Peppermint macarons look and taste like Christmas. The colors evoke visions of Santa and his elves merrily preparing for their Christmas Eve deliveries. The taste, what better flavor to remind us of the holiday season. So, the perfect cookie to leave for Santa on Christmas Eve has to be peppermint macarons! Santa will be so delighted that he will leave extra presents for all of the girls and boys, and maybe even the baker in the family.
Santa Haiku
Santa Clause is near
presents for good boys and girls
what will he bring me
Peppermint candy canes are synonymous with Christmas. They take me back to childhood memories of sitting by the tree, unwrapping them, slowly letting it melt in my mouth until I could not resist biting into and then devouring it. Also, the red and white stripes brings to mind Santa's red coat with the white trim. I can imagine the jolly old soul sitting back and enjoy a piece after a long night of delivering presents to the good boys and girls. Again, when thinking about a special macaron to bake for Santa, I naturally thought about peppermint. So, Santa I hope you will enjoy your peppermint macarons.
Peppermint candy canes, instead of sugarplums, dancing in my head. The peppermint canes are from Hammond's candies.
The candy is placed in a ziplock bag and crushed with a hammer. This hammer has a tradition of it's own. The only time it is used is during Christmas to crush peppermint.
The crushed peppermint is added to Italian meringue buttercream to flavor the macarons. The buttercream and macaron shell recipes are adapted from the Bouchon Bakery cookbook and described in a previous blog post, macarons for a wedding.
Macaron shells with red food gel for coloring.
The macaron shells are paired and the peppermint buttercream is piped. The small bits of peppermint in the buttercream looks like red snowflakes falling in a white sky.
Peppermint macarons are completed by rolling the edge in crushed peppermint. This gives extra flavor and crunch to the macarons.
Peppermint macarons waiting under the tree to be enjoyed by Santa on Christmas Eve. I can hear Santa exclaim as he flies off into the night "Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night."
I wish you and your family a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!