First, I showed you how the Zumbo Brownies turned out. BUT, you’ve all seen a Brownie made from a box before, so how about the Macarons?!

As far as Macarons go, these were easy to make. They were a bit more involved than making the Brownies, but they are still Macarons.

The packet contains pretty much everything you need to make the Macarons. There is a pack of meringue mix, a pack of almond meal mix and a pack of filling. It also includes the 2 piping bags you’ll need, one for the shells and one for the filling. The bags are nice and big, so all the shell mixture fit into the bag in one go. The packet also includes a little template for making the shells. You can use it to trace onto the back of the baking paper. I already had templates that I’d printed out when I made the Pierre Herme Macarons, so I skipped this step and probably saved myself 10 minutes.

The back of the pack tells you what you need to get that isn’t included in the pack. For the Salted Caramel Macarons I need some water, 2 baking trays, baking paper (I love that this is listed), butter and sea salt. It does also list the amounts. The box art is really eye catching and definitely shows off the finished product, no fancy table decorations or serving suggestions needed.

The Macarons are pretty straightforward to make. Whip the meringue mix with water in a mixer to stiff peaks. Add the almond mixture. I beat the almond mix in by hand. I did slightly over-mix my batter, so the batter was a little runny while piping, but they still turned out well and didn’t spread too much while resting. I let my shells stand for about 30 minutes to make sure they were nice and dry before going in the oven. Bake for about 15 minutes and remove.

To make the filling, whip the filling mixture and butter together. Stir in the sea salt and then fill the shells. I think the filling definitely needs the salt in it. It’s super sweet and the salt really balances it out and gives them a nice ‘salted caramel’ kick. They are called Salted Caramel Macarons after all!

I do wish the pack came with more filling. There is enough batter to make about 40 shells, but only enough filling to make up 15 macarons, using 30 of the shells. I also found that while they tasted like there was enough filling, they didn’t look like they had enough filling. I had to be quite skimpy filling them so that I could fill all 15. That’s my only gripe. I think this is such an accessible and easy way to make Macarons and I look forward to trying out the Passionfruit flavour.

Want to try your own? Enter the competition to win a Zumbo Hamper here.