I’m so thrilled to be writing this post today as part of Meeta’s Monthly Mingle Reloaded: the 2026 edition.
Those of you who have been reading for a while now (I have been writing this blog since 2009!!!), may remember the heady early days of this blog when it was commonplace to participate in all sorts of online blogger events like roundups and bake or cook-alongs (remember Daring Bakers and Daring Cooks?). Oftentimes I lament those early, simpler days of blogs (and social media, tbh) when it was less about SEO and more about real people (I am looking at you, AI slop sites…) sharing recipes and stories. It felt like a real community back then.
Thankfully, Meeta, the incredible talent behind What’s for Lunch Honey? has decided to throw it back to those simpler times by reviving one of the most popular series on her blog from back then – Monthly Mingle! Here’s what she has to say about it:
“A Virtual Potluck” – back in April 2006, I embarked on a journey to host a monthly virtual potluck on my blog. We might have been spread out all over the world, but the few food bloggers we were found a wonderful way to come together and share the warmth of our friendships.
Between Flickr and the Food Blog S’cool I took my first steps into the food blogging community. Those platforms were great for exchanging tips about photography and for helping each other with blog-related questions. It was all about learning by doing: no AI, no mass production, just creating everything from scratch.
In February 2006 I went live announcing to whoever was out there what I intended to cook over the weekend! The next post was actually my first recipe of Pesto Salmon, and my son Soeren made his debut in that post at just 4 years old.
While I wasn’t blogging quite as early as Meeta, I did discover her very early on in my blogging career and have followed her journey since then so when she announced her return to this series, I was all over it! The theme this month is “Celebrate Friendship & Connections” so I’ve chosen a recipe that represents both of those things in a huge way for me – macarons!
For a long time, between maybe 2011 and 2015, I made and wrote about macarons all the time. I was a little obsessed, to put it mildly. For a couple of years there, I participated in a monthly Mactweets challenge, continuing my quest for consistent perfection and I met SO many “internet friends” though that – many of whom I am still in touch with online today! So when Meeta revealed the theme for the reboot of Monthly Mingle, I couldn’t go past macarons!
Now I haven’t made macarons for probably 6 years so I was a but leery as to whether they would work. I have retired my stand mixer to the basement as I don’t use it very much anymore and I couldn’t be bothered to bring it up so I threw caution to the wind and used my (very powerful) electric hand beater (<<< affiliate link but I couldn’t live without mine). Instead of overthinking everything, I just… made them. I had some freeze-dried raspberries on hand so I added a few of them to the dried ingredients to blitz and it made beautiful shells (I used some pink food colouring as well to deepen the hue slightly).
Whee! Happy feet dance!
I only made a half of my normal recipe which yielded 54 shells, so 27 macarons. A perfect amount to dip my feet back into macaron baking!
I filled half of these with a cream cheese frosting…
(the light on these from my kitchen makes them look less pink)
For some fun, I rolled some of them in hundreds and thousands (sprinkles) and was so happy with the pretty, fun look!
I couldn’t be happier with how these turned out – with much less fuss and stress than I remember!
Alllll the pretty macarons packed up and headed to various friends and neighbours – they sure brought a smile to everyone’s face!
Want to make these? Here’s my recipe!
Raspberry Macarons
Pretty in Pink macarons with a tangy raspberry shell and either a chocolate ganache or cream cheese filling!
Ingredients
for the macarons
- 57g ground almonds (known as almond flour/ meal)
- 115g icing sugar
- 72g egg whites (separated, covered in plastic wrap and left at room temperature for a few hours)
- 36g granulated sugar
- 5g (1/4 cup) freeze dried raspberries
- (food colouring powder – about 1 teaspoon for this amount of macarons)
for the chocolate ganache
- 1/4 35% cream
- 100g semi-sweet chocolate chips
for the cream cheese frosting
- 125g cream cheese, at room temperature
- 60g unsalted butter, at room temperature
- 1/4 - 1/3 cup icing sugar, sifted
Instructions
Make the macarons
- Make sure egg whites are at room temperature.
- Line two baking trays with parchment paper.
- Prepare a 14” piping bag with a plain tip (I use Ateco 803), twist the bag at the tip end and place inside a glass to facilitate filling the bag.
- Combine almond flour, icing sugar and freeze-dried raspberries in a food processor, pulsing about 10 times for a few seconds, until all ingredients thoroughly incorporated
- .Sift dry ingredients twice using a fine sieve and pressing the mixture through with your hands and set aside.
- Using a hand mixer, beat the egg whites and sugar at a low speed for 2 minutes, medium speed for 2 minutes and a high speed for 2
minutes. The egg whites will be a large mass at this point; don’t worry! - Add the food colouring and mix for one minute at the highest speed.
- Add the dry ingredients to the egg whites. You can do this all at once – don’t be shy!
- Fold the mixture, at the same time pressing it against the sides of the bowl to deflate the mixture. Fold this mixture about 40 times (counting single strokes), stopping every couple of strokes after 25 to check the consistency. It should be lava-like, flowing in ribbons off the spatula.
- Transfer the mixture to the piping bag, sealing the open end with a twist and holding firmly with the hand that will not be actively piping.
- Pipe your macarons, holding the piping tip at an angle to the baking sheet, about 3cm in diameter (they will spread during cooking), and quickly removing the tip when you have finished piping, making a shape like a comma. Rap the tray four times on each side hard on a countertop to remove any remaining air bubbles.
- REST the tray of macaron shells for 30 minutes before baking. At this point you should pre-heat the oven to 300˚F.
- Bake for 16-18 minutes at 300˚F, turning the tray from back to front halfway through.
- Remove from oven and let the tray sit for a few minutes.
- Remove the parchment from the tray and place on a cooling rack and allow the macarons to cool completely. Remove from parchment paper.
- Pair up like shells to facilitate the filling process.
Make the chocolate ganache
- Heat the cream in a small saucepan until nearly boiling.
- Pour over chocolate and allow to sit for a few minutes, then gently stir to combine.
- Allow to sit in a cool place (or the fridge) until it’s hard enough to pipe – it should be Nutella-like consistency.
Make the cream cheese frosting
- Combine cream cheese and butter with an electric hand-held beater or a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment until soft and creamy.
- Gradually add the icing sugar (to taste – I like mine a little less sweet), mixing to combine well.
Fill and assemble the macarons
- Place the fillings in a piping bag fitted with a plain tip and pipe tablespoonfuls onto one side of a shell.
- Top with the other half of the shell, twisting gently to press the filling out to the edge.
- If you like, roll the edges in 100s and 1000s (sprinkles) for a fun party look!
Recommended Products
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Aren’t they fun?
PS: for the BEST sprinkles, check out Sweetapolita! Get a discount using code EATLIVTRAVWRITE!
Thanks Meeta for the chance to dip my feet back into baking something that I truly love trying to figure out and remembering the “good old days” of blogging! Here’s to celebrating, friendship and connection!
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Please note: I am a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites. This post also contains affiliate links for Sweetapolita – a brand I love and use! This means that if you click over and purchase something, I will receive a very small percentage of the purchase price (at no extra cost to you). Thank you in advance!
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How awesome to have Monthly Mingle again. Your macarons look amazing.
Okay, first of all: these are breathtaking. The colour, the feet, the sprinkles – just perfection. But what really got me was your reflection on those early blogging days. Mactweets, Daring Bakers, all of it. That sense of community felt so real because it was real. Friendships like ours started there. Thank you for sharing this beautiful recipe and for taking the time to be part of Monthly Mingle. These macarons are a gift, and so is your friendship. Hope we can share a plate of these (or something equally delicious) in person one day soon!
Hard relate! I do really miss the old days of food blogging, creating for the joy of it rather for the algorithm, and the incredible friendships we forged. I remember all those fab monthly events – Is my blog burning; Monthly Mingle; Weekend Herb Blogging; Waiter there’s something in my… – the list goes on! But the great thing is that I am still friends with so many people from back then including Meeta, Sarah and of course YOU! I am a little in awe of your macarons, having never made them myself, still :o)