Flower Macarons

This is really just a mini-post about a technique I tried out for dressing up macaron shells. Sure, you can use food coloring to tint the shells pretty pastel colors, and you can make teddy bear faces, but did you know you can also apply many wet-on-wet icing techniques to make pretty designs on them before baking?

To make these flower macarons I tinted my batter into several different shades. I started by piping a small “kiss” of batter, about 2/3 the diameter of the finished macaron. I let it spread a little, then piped another “kiss” in the center of the circle of batter in another color and let it flatten out.

Then I took a toothpick and drew a line from the outermost edge of the batter to the center. I cleaned the toothpick and drew another and another, until I had a five-petaled flower design. Then I used my final color and piped a tiny dot in the center.

Adorable, no? You can do a marbled effect by dragging your toothpick randomly through blobs of color, or drag a toothpick through tiny dots to make hearts. The design doesn’t distort much at all in the oven, so have fun!