Grapefruit Cocktail Macarons

Macarons kinda never go out of fashioned, do they?

Because the nature of the recipes call for so much sugar, I keep looking for ways to balance it with a hint of bitterness, tartness, or saltiness. I've also experimented so many times with my base French macaron recipe to try to find the least amount of sugar that would still give a viable batter.

With this recipe, I've tried adding fruit paste, I've tried salting the batter, initially to make salty grapefruit macarons. Neither worked. I tried using the Italian meringue technique (which does use more sugar, but is also supposed to be more stable), but it still didn't work. With fruit pastes, they work wonderfully for berries...and could also work well for citrus, but I find the acidity of the citrus affects the texture. I did make a lime macaron once that was delightfully sour. Will share that when I make it again. 🙃 For this grapefruit recipe, I just settled on using a lot of zest and added the juice to the filling. Speaking of which, the filling was a little too runny in the video. I added a bit more chocolate to the ingredient list (90g instead of 80g). If you omit the rum part, actually, 80g should do the trick. Or, if you're using dark chocolate, 80g, would probably also do the trick. Just that white chocolate ganache tends to be runnier...but also looks prettier. Actually, if you can get your hands on ruby chocolate, that would be even better.

One more word on the ingredients. Yuzu is an ingredient that is becoming more and more ubiquitous in western cooking. It's a small, tart, citrus fruit that is best known for being the main ingredient in the Korean yuzu tea with a bit of honey. It pairs well with all citrus and chocolate. The preserves I used was basically a spoonful of yuzu jam. If you can't find it, you can omit, or use a spoonful of marmalade, lemon jelly, or even pineapple jam. Instagram: @kelly.elly

Grapefruit Cocktail Macarons (Makes ~ 25 pairs):

50g egg whites (a little less than 2 medium egg whites) 35g granulated sugar 80g icing sugar 65g almond flour 1/2 tsp vanilla extract grated zest of 1/2 grapefruit (~ 1Tbsp) pinch of salt

Grapefruit filling:

90g white chocolate (can replace with 80g of milk or dark chocolate) 60g grapefruit juice (~1/2 a grapefruit) 15g yuzu preserves (see above) 1/2 tsp vanilla extract 1 tsp rum

Special equipment:

2 piping bags 1 #12 wilton/0.7cm round piping tip baking paper/teflon sheets/silicone baking sheets

Baking instructions:

lower rack, at 250F/121C for 5 min, then 275F/135C for another 5 min or so until set