, oven thermometer, piping bags, wilton tip number 12. For the crumbles you want a food processor or high speed blender, baking tray, parchment paper, and a cutting board and knife to chop it up. The buttercream is made with regular kitchen tools, or in your mixer.
For the macaron shells
You will need to make macaron shells. If this is the first time you’re making macarons I suggest you read through my whole post on my macaron shell recipe post. I chose to color mine red, white, and blue using my americolor gels. If you’re looking to purchase gel colors I recommend their student kit (it’s what I started out with) and then slowly buying the larger bottles as you run out. The macaron shell recipe will be included in a recipe card at the bottom.
For the Pie filling
Because there are so many components to make for this recipe I chose to purchase pie fillings. You will need very little of it unless you’re making large amounts. I’m planning to make a cake with the left overs.
For the Cookie Crumble
I chose to use oats for this so it could be kept gluten free and I also really love the taste of oats. The salt is really important in this because it gives it pie crust taste when it’s all combined together.
You begin by putting the oats in your food processor or high speed blender and blitzing it until it becomes a flour. Add the other ingredients in and let it all combine. It goes on a lined cookie sheet and bakes up nice and crisp. It will spread and melt together and look like a large chipless cookie. Let it cool completely then chop it up in small pieces. Do a good job of chopping it up so you don’t have too much trouble closing your shells.
For the buttercream
You can easily make this small amount of buttercream in a medium bowl which is what I chose to do. Your mixer will work wonderfully as well. Put softened butter in a bowl and mix it well until smooth. Add your sugars and salt and stir to combine them. Now add your extract and cream and combine until it’s smooth. Bag the buttercream up. I chose to use piping tip number 12 (the same I pipe my macarons with). You can definitely just cut a small tip off your bag if desired.
To Assemble
Match your shells into pairs trying to make sure the pairs are even. Pipe a ring around the edge of a macaron shell. You want the buttercream ring to be able to seal the cookie with the amount of filling these get. To put the filling in, depending on which filling you’re using you may need to cut the fruit smaller. The apples needed to be cut small and the cherries needed to be cut in half. The blueberries were the perfect size. Scoop up a small amount and add it to the center of the buttercream circle.
Then sprinkle over a little bit of the cookie crumble. Depending on the amount of filling your shells have you may want to “dimple” the bottom of the shell that will go on top. Gently push it in with your thumbs, this will make a little more space for all that filling. Store them in an airtight container in the refrigerator and eat them at room temp.
Pie macarons
Equipment
- mixer with whisk attachment
- kitchen scale
- oven thermometer
- aluminum baking pans
- macaron mats
- bowls
- spatula
- piping bags
- #12 piping tip
Ingredients
Macaron Shells
- recipe card follows
Pie filling
- canned fruit pie filling of choice, I chose cherry, blueberry, and apple
Cookie Crumble
- 1 cup oats
- 1/2 cup brown sugar
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp vanilla
- 1/4 cup unsalted butter, softened
Small batch Cookie Flavored Buttercream
- 1/4 cup unsalted butter, softened
- 1 cup confectioners sugar
- 1/3 cup brown sugar
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp vanilla
- 2 tsp heavy cream
Instructions
To make the cookie crumble
- Preheat the oven to 375 degrees and line a baking sheet with parchment. I used a 1/4 sheet pan.
- Add the oats to your food processor or high speed blender and blitz until it looks like oat flour.
- Add the rest of the ingredients and blitz until it clumps up.
- Distribute the mixture evenly over the tray. It will spread in the oven. Bake at 375 for 8-10 minutes or until golden brown.
- Let it cool completely then chop it up into small pieces that will fit into your macarons.
- Store in an airtight container until ready to use.
To make the buttercream
- Add the softened butter to a medium bowl and beat it with a whisk until smooth.
- Add your sugars and salt and combine with a spatula.
- Add the vanilla and cream and combine until smooth.
To Assemble
- Empty the pie filling into a bowl. If needed (depending on the fruit chosen) chop the fruit into smaller pieces. For example apples will need to be chopped, cherries will likely need to be halved. Blueberries we're fine as is.
- Bag the buttercream into a piping bag and snip the end or use piping tip #12.
- Pair up macaron shells so they have even tops and bottoms.
- Pipe a buttercream ring around the outside of the shell. The ring should be tall enough to hold in the filling and seal the cookies.
- Scoop in a small piece of pie filling.
- Add some crumbles on top of the filling, avoiding large pieces.
- You may want to dimple the bottom of the shell that will go on top by gently pushing in the bottom of the shell to make more room for filling.
- Place the top cookie on and make sure the buttercream seals the cookie closed.
- Store in an airtight container in the fridge until ready to serve.
