Brazillian Limeade Macarons

We discovered this recipe years ago. Like Before Pinterest ago. Does that make me sound old? Brizillian Limeade was our favorite treat the whole first summer of my husband’s dental school days. I first found the recipe in the Our Best Bites cookbook. I bought this cookbook at a Time-out-for-Women Conference where I had the pleasure of meeting in person Sara Wells, one of the authors. She signed my book, and I spent the rest of the conference pouring over the pages. What was I going to make first? Would it be a dessert or a drink a main dish? I settled on the drink section. Cue my first drink of Brazilian Limeade. It was magical and it was refreshing–perfect for a summer day.

To this day I still follow Sara Wells on Instagram. Trust me when I say you will want to try their Brazilian Limeade recipe. So good. Well, you know what I think now?  I can Mac this recipe!  I fully plan on “Mac-ing” more of their recipes.

HERE ARE 3 TIPS TO BAKING PERFECT MACARONS

1. First, oven thermometer! Trust me when I say this tool will be the most used in your kitchen. Its a way to detect your oven patterns and to see if your oven temps surge.
2. If you notice some of your macarons are cracking? Let me tell you how to perform the bread test. First, place a sheet pan with bread laid out over the whole top. Next you will want to place that in your oven at the temp that you bake your macarons at. Next, watch the bread to see where the spots may brown first. When you start noticing browning pull out the bread. This trick will tell you where you might have hot spots. Once you have determined those issues you can either leave those areas void of macaron batter or adjust baking racks or temp.
3. Know what you are baking sheet are made of! Are they aluminum pans, gold touch pans, rimmed steel pans, or airbake? Whatever they are adjust the oven temp to compensate for the quirks of each of these type of material. If you are baking on aluminum pans, chances are you will need to increase your oven temp and time. If they are steel pans, a lower oven temp and time might be required for those perfect macarons.

Here are some tips to making this drink-macaron

1. Using fresh lime rind will absolutely make a world of difference. First, wash the lime. I use a Microplane  zester with great success to remove the rind without grating the flesh. This brand comes in so many fun colors at my favorite shop, Orson-Gygi; use the code sweetmacshop to get 10% off.
2. Purchase a squeeze bottle of sweetened condensed milk. Yes! You heard that right. It’s magic, and no more opening a whole can just to get a few teaspoons.