Welcome to GMA 25 Days of Cookies. For 25 days, we are featuring cookie recipes that are perfect to make for the holiday season. Our celeb BFFs are sharing their cookie recipes with us and we’ve gathered some seasonal standouts that are sure to dazzle on your Instagram feed and Pinterest board.
Head to our full guide here all month long for the most beautiful, fun, seasonal, delicious holiday cookies worthy of your new Christmas traditions.
Jyoti Nanra, a Toronto and Los Angeles-based baker who shares her stunning culinary creations on her Instagram account @thepurplecupcake_, has the cutest recipe for snow globe macaron cookies.
These bite-sized beauties are gluten-free and true stunners.
Get the recipe and check out the step-by-step guide below. Learn more about how to turn macarons into a stunning holiday treat with Jyoti Nanra in her online holiday tutorial classes.
Ingredients for the macarons:
2/3 cup almond flour
1 cup and 1 tablespoon icing sugar
2 large egg whites
1/6 cup sugar
Ingredients for the filling
Your choice of ganache, curd, buttercream - make your own or buy pre-made!
Decoration ingredients and tools:
1 and 1/2 cups white royal icing - You can buy this pre-made
Gel food color - Green and pink are my pick!
Piping bags
Multi colored nonpareils or dragees for ornaments
Your choice of "tree topper" - I chose a tiny heart shaped sprinkle!
Goldleaf
Edible glitter
Directions:
Set oven to 270 degrees Fahrenheit in a convection oven, or 295 degrees Fahrenheit in a standard oven.
Sift together the almond flour and the icing sugar into a clean bowl.
Wipe down the mixing bowl and whisk attachment with vinegar.
To the mixing bowl, add egg whites and granulated sugar.
Fit the whisk into the mixer and whisk meringue until it reaches medium peaks. It should clump in the whisk attachment but should not have reached stiff peaks. If you’d like to add color, add it to your meringue and briefly whisk to combine.
With a spatula, spoon half of the meringue mixture into the almond flour mixture. Fold to combine thoroughly.
Add remaining meringue and fold into the almond mixture. Scrape bowl from bottom to top to get everything combined. During the process, your batter should be fully combined before it has reached the lava-like stage. Continue to gentle remove air from the batter. Check the batter after each fold.
Once your batter has reached the consistency of cake batter and falls like lava from your spatula, transfer to a piping bag fitted with a medium round tip.
On a silicone baking sheet, or parchment paper, pipe your batter. I use silicone mats as they produce rounder and nice shells. I find parchment paper causes my shells to lose their round shape.
Once piped, let the tray rest on the counter for 40 seconds before removing all the air bubbles. You will see the bubbles actually rise to the top of the macaron shells. Bang the trays twice to remove bubbles.
Place trays directly into the oven. No resting is required.
Bake for 20 minutes.
When the baking time is complete, pull out shells and let them rest for 5-10 minutes before removing them from the baking sheet.
Fill with your choice of filling. I love ganaches, flavored butter creams, curds, etc.
Decorating directions:
Color your icing in your favorite shades of green, pink, and white, and transfer into piping bags. I like to just snip the tip off my bags instead of using a piping tip.
Using your pink icing, decorate the base of the snow globe. You can dot it on, or just draw horizontal lines across to cover that space.
With your white icing, dot a line right over the pink. This will create the illusion of snow building below the tree.
Lastly, with your green icing, trace the rough lines of a tree with the fullest part being at the bottom, and fill it in using lines.
Before your icing sets, add tiny sprinkles as ornaments to the tree. Top with a heart sprinkle, or you can draw on a heart with your pink icing.
Grab your white, and dot on different sizes of white icing around the tree. This creates snowfall.
Lastly, using a fine-tipped brush, add little bits of gold leaf and edible glitter.
Enjoy!
Recipe reprinted with permission of Jyoti Nanra, @thepurplecupcake_.
Head to our full guide here all month long for the most beautiful, fun and delicious holiday cookies that are sure to become a new tradition.
Tell us which cookies you're baking! Tweet @GMA using #25daysofcookies with your #25daysofcookies pictures and we may feature you on our "GMA" Facebook page or in our morning "GMA" newsletter! Deck the halls with lots of cookies, fa la la la la, la la la la!
Editor's note: This was originally published on Dec. 21, 2020.