Rose, Osmanthus and Lavender Rosette Macarons

There's a certain charm about rosette macarons and I made these for an event :)

Rose, Osmanthus and Lavender rosette macarons!

I love floral teas so it's been quite like aromatherapy for me by creating these macarons. I made my own floral extracts, flower powder and infused the cream with the dried flowers before making the ganache.

You may refer to this post for the macaron shell recipe. I modified it a little by increasing the icing sugar and almond flour to 40g each. I didn't add any floral extracts or flower powder into the macaron shell so as to let it remain uniformly coloured and in a pastel shade. You may add some flower powder (ground and sifted dried flowers) if you don't mind the shells appearing speckled.

Just to share some photos of the process...

Piping pink rosettes

Cross section of a baked macaron shell

I made the floral extracts by storing the dried flowers with vodka in small glass bottles for a few days. Ideally you should prepare this two weeks before time but I didn't have the time to do it. I compensated it by packing each bottle full of flowers. Store the bottles in a cool and dark place. Give the bottles a little shake now and then.

Homemade floral extracts!

I brushed a little extract on the underside of the macaron shells and added some to the ganache.

I used a coffee grinder to grind the dried flowers and sifted them. I must admit that it wasn't easy to get the rose powder as compared to lavender and osmanthus. Anyway I used some rose water to enhance the rose flavour such that it is still strong despite less powder used.

Rose, Osmanthus and Lavender powder

I added the flower powder into the ganache. You may add to the macaron shells if you wish.

Recipe for whipped floral ganache (piped as roses)
Ingredients (enough to fill 15-18 rosette macarons):
132g white chocolate, chopped (or compound white chocolate chips if you are afraid of overheating white chocolate)
12g unsalted butter
12g vegetable shortening
3/8 tsp salt
36g heavy cream with dried flowers infused*
1 tsp osmanthus or lavender extract, or 1 tsp rose water + 1/4 tsp rose extract
1.5 tsp dried osmanthus powder, 1 tsp lavender powder or 1/4 tsp rose powder
A drop of gel food colouring

Note that I am making a stiff version of ganache as Singapore is rather warm. You may add more cream if you wish.

* Heat about double the amount of cream required until it starts to bubble. Pour into a bowl with 1 tbs of dried flowers (2 tbs for dried rosebuds). Let it steep for about 15 min at room temperature. Cover and let it continue steeping in the fridge for several hours or overnight. Strain the cream and weigh out the amount needed to make the ganache.

Other logistics
Flower nail
Baking paper cut into small squares for each piped ganache rose
Petal piping tip

Steps:
1. Place all ingredients in a microwave safe bowl and melt it at medium low power for 20 seconds. Mix well with spatula. Repeat until completely melted and smooth. Alternatively, you may use double boiling method to melt the chocolate and all the ingredients together

2. Chill the bowl in freezer for 2 min. Stir with spatula and return to freezer for another 2 min. Repeat freezing and whipping the ganache until texture lightens up and is smooth and creamy.

I love the natural colour of osmanthus from the extract!

3. Add a small drop of gel food colouring and mix well. Transfer the whipped ganache into piping bag fitted with a small petal tip (I used Wilton #101). Dab a little ganache onto the flower nail and stick a small square of baking paper on it. Pipe a rose on it and transfer the paper with the rose onto a baking tray. You may Google for video tutorials on how to pipe the roses. Sorry I didn't do a video tutorial for this 😅. It is advisable to use a small round tip to pipe a cone before piping the petals using the petal tip but I didn't want to waste resources by using an additional piping bag and tip so I just used the petal tip to roughly pipe a cone in the middle.

Tray of piped roses. I don't pipe it perfectly because to be honest, this is the first time I am piping them!

4. Freeze the tray of piped roses until firm. The ganache in piping bag may soften until it becomes difficult to pipe due to hear from you hand. If that happens, empty the piping bag and chill the ganache again. Rewhip and fill the piping bag.

5. Pipe some ganache in the middle of the macaron shell. Quickly add on the flowers using tweezers or chopsticks. Top up the middle with more ganache of necessary. Gently place the top shell on. Press it down a little after the ganache roses have soften a little. Return the tray of piped roses into the freezer if they get too soft to handle. For this reason, I piped each coloured rose on a few small trays such that at any time, one or two trays are chilling in the freezer.

Adding the ganache roses

I love this pretty sight!

You may leave the assembled macarons as they are or add on leaves like I did. I prepared vanilla white chocolate ganache that is coloured green for the leaves and used a small leaf tip to pipe the leaves between the roses.

Rose macarons

Lavender macarons

Osmanthus macarons

I must admit that making the filling took longer and was much more tedious than making the macaron shells for once! Thankfully at the end of it all I was rewarded with a pretty sight :)

With love,
Phay Shing