After so many years of blogging, and going through old recipe scribblings, I was stunned that I had never published a “macaron” recipe, which is probably one of the desserts I made the most often, before even beginning the blog, so here it is, a greek version and it’s very surprisingly & pleasantly different & not that difficult !

The macarons I used to make were the paler almond powder cookie shells with vanilla cream as well as darker cocoa shells with nutella cream filling and sometimes espresso flavored versions too. I have never used versions that require food coloring, but who knows ? For the time being, I keep them as natural as possible and not particularly fruity, except for these versions.

For those of you who are most familiar with “baklava” (see recipe here) and perhaps less familiar with “melomakarona” (see recipe here), it’s useful to know that many Greek (and Balkan and North African and Turkish and Levantine desserts) desserts resemble one another, at least in their flavor profiles. 

The flavors used are mostly lemon and/or orange, butter and/or olive oil, with spices like cinnamon, clove, allspice and nutmeg and vanilla and often accentuated with thyme honey, mastic resin, orange blossom or rose or geranium water and of course, the subtler flavor of the nuts used, whether almonds, pistachios, hazelnuts and the most common in Greece, which are walnuts.

This macaron cookie shell recipe uses a mostly Greek flavor profile (resembling both baklava and melomakarona) with walnut powder instead of almond powder (that will require additional drying out in the oven because whole walnut kernels are more humid and fattier) and later combined with cinnamon, clove, nutmeg, allspice, vanilla and icing sugar and finally mixed with a hot sugar meringue.

There are two fillings, a fruity and citrusy richer marmalade and butter filling and a second creamier cream cheese and burnt butter filling too, accentuated with zests and vanilla bean scrapings.

The recipe isn’t complicated but preparing the cookie shells can be tricky ! 

You need a pastry bag and a macaron template silicone mat to shape them correctly and the mat should have markings, indents and protrusions, to retain that round shape and not spread out too much.

Try to prepare your ingredients correctly. The walnut powder must be correctly dried-out and as fine as possible and the meringue mixture (made with oven-heated extra-fine sugar) should be carefully mixed into the dry ingredients without over-mixing, to retain as much air as possible, especially when transferring it all to the piping bag. Be gentle.

You need to watch out for the weather (or room temperature and humidity too) because too much humidity in the air will make them drop and the shells need to dry out a bit at room temperature before baking them, to develop a thin skin thus a smoother and shinier crust and a bumpier rim all around the base called "feet".

The oven temperature and baking time will demand your attention because too hot will not give the shells enough time to rise slowly and bake correctly so they’ll turn into flatter and crispier cookies (which happened to me once when testing my brand new oven). An oven thermometer could be a good idea and just keeping an eye on them would be the best option for the short baking time that they require.

Don’t get upset if they don’t turn out perfectly, especially if it’s your first time. Just try again in smaller batches and you’ll get the hang of it. To be honest, you’ll probably have one not-so-great-batch for every two great batches you prepare. 

And if you like, it’s easy to make the shells beforehand and freeze them, after baking, in an airtight container, so you can have a reserve of better and useable macaron cookie shells when you feel like assembling different versions from now and then.

The fillings are the easiest, just make a bit more than you need and refrigerate the rest for another batch because if well sealed, it can last for months.

Make more than you need, if you’re serving them to guests, so you can present the best ones to them and eat the less best-looking ones yourself. They’ll be delicious anyways ! 

HAPPY HOLIDAYS … :)