Recipe: Raspberry Macaroons

Happy Valentine's Day!  Wishing you raspberry macaroons and a romantic dinner somewhere! 

Hope it is a great one!

Raspberry Macaroons:

adapted slightly from Delightfully Tacky

3 egg whites

1/4 cup white sugar

2 cups powdered sugar

1 cup of almond flour (I ground up slivered almonds in my food processor, and that worked quite well)

a pinch of salt

1/4 tsp cream of tarter
2 drops of red food coloring

Mix together the flour and powdered sugar.

Put the egg whites in your kitchen aid or use a hand mixer to blend until they begin to foam, then add the white sugar, the salt and the cream of tarter and beat until they begin to form stiff peaks.  Add food coloring.  Then add the half the flour/sugar mixture and carefully mix with a rubber spatula, then add the second half of the flour/sugar mixture and gently fold in until no streaks remain.  Be careful not to overmix.

Line two baking sheets with silicone mats.  Fill a ziploc bag with the mixture and cut a small hole in the corner. Pipe out circles that are about 1" wide until all the mixture is gone.
Leave these out at room temperature for about an hour to set.

Preheat your oven to 300 degrees.  Put 1 pan in the oven for 20 minutes.  They should slide come easily off the mat when they are finished.  If they don't, put them in for another 3-4 minutes.
While the shells are baking, make the filling.

Raspberry Filling
1/4 cup butter (softened)
1 1/4 cup powdered sugar (you may need a little less or a little more, depending on how thick you want your filling to be.  The original recipe called for 3/4 cup, and I almost doubled that because the filling was so runny)
1 cup fresh or thawed frozen raspberries

Put the raspberries in the blender and blend until they make a nice red sauce.  Use a strainer or cheesecloth to strain out the seeds.  Discard the seeds and keep the juice.  In a kitchen aid or mixing bowl,  mix the butter until smooth and fluffy.  Add the powdered sugar slowly until the filling begins to thicken.  Add 3 tbs of raspberry juice and mix until just combined and fluffy.  You want it to be a tiny bit stiff.  Put filling in a ziploc bag and cut a hole in the corner.  When the macaroon shells come out of the oven, let them cool for about 15 minutes, and then flip them over, and onto half of them, pipe out the filling, and put a lid without filling on each and voila! You can feel oh-so-French while you eat them!