No Rest French Macaron Shells
Equipment
- mixer with whisk attachment
- silicone baking mat or parchment
- aluminum baking trays
- sifter
- spatula
- kitchen scale
- oven thermometer
- piping bag with nozzle
Ingredients
- 120 g egg whites, straight from fridge is ok
- 115 g granulated sugar
- 5 g egg white powder
- 180 g confectioners sugar
- 190 g Almond flour, Blue Diamond or Kirkland brand is best
Instructions
Making the Meringue
- Preheat your oven to 305 degrees, you must use an oven thermometer for this.*
- In a bowl combine your granulated sugar and egg white powder and stir so that it is combined totally, we do this so the egg white powder doesn't clump when added in the liquid egg white.
- Measure out your egg whites and put them into your mixer bowl. I like to use the two bowl method to prevent having to waste other eggs if a yolk breaks, the fat from the yolk will ruin meringue. Crack one in a separate bowl, if there are no issues put it in the mixer bowl to be weighed. Then repeat.**
- Add the sugar mixture to the egg whites and get your mixer ready with the whisk attachment.
- Start your mixer on the lowest setting and give it about 10 seconds, you're going to do about 10 seconds at each setting until you hit 6 or medium high and then you will let it go until it's ready. I timed mine once and it took about 6 minutes but the amount of time it takes can vary for many reasons.
- We stop it when it is stiff peaks, we do not go past the peaks stage to the shaving cream phase. When you detach your whisk and circle it around in the meringue you will feel slight resistance, when you pull it up from that circle it will pull and make a peak, when you flip that whisk straight up, the peak will curl over.
- While your meringue is working in the mixer, weigh and sift your almond flour and sugar. Do not force ingredients though the sifter.
Macaronage
- When the meringue is ready, remove the bowl from the mixer and add all of the dry ingredients in. Start moving the dry ingredients around to incorporate it some. Don't worry about the meringue, it will be fine. Once it's a little more manageable, (this is where I like to add gel color drops if I'm coloring it) I like to start spreading it on the sides of the bowl, then take my spatula to collect it all back to the bottom center by taking the side of the spatula with pressure around the bowl and down, when my spatula is at the bottom center, I scoop upwards to see how well the batter is flowing. I repeat this process until the batter is ready. In the beginning stages, when the batter is spread on the side of the bowl, you can run your spatula back and forth over the batter to work out some air. Each time I spread my batter on the side of the bowl, I note the amount of (popped) air pockets that seem to be present. It will decrease as you go. The batter is ready when the air pockets are reduced to few (some are ok we don't want it totally deflated) and when the batter is able to flow off the spatula after a circle and scoop mentioned above. This batter is very thick and will not become runny like a traditional rest recipe. It will not flow like lava, so do not over macaranage tying to get it like a traditional macaron.
- Bag the batter into either 1 large piping bag, or 2 medium with a nozzle of your choice***
Piping the Shells
- Place your silicone mat on your upside down aluminum tray. Pipe one tray at a time. I usually start piping my second tray when the first has about 6 minutes left.
- Begin piping by placing your bag straight up and down, a 90 degree angle from the pan. To end piping, keeping your nozzle at about the same angle, you'll want to make a quick swirl. If you notice that you've made a nipple or unsmooth section, after piping a few, set you bag down and work them smooth using a toothpick, don't wait until you've piped the whole tray because the tops do dry out a bit and it is much harder to fix later. My mats have 3 circle outlines, I like to pipe just past the second, almost to the 3rd circle. You can manipulate how tall or flat the shells are to an extent with how you pipe it, you will get a feel for that as you go.
- Once they're all piped you can tap the bottom of the tray or drop it on the counter a few times to work air out and smooth those little holes over with a toothpick. If all the steps above were just right there will be very few that you need to fix.
Baking
- Check your oven temp, if it's ready you can place them in the oven. I plan to bake mine at 305 for 14 min. I check my oven temp throughout. It usually fluctuates between 295-310 throughout and it takes 14-15 min in my oven.*
- Watch them inside the oven, around half way though they start to puff up and get feet, then towards the end the feet will start to shorten. I like to check for doneness a few minutes before my timer so that they don't over bake (every tray can be slightly different). I check with he wiggle test. Carefully open the oven, gently tap the side of the top part of the shell, if it moves easily it needs more time. I consider my tray done perfect if a shell on the outside of the tray does not wiggle at all, but a shell on the inside has a tiny wiggle.
- When they are done remove them and set them on a cooling rack for a few minutes. Then carefully remove the pan leaving them to cool completely on the silicone mat, on the rack.
- Once they are totally cool, you can remove them. They should release very easily. Especially the outside of the mat. If the ones on the inside has a slight stick, I find it best to bend the silicone mat to help it peel away. If they are sticking to the mat, they are undercooked and you should increase your cook time next time.
- Fill them and let them mature in an airtight container in the fridge. I sometimes have a small gap that fills in once they have matured in the fridge by absorbing some liquid from the filling. A small gap is not the same thing as a hollow and is totally acceptable in a macaron.
Those macarons are amazing! They taste so good and the apple pie macarons are my favorite
Aw thank you sweet Clara!