Acorn Macarons with Boozy Buttercream
I'm reposting this honor of the Wild Things foraging recipe challenge. Our featured ingredient for the month of November is acorn.----------------
I wanted to get in on some of the acorn action after hearing of people picking buckets of acorns. But oaks don't really grow in my immediate area. There are scrub oaks in the mountains, but those have tiny acorns. I asked all of the old timers, and none of them could point me toward an oak tree.
So what's a girl to do? Well, she's gotta get resourceful. And as is usually the case, I found the answer on my bike. Once I got into oak-searching mode, I started to notice that there were a few puny oaks lining the streets of posh neighborhoods. And sure enough, it seems that even puny oaks can make acorns. I started collecting acorns out of the gutters - literally. I didn't end up with buckets, maybe only a gallon of so, but I certainly collected enough to play with.
After picking the meats out of the shells, I decided to try both hot and cold water leaching. Most acorns are acrid and bitter from tannins, and those tannins need to be removed by soaking and lots of water changes (or just put them into you clean mountain stream, if you have one of those). For the cold water leach, I ground the acorns into a flour, and start them soaking in a large amount of water, changing daily. I'm not sure how long it will take to get the tannins removed from the acorns using this method. After a week, they're still not there.For the hot water leaching, I broke the acorns up into approximately pea-sized pieces and put them into a pan with a generous amount of water, brought it to a boil, let it simmer for a few minutes, and then dumped out the water, and repeated many many many times, until the bitterness was gone (this is determined by taste testing). This process turned the acorns a deep chocolate brown.
To dry the acorns after boiling out the tannins, I stuck them in the oven (after it was turned off) while is was cooling after dinner, and let them sit there for a few days until they were completely dry. After that, they were ready be made into all sorts of fun recipes.
I'm not a sweets lover; I'm the type of person who makes meatloaf for breakfast because muffins would gag me. I bake maybe four times a year, and at least three of those occasions are birthday cakes. So I guess it's a little odd that my brain wanted to make macarons from my acorns. But I don't argue with the direction my mind takes me with recipes, I just follow, happily.
The description of how I made macarons which follows will probably frustrate people who enjoy recipes with exact measurements. To those people, I apologize, and encourage you to google a nice macaron recipe, and then substitute acron meal for almond meal. It wasn't until after I made these cookies that I looked up recipes for macarons and buttercream frosting, and was truly amazed (horrified?) by how much sugar these recipes include. Traditional macaron recipes use equal amounts of sugar and nut meal, sometimes more. And for traditional buttercream frosting, cups and cups of sugar for just a little butter.
My acorn macarons were only mildly sweet, but that's how I like it, and I feel like it let the flavor of the acorns shine.
Traditional macarons are like a meringues which have been beefed up with almond meal, and they're turned into adorable little sandwich cookies. So you can see that substituting acorn meal is a worthy experiment.
Acorn Macarons
Start by adding a pinch of salt to approximately 1/3 c. of egg whites (I used some which I'd previously frozen), and whip until foamy. Slowly added 2 Tbsp. of granulated sugar, and continued to whip to glossy stiff peaks.
Fold in about a cup of acorn meal (which was all I had), and continue to carefully stir the mixture until any peaks collapse back into the batter.
Fill a big plastic bag with the acorn macaron batter and snip off a corner (or use a piping bag if you've got one, fancy pants). Squeeze 1" diameter cookies onto a parchment lined baking sheet. Then let them sit on the counter for 30 minutes to form a crust.
Bake the acorn macarons in a 300 degree (F) oven until cooked through but not browned, approximately 10 minutes, and let them cool thoroughly on a wire rack.
My friend Fairybekk is a great baker, so I asked her for a buttercream recipe. She told me that she had tried several recipes, but didn't like them, and got better results by just adding powdered sugar and a flavoring to butter until she liked the way it tasted. Fantastic, I love the way she cooks!
Then, just before I attempted to make my cookies, I stumbled upon Kiva Rose's recipe for acorn-infused butter. It seemed like divine intervention. So, using my coffee mug warmer, I infused a few tablespoons of butter with leached acorns for a few hours, strained out the acorns, and let the acorn-infused butter cool back to room temperature.
To make the frosting, I added a few spoonfuls of powdered sugar to my acorn-infused butter (not much more sugar than butter, by volume), and started whipping. Then I added a good hit of brandy, and continued to whip until the mixture was quite light and fluffy. Ta-da! Brandied acorn-infused buttercream. It tastes kind of butterscotchy, which is a great match for the chestnut-meets-pecan flavor of the acorn macarons.
The final step is to put a spoonful of frosting onto a cookie and smash another on top of it to make a sandwich. This recipe for acorn macarons was a lot of work, but they were fun to eat and tasted great.
Are you in the mood to try some more acorn recipes? Do you find the words acorn gnocchi to be irrestistible (I do! I do!)? Then please head on over to Fairybekk's blog Cauldrons and Crockpots and try her recipe. She's also got a lot of great acorn info on her page.
This recipe is my entry into this week's Hearth and Soul hop.
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