Giant Strawberry Macaron Cake

After making more than 100 giant macaron shells within the past two weeks, I finally figured out this perfect recipe for making an giant strawberry macaron cake!

Regular-size macarons are already difficult to make. 5-inch-diameter giant macarons could be one of the most challenging desserts I have ever tried to make.

But as long as you are patient enough to follow this detailed recipe step by step, I believe that you can soon bake some perfect giant macarons! Perfect on both sides!

EQUIPMENT you will need:

• kitchen scale

Giant macarons are finicky and require accurate measurements. Small variations in the quantities can drastically change your results. Eyeballing the ingredients or using a measuring teaspoon will not work. I’d highly recommend using a kitchen scale with at least 1/10th of a gram precision.

• hand mixer

You can also use a stand mixer.

• baking sheet and baking mat

Ideally use a nonstick silicone macaron baking mat. You can substitute the baking mat with parchment paper, but the bottom side of the macarons are very likely to have wrinkles when you use a parchment paper.

• piping bag and piping tip (1 round tip, 1 star tip)

• food thermometer

To make Italian style macarons we will need to make Italian meringue, which requires us to pour hot sugar syrup (242°F /117°C) into whipped egg whites and whip them together until the meringue turns shiny and smooth.

If you don’t have a food thermometer, you could also try Livia and Maya’s raindrop testing method shown in this video. However, with this method requires a lot practices and experiences. You’d better measure the syrup temperature with a food thermometer if it’s your first time making macarons.

• oven

INGREDIENTS (for making 1 giant strawberry macaron cake)

– For giant macarons

• 100 g almond flour
• 100 g powdered sugar
• 74 g egg white (to be separate into 37g and 37g)
• 100 g granulated sugar (to be separate into 15g and 85g)
• 24 g water
• ¼ tsp red gel food coloring (optional)

– For macaron cake filling

• 30 g strawberry jam (homemade or store-bought, see note below for the homemade recipe)
• 60 g cream cheese
• 30 g unsalted butter
• 5 g freeze-dried strawberry powder (optional)
• 30 g heavy whipping cream
• 4 fresh strawberries

Step-by-step INSTRUCTIONS 

– To Make Giant Macarons

1. Line a large baking sheet with a nonstick baking mat (ideally with a macaron mat). Prepare a piping bag tipped with a round tip (I used tip 2A). Put a clip near the tip side of the piping bag, it can prevent the batter from leaking out when you fill the piping bag.

2. Add sifted almond flour (see Note 1) and powdered sugar into a large mixing bowl. Whisk until they are well mixed. Add 37g egg white to the mixture, mix until well combined. Set aside.

3. Add 85g granulated sugar and 24g water in a small pot, cook over medium heat with a food thermometer inserted to the water. Preset the food thermometer to 117°C/242°F.

4. At the same time, pour the remaining 37g of egg white and 15g granulated sugar to a large mixing bowl, use medium speed of the hand mixer to whip the egg white until stiff peaks form.

5. Remove the syrup from the heat once it has reached 242°F. With the hand mixer running on medium-low speed, carefully drizzle the hot syrup over the egg whites. You can pour the hot syrup in a thin continuous stream, or in 6 to 7 times, within 2 minutes. (Make sure you do not pour the hot syrup to the hand mixer beaters or the wall of the bowl.)

6. Once all the syrup has been poured in, increase the speed to medium-high, beat for about 3 minutes until the meringue is glossy with stiff peaks formed.

7. Transfer ⅓ of the meringue to the almond flour mixture (prepared on step 2), optionally some add some red food coloring. Fold the batter until well combined.

8. Transfer the batter to the rest of the meringue. Use a spatula to fold the batter until it reaches ribbon stage – you should be able to write at least two number 8s without the batter breaking.

9. Transfer the batter into the prepared piping bag. 

10. Hold the piping bag vertically about ¼ inch above the baking mat, squeeze until the circle reaches about 5 inch diameter. Stop squeezing and flick away the piping tip in a circular motion. With the given ingredients, you should be able to pipe 2 large macaron disks. (*I piped more disks because I tripled the recipe.)

11. Hold the baking sheet with one hand, use the other hand to tap the bottom of the baking sheet for a couple of times to release air bubbles. Use a toothpick to pop any remaining air bubbles on the surface.

12. Preheat the oven to 300 °F/150 °C.

13. Rest the macarons under room temperature for 30 minutes, allowing a thin shell to form on the surface. The macarons should feel dry to touch before being sent into the oven.

14. 30 minutes later, reduce the oven temperature to 290 °F/143 °C. Bake the giant macarons on the lower middle rack of the oven at 290 °F for 35 to 40 minutes.

15. Remove from oven and let the macarons cool on the baking mat for at least 2 hours (ideally over night). Make sure that they are completely cooled before removing them from the mat, otherwise the bottom might stick to the mat.

– To Make Macaron Cake Filling

1. In a mixing bowl, use a hand mixer to whip together freeze-dried strawberry powder, room temperature softened butter and cream cheese until creamy. Add heavy whipping cream to the mixture, keep whipping until stiff peaks form, transfer the cream filling into a piping bag tipped with an 8-teeth star tip. (You can substitute the freeze-dried strawberry powder with 1 tbsp of strawberry jam.)

– To assemble a macaron cake

1. Put one giant macaron shell onto a plate with the flat side facing up. Pipe the cream filling along the outer edge of the macaron.

2. Use a spoon to add and spread about 1 tbsp of strawberry jam at the center of the macaron shell. Place a layer of quartered strawberries with the tail pointed toward the center. Gently press a second macaron shell on the top of the filling with the flat side facing down.

3. Decorate the top of the macaron cake with some cream filling flowers and strawberries.

4. Place the strawberry macaron cake in an airtight container, keep in the fridge overnight before enjoy. Store any leftover macaron cake in the fridge, finish within 2 days.

---

Giant Macaron Cake Trouble Shooting

Question 1: Can I use this recipe for regular-size macarons?

Yes, you can. In fact, if this is your first time trying making macarons, I highly recommend you to start with smaller macarons, which are much easier to make compared with giant macarons. You can pipe the batter into 2-inch diameter circles.

The ingredient lists are the same for small and giant macarons. The only difference will be the baking time and baking temperature:

When you bake small macaron shells, bake them at 320 °F/160 °C for 15 minutes. While for giant macaron shells, you will need to bake them at a lower temperature for a longer time – 290 °F/143 °C for 35 to 40 minutes, to make sure the inside part of the macaron shells is fully baked.

Question 2: Why is my macaron brown?

There are 3 possible reasons that could cause your macarons browning:

1) Your oven temperature is too high.

It is unlikely but still possible that your oven’s actual temperature is higher than what it shows on its screen. If your foods always get overcooked, you may want to verify your oven temp with an oven thermometer.

2) Your macarons are too close to the oven’s heating element.

My oven’s heating coil is located on the top, so I’d bake my giant macarons at the middle lower rack of the oven, which is rack 2 or rack 3 in this picture below. So that the top surface of the macarons are not too close to the heat source.

If your oven’s heating coil is located on the bottom, you should bake your giant macarons at the middle higher rack of the oven, which is rack 5 or rack 6 in this picture below.

While if you are going to bake 2-inch size small macarons, you should bake them on the middle rack of the oven, which is rack 4 in this picture above. Because we will need these small macarons to rise up within a short period of time.

3) The heating element is “on” for too long

When the heating coil appears red, it means that your oven’s center temperature is lower than what you have set, the heating coil is working heat up the oven.

When we open the oven door and send in the baking sheet, the oven temp will drop, then the heating coil will start to work immediately to heat up the oven. At this time, the oven is hotter at the top than at the bottom, which will cause the top surface of your macarons browning.

To prevent this situation from happening, my solution is preheating the oven at 300 °F, then reduce the oven temp to 290 °F right before I send in the macarons. In this way, although the oven temp has been dropped due to the door opening, the heating coil won’t turn itself on.

Question 3: Why did my macarons stick to the baking mat?

Macarons will stick to the baking mat when they are undercooked or haven’t been fully cooled.

When macarons are not fully cooked, the inside part and the center bottom part will still be wet and sticky. If that happens, you can send them back to the oven to bake for 5 to 10 more minutes.

For the first few times when I tried to make macarons, I couldn’t wait until the macarons were cool enough to pick them up. For the same batch of macarons, they stuck to the baking mat when I picked them up when they were still warm, the rest of them turned out to have perfect bottoms when I picked them up after they’re fully cooled.

Question 4: Why did my macarons crack?

There are 3 possible reasons that could cause cracking macarons:

1) The baking temperature is too high

When the oven is to hot (or partially too hot), the macarons will rise too fast, which will cause the top surface to crack. To solve this problem, you can follow my suggestions for Question 2 above.

2)There is too much air in the batter

As air in the batter explode and escape from the shell, the macarons will crack in the oven.

To fix this, you can hold the baking sheet with one hand, and use the other hand to tap the bottom of the baking sheet for a couple of times to release air bubbles. Then use a toothpick to pop any remaining air bubbles on the surface.

If you pipe a 4-inch diameter circle on the baking mat, it should expand to a 4½-inch-diameter circle after the tapping or dropping. If it’s larger than 5 inches after the tapping, you might have forced out too much air, then the macarons won’t have “feet” after baked.

3. The skin is not dry enough

Before we send the piped macaron batter into the oven, we air dry it under room temperature for about 30 minutes until it forms a skin on the top surface.

The hardened skin can prevent the air from escaping through the top surface. When the air in the batter is released through the side edge, the macarons will grow feet. Otherwise, the top surface will crack.

When the macaron skin is appropriately dried, the top surface should be dry to touch. When you gently press the skin, it will slowly rebound. If the skin cracks or collapses, you might have rested it for too long.

Question 5: Why is my macaron oily?

Although most macaron recipes tell you to sift the powdered sugar and almond flour, my suggestion is skipping the sifting step if your almond flour says “finely sifted”, for example Blue Diamond almond flour.

If your almond flour is not fine enough to pass through a fine mesh sieve strainer, you should use a high-speed blender or a coffee grinder to blend it until it turns fine and powdery. 

However, you need to be careful that the almond flour may turn oily as you grind or sift it. It will cause your macarons to be thin and oily. So the best choice would still be using finely sifted almond flour and skip the sifting step.

Question 6: My macarons are too sweet

Macarons are doomed to be sweet, because you need a specific amount of sugar to give a stable structure to the macaron shells. However, we can always make your macaron cake less sweet by using a sour filling.

In this recipe, I didn’t add any sugar to the cream cheese butter filling. Also, I used homemade strawberry jam, which is much less sweet than store bought ones.

Generally the fruit-to-sugar ratio for traditional strawberry jams is 1:1, which is too sweet to be used as a macaron filling. So I always prefer making my own strawberry jam with a 5:1 fruit-to-sugar ratio. 

To easily make this strawberry jam, we add 300g chopped fresh strawberries and 60g granulated sugar to a small pot, stir until well combined. Cook the mixture over medium heat, keep stirring until the amount of the mixture has been reduced to half. 

You should end up getting about 180g strawberry jam. Transfer the strawberry jam to a bowl, let cool to room temperature, then store in an airtight container the fridge. 

My other dessert recipes you will also like: