Gold Painted Macarons

Follow these step by step instructions to make Gold Painted Macarons for a Golden Birthday or holiday party. These cookies are sparkly and beautiful.

For my daughter's Golden Birthday, I made gold treats for a dessert table. The Gold Painted Macarons were everyone's favorite.

The oat flour naturally turns the macaron shell batter a tan color, which is a perfect base for adding gold luster dust on top. This is a similar concept to adding gold food gel to the fondant unicorn horn before painting it with luster dust for this Rainbow Unicorn Cake and these Unicorn Sugar Cookies.

Although you can achieve a gold color by just using the oat flour, you can add gold food gel to the macaron batter for a for a more intense gold.

Because these macarons are made with oat flour instead of almond flour, they are both nut free and gluten free.

Jump to:

• Materials
• Making the Macarons
• Make the Gold Luster Dust Suspension
• Paint the Macarons
• Storage
• 📖 Recipe

Materials

• 1 batch Nut Free French Macarons or Oatmeal Cream Pie Macarons, untinted or tinted with gold food coloring gel
• Gold luster dust
• Paint palette dedicated to food
• Food grade paintbrush
• Disposable transfer pipette
• Everclear or vodka
• Edible gold glitter

Making the Macarons

You will need to start with 1 batch of assembled Nut Free French Macarons or Oatmeal Cream Pie Macarons. Initially, I left mine untinted because the oat flour makes them off-white.

After painting with a gold dust suspension, they were a beautiful light shade of gold.

If you prefer a more intense gold color for the final product, I recommend tinting the macaron batter with gold food coloring gel. This is done during the meringue step, in advance of macaronage. See the recipe for Nut Free French Macarons to see exactly when to add the food gel.

I tried this out to see how intense the gold would be. Keep in mind that by adding the oat flour, the color will become more yellow. After the gel was added, my meringue looked like this.

By the time the batter was ready after macaronage with the oat flour, this was the final color.

They look very golden here before baking.

The color mellows out after baking.

Starting with this color base means you will not only get a more intense gold but you will not need as much gold powder to achieve a gold look.

After your macaron shells have completely cooled, you can paint them with the gold luster dust suspension, or you can fill them and paint them after. It's up to you.

For my first batch, I filled then painted. For the batch where I tinted the batter gold, I painted before filling. This made it easier to paint the sides of the shells as well as the border of the flat side that may be visible when the cookie are sandwiched with filling.

Make the Gold Luster Dust Suspension

Pour some gold luster dust into the well of a food-dedicated paint palette.

I purchase my gold dust locally, but I have heard great things about the dust from Truly Mad Plastics.

Pour some Everclear or vodka into a small bowl.

Use a plastic transfer pipette to transfer a few drops of alcohol to the well with the dust. Stir it around with a food grade paintbrush to make the gold suspension.

You may need to add more luster dust or more alcohol depending on the consistency of the suspension.

As you use the suspension on the macarons, you will need to remake more in the same well. The alcohol evaporates quickly, so if you don't use it right away, you will need to add another drop or two to get the suspension back to the original consistency.

Paint the Macarons

You can paint the shells before or after filling them. I have done both ways for different baking projects.

Dip the paintbrush into the liquid gold and then quickly brush across the surface and sides of the macaron shells.

If you tinted the shells gold before baking, you may want to paint the flat side as well, at least on the borders in case the filling doesn't go all the way to the edges.

The alcohol evaporates quickly, so if you need to add another coat you can do so. The gold tinted shells shouldn't require more than one thin coat.

Sprinkle the shells with edible gold glitter for extra sparkle, if desired. I absolutely love this edible glitter and try to add it to just about everything I make now. It's hard to capture just how sparkly it is in photos.

Because the alcohol evaporates very quickly, the shells will be dry in no time. If you painted the shells before filling, proceed with filling the macarons.

If you painted the shells after filling, you may want to paint one side, let dry, then flip the macaron and paint the other side.

Storage

After the alcohol has evaporated from the macarons, store them in an airtight container in the refrigerator or freezer until ready to serve. Allow them to come almost to room temperature before serving so the filling can soften.

📖 Recipe