Buttercream Dreams Bakery

Are you ready for it? Grab your friendship bracelets and drop everything now because it’s time for my next entry in my Swiftie Sweets series. I’ve been jumping around the Taylor Swift eras and creating desserts based on each one. So far I’ve made a Speak Now cake, Red cake pops, TLOAS cake push pops, 1989 cookies