Calling all of our nut allergy families!!!! It’s time for another one of our nut friend recipes! Yet another recipe that would normally call for some form of nut product is now made without the nut component. I have personally tried this recipe out and it turned out amazing. So we all understand that I obviously had to share this with everyone. Our family has Peanut, Almond, Hazelnut, Coconut and Sesame Seed as an allergy. With that it means that we miss out on some of the fun desserts and as a pastry chef, I truly want to see if I can recreate some of these recipes but nut allergy friendly.
Macarons! Oh my word the dessert I absolutely loved when I was in pastry school and could eat way too many of them at a time. It is sadly made with almond flour. Its dry mix components consist of almond flour and confectioners sugar. So how do we make this recipe but without the nut involved? That was the biggest question. Once we figured that out we could make the flavors change each batch if we want. But for this round we stuck with just testing out a basic cookie base and a flavored icing.
Instead of Almond flour we used…… Pumpkin Seed Flour!!! Now let’s get this set straight to begin with. Your batter will be a green color because of the pumpkin seeds but that doesn’t mean you can’t attempt to color them or even flavor them too. But like I said, this recipe is just giving you the base recipe so you can experiment on them later. I also love to just flavor the icing personally so we don’t have too many flavors trying to over power each other at once.
Also let me add before we get into this recipe, that this recipe is measured in the form of Grams (g). I recommend measuring in that as well as the density of almond flour and pumpkin flour may no be the same. So if you were to measure in cups instead, you may end up with a very dry or wet mixture instead. I would recommend following this recipe on the measuring of Grams!
Let’s get to that recipes!!!
Pumpkin Seed Flour Macaroons
Ingredients:
Macaron shell:
170 grams Pumpkin Seed Flour
300 grams Confectioners Sugar
180 grams Egg whites, at room temp (needs to be room temp)
160 grams cane sugar
Filling:
150 grams Confectioners Sugar
50 grams Butter, Room Temp
Dash of Lemon Juice
Dash of Vanilla
Directions:
- Preheat oven to 300 degrees Fahrenheit and position oven rack in the center of the oven. Using. Round cookie cutter or the base of a large piping trip, draw a template for your macarons on a piece of parchment paper, leaving about 3/4 inch between each circle.
- Combine the Pumpkin Seed Flour and Confectioners Sugar in a large bowl. Sift the mixture twice to ensure there are no large lumps and that the mixture is properly aerated. Set aside. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, whip the egg whites on medium speed until foamy. Gradually add the sugar, increase the mixer speed, and whip on high until the meringue starts to firm into stiff peaks.
- Remove the bowl from the mixer. Add half of the ground pumpkin seed flour and confectioners sugar mixture and fold into the meringue. Make sure to fold the mixture and do not deflate the egg whites too much. Folding will help keep the egg mixture airy. Once that is incorporated then add in the rest of the flour mixture until it has been fully folded and incorporated.
- Fit a large pastry bag with a medium sized round tip, close to a #806. With the actual marked side of your template faced down, Pipe into the templates and fill your baking sheet. This took me about 3 trays worth of piping to finish the entire mix. As you are piping and fill the template, finish off each piped circle with a little “flick” of your wrist to minimize the batter forming a point.
- Holding the baking sheet in two hands, carefully but firmly, evenly bang the sheet against your counter. Repeat this a few more times as this will help get rid of any air bubbles and help remove the points at the tops. (If the points do not go away, give the shells a few minutes and then you can lightly tap them with your finger)
- Allow the macarons to dry at room temperature for approximately 30 minutes or until they form a skin that you can touch without younger sticking to them. This time will vary on the humidity as well.
- Place the macarons into the oven and bake for approximately 18 minutes. At the 15 minute mark, open the oven and see if your macarons have developed a foot (the ruffle spot at the base of the macaron) and lightly try to peel one from your baking sheet. If it easily removes from the baking sheet then it is done. Also the foot of the macaroon will be lightly browned.
- Remove from the oven and allow to cool on the sheet pan for about 10 minutes before peeling off the parchment paper and allowing to cool completely on a wire rack.
- During the waiting process and cooking time you can start to make your filling. Place butter into a bowl and cream. Add the Confectioners Sugar, lemon juice and vanilla. Mix until it is a nice creamy consistency. You can pipe or hand icing these into the cooled macaron shells when they are ready.
I personally feel that these taste very similar to the standard almond macaron but obviously it is a better option for those of us that can not have nuts in our household. This will be our new substitute for the house when it comes to another nut product. I can’t wait to share more recipes with you as we find new ways to bake items while having a nut allergy in the household.