The Impossible Macaron- no nuts, dairy, or gluten used

For Valentine’s day I love sending packages to my family since we don’t live near each other. Someone who I love very much has a food restriction to nuts, dairy, and gluten. I don’t want anyone to feel left out so I took on the mission of creating macarons without using almond flour, egg whites, egg yolks, or butter!

I made coconut buttercream + strawberry buttercream flavored macarons. First I pureed the strawberry and put it through a sieve to drain out chunks which are too big.

Other substitutes I used included using the liquid in cans of beans instead of egg whites, coconut oil instead of butter, and gluten-free flour instead of almond flour. In a recipe like macarons it’s really about technique and certain checkpoints- for example, making sure the meringue is stiff enough to hold upside down over someone’s head. Another checkpoint is sifting and making the flour fine enough so that it doesn’t weigh down the meringue when you add in the flour.

Voila! Coconut buttercream macarons without using eggs, almonds, butter, or gluten-flour. I was really surprised to see how beautiful the macarons turned out. And you can even see that there are legs on the macaron shells, which means they have been baked for the right time/ temperature. Of course, I’ve messed up many batches of macarons! That’s part of the macaron baking journey. But it’s always a good feeling to see when a batch is baked right. I will say the taste is a little different but still delicious.

Lastly, a picture of the Valentine’s packages for my family.