Festive Savoury Macarons With Goat Cheese And Cranberry

Savoury macarons with a creamy goat cheese and cranberry filling. They're elegant, unusual and tasty. If you're on the lookout for elegant canapes for the holiday season, try this.

Goat cheese and cranberry macarons make the perfect festive savoury macarons for Christmas or Thanksgiving. Serve at a cocktail party or as a snack before the main meal, you'll love the sweet and savoury combination and winter flavours.

When I was brainstorming Christmas macarons and flavour combinations I really wanted to create a savoury macaron recipe, something to balance the sweetness of the macaron shells. I finally settled on goat cheese and cranberry, after all, everyone has cranberry sauce around in winter and it's a new way to use it.

I love creating Christmas macaron flavours and this is a great one for the holiday season. If you're looking for other holiday season recipes try these other ideas:

• Baked camembert with honey and garlic croutons
• Chocolate cinnamon macarons
• Cranberry fizz cocktail

Is this your first time making macarons? I always make macarons with Italian meringue, check out my detailed step by step guide to making Italian macarons here.

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• Ingredients
• Instructions
• Goat cheese and cranberry filling
• Equipment
• Storage
• Top tip
• 📖 Recipe
• Food safety
• 💬 Comments

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 145 degrees Celsius / 295 Fahrenheit. 

Prepare and weigh out the ingredients, separating the egg whites from egg yolks carefully.

Sieve the ground almonds and powdered sugar and then blend together until they are a very fine consistency and completely combined. 

Place the water and granulated sugar into a saucepan. Gently warm the water and stir to dissolve the sugar. Once it has dissolved, turn up the heat, stop stirring and place the sugar thermometer into the mixture. 

Once the thermometer starts to climb above 105 degrees Celsius/220 degrees Fahrenheit, whisk the egg whites until they form soft peaks.

When the sugar syrup reaches a soft boil temperature of 115 degrees Celsius/240 degrees, start whisking the egg whites again and pour in the sugar syrup a little at a time. 

The Italian meringue will turn a smooth, glossy and opaque white. Continue to whisk once all of the sugar syrup has been added to bring down the heat until you can touch the side of the bowl and it feels warm but not hot. 

Make the almond paste by mixing the remaining egg white with the ground almond/powdered sugar mixture until it is fully incorporated.

Now mix the Italian meringue into the almond paste in three stages. 

Firmly mix in the first third of the Italian meringue with a metal or wooden spoon to loosen the almond paste and fully combine the two mixtures. 

Fold in the remaining two thirds one at a time using the softer spoon or spatula, being very gentle with the final third to not overmix the batter and make it too slack. It needs to be loosened but not sloppy and runny.

Move the macaron batter to a piping bag. Tie a knot in the end and relax the mixture slightly in the bag with your hands for a few seconds. Cut half a centimetre from the tip of the piping bag. 

Position the piping bag perpendicular to the tray with the nozzle a few millimetres above the surface. Squeeze the bag without lifting it up for two or three seconds, then stop squeezing and make a little circle to twist it off. Fill the trays leaving a 2cm gap in between each macaron. 

Firmly smack it down onto the work surface twice to settle the Italian macaron batter and get rid of any air bubbles. 

Bake straight away for 17 minutes, then remove from the oven and allow the macarons to cool on the tray. This is a no-rest macaron recipe, but if you cannot fit all of your macarons in the oven at once, it won't harm the remaining macarons to be out on the worktop for 17 minutes. 

Equipment

• Weighing scales. Digital is best. Baking is a science, after all, so we need precision! I do not recommend using the cup system to make macarons.

• A sieve to ensure that the powdered sugar and almond flour is as fine as possible.

• A blender/food processor to thoroughly combine the almond flour and powdered sugar. This ensures a completely smooth finish on your macaron shells.

• A small saucepan to make your sugar syrup

• A jam or sugar thermometer to measure the temperature of the hot sugar syrup. The sugar syrup needs to be at a particular temperature to make Italian meringue and it is impossible to judge without a thermometer. The best thermometers for sugar syrup do not allow the bulb to touch the bottom or sides of the saucepan, thus ensuring you are measuring the temperature of the sugar, and not the pan.

• An electric whisk or stand mixer to whisk your egg whites into soft peaks before slowly adding the hot sugar syrup.

• Two large bowls, preferably glass. Try to avoid using a metal mixing bowl for the Italian meringue as it will conduct heat and prevent the mixture from cooling.

• A metal mixing spoon for combining ingredients more vigorously.

• A silicon mixing spoon or spatula for further, more gentle mixing.

• Baking sheets/trays - not high-sided ones as this builds up too much steam

• Silicon mat or baking parchment paper (but the silicon mats are better and allow for lower waste as they are not single-use)

• Piping bags - to pipe your macarons onto a baking tray, and then also to pipe your fillings.

Storage

Store these savoury macarons with cranberry and goat cheese in the fridge, they'll be good for 2-3 days.

Avoid freezing filled macarons. The shells on their own freeze very well, however.

📖 Recipe

Food safety

• Boiling sugar can be dangerous, so do not leave it unattended and keep pets/children out of the room.
• Clean surfaces and utensils thoroughly after handling raw eggs.