Making macarons without almond flour can be fun. I like to call them mockaroons. I ran out of almond flour. Well…not completely. I have one unopened back that I am squirreling away for a rainy day. I decided instead of opening it to experiment with other ingredients.

So often, you will read when learning how to make macarons that you cannot use anything but ground up almonds or almond flour in order to make a macaron. Some will go into great detail and explain it’s the precise percentage of oil needed to create the foot. Meanwhile, others say it has to be almonds because that’s the tradition and you can’t break traditions. I decided to be daring and start trying other ingredients. What’s the worst that could happen?

Wheat Flour Mockaroons

Great news: you can use plain wheat flour to create macarons. Bad news: they taste terrible. I had in my mind it would be a macaron/angel food cake hybrid in terms of flavor and appearance. Realty: they taste like sugary flour. They sure were pretty, though! Making macarons without almond flour is okay, just don’t use wheat in its place if you want to not have a bad aftertaste.

My husband is a teacher. The majority of what I make goes to them. The inedible stuff goes to the birds and some goes to friends and family. Out of everyone, the birds and the students are more enjoyable to make for as I don’t feel as bad if they get half broken cookies, lopsided creations or just super ugly desserts. They usually eat it with relish and beg for more.

Peanut Butter Mockaroons

The purpose of that antidote is to share how the peanut macarons came about. They wanted to try them. I’m actually going to attempt this again with a variation in recipe as they turned out tasting absolutely fantastic. Think peanut butter cookie meets meringue kisses. I could have eaten 50 without a care in the world. It’s probably one of the few things I have eaten in fact. Most of the stuff I make I don’t ingest. Unfortunately, they looked more like almond puffs than macarons. If no one knew I was making macarons, they’d probably be thrilled to have these if they are peanut lovers. Seriously, work with peanuts. They are awesome to devour and gluten free.

Walnut Mockaroons

Next up, was walnuts. I wish I’d taken a better picture. They turned out very well. Some of the students liked the flavor of walnuts better than almonds. If you are a walnut lover, they were very good. It was as if baklava and macarons had a union. They came out hollow, but that was likely due to the fact they fold together quickly and I stirred a little too much. I will likely revisit these again to see if it’s the oil content or more likely, me. If you like walnuts, I recommend giving it a go. I added cinnamon for more depth in flavor. Yum!

Coconut Macaron Macaroons are the ultimate Mockaroons

Finally, I decided early on, in fact, this was my first experiment, to try toasted shredded coconut. I did this because people keep calling macarons macaroons. So I decided to make a “macaroon macaron.” It wasn’t only extremely successful, I adored this cookie. This was a pleasant surprise to me as I generally find eating coconut similar to chewing on plastic. To this date, it was my favorite thing to make. I have since bought coconut flour to see if I can repeat it or if the coconut flakes are needed to have success. Stay tuned.

Sorry to share this again has no recipe. I’d be afraid to share one at this point as you’d be greatly disappointed. Until then, just google macaron and you’ll see hundreds of variations pop up. Then replace the almonds with a new ingredient to see what happens.

I’m not going to share a recipe as it’s just the macaron recipe with equal amounts of almonds swapped with other ingredients. So, what is the point of this blog post? Mainly to express that you should experiment with flavors and ingredients. Macarons without almonds can be a fun experiment. You may discover a new flavor combination that you go bananas over. And while you are doing this, you’ll truly start learning the science behind baking. You’ll see why certain ingredients are needed and others are easily tweaked.

And more importantly: STOP BLAMING yourself when a recipe fails. More often than not, it’s a bad recipe. Frequently, this is due to bakers not getting that somethings cannot not be substituted and retain the flavor or texture. So when you see a recipe (frequent in fad dieting circles) claiming you can swap ingredients, especially core ones like flour, always be prepared for less than ideal results. There is no way you can make a black-bean paste taste just like buttermilk brownies. Don’t fall for the desperate dieters claiming otherwise. I’ve been there trying to fool myself in the past as well. Eat the sugar, butter, flour. Cut out calories elsewhere.