Honey Bee Macarons

It’s World Bee Day today (May 20) and what better way is there to celebrate than bake something bee and honey themed. We chose honey macarons, with three different fillings for you to choose from.

Before we get started with the recipe, I want to give everyone some quick facts about our little friends the honey bees and why they are so important for us:

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Bees not only provide us with delicious food like honey or royal jelly, they also make sure that our plants get pollinated. Bees and other pollinators pollinate about three quarters of the plants that produce 90% of the world’s food ^[1]. “Effective pollination increases the amount of agricultural produce, improves their quality and enhances plants’ resistance to pests” ^[1]. The growth and flourishing of plant is especially important for small farmers and the provision of jobs in the sector.

Furthermore bees are important for ecological balance and biodiversity ^[1]. They also indicate how the environment is doing and if there are certain changes happening.

What to do to help the little buzzers:

buy bee made prodocts from your nearest/local beekeeper
plant nectar-bearing flowers: they are beautiful and help our bees
share information on why bees are so important with youngsters but also adults
if you use pestizides use those who do not harm bees and spray them under specific conditions only!

Now that we know a little more about our buzzing neighbors lets get to celebrating them by baking some Honey Bee Macarons!

We decided to make three different fillings to choose from. However we don’t wanna lie and call the shell recipe our own. We always use the one by tasty.co, which works everytime, so pay them a visit for the full shell recipe! To make our honey macarons, add yellow food colouring to the shell mixture.

Decorating the shells:

You’ll need: 100g dark chocolate, some sliced almonds and a piping bag with a small circular piping tip

How To: Match your macaron shells together once they are cooled and choose who will be the bottom and who the top. Melt your chocolate and let it cool to room temperature before putting it into your piping bag. Pipe on the stripes of the bees on the shells that will be the top ones. With a tooth pick add some chocolate eyes and lastly press some oval sliced almonds onto the back as wings. They should be looking super cute by now. Let the chocolate dry before filling the macaron bees

If you only want some simple honey macarons you can of course skip the decorating but we think the decoration really gives these macarons their special character.

Ingredients

Cream Cheese Filling: 130g cream cheese, 30g honey

Buttercream Filling: 20g powdered sugar, 30g honey, 1tsp. lemon zest, 90g butter (at room temperature)

Cream Cheese Butter Filling: 100g butter, 60g cream cheese, 20g honey

Pick your favourite kind of honey so you will definitely love the taste. Each of these measurements will give you enough filling for about 20 macaron bees.

Instructions

Cream Cheese Filling: This Filling is very simple to make. You just beat the cream cheese for a view seconds to make it smooth and then add the honey. Mix it in with a spatula and pop the filling in the fridge for about an hour before using it.

Buttercreme Filling: This one is basically a regular buttercreme with some extras. Beat the butter until light and fluffy, then mix in the powdered sugar and lemon zest. The lemon zest helps to balance out the sweetness of this cream because it is definitely for those of you who like it sweet! Lastly add the honey and mix it in using a spatula. You can leave this creme out until you use it because it is quite thick. It also has the perfect consistency to be piped on with a pretty piping tip.

Cream Cheese Butter Filling: This last filling can be a little trickier. You need to keep an eye on the temperature of your butter and cream cheese or you will end up with a curdled mess. Beat the room temperature cream cheese for a few seconds, then add the soft but still a little cold butter and honey and mix everything together shortly. Don’t overmix. (If your filling still curdles and we are still figuring out how to avoid this, you can find a little help here.) Pop this filling into the fridge as well before using it to fill your bees.

We hope you have fun making and also enjoying these little macaron bees. For me decorating and seeing how cute they turned out was the most fun. Let us know which filling you like best or if you gave one your own little twist and share them with us on Instagram!

Check out Plan Baking for more of our recipes. You might also like this post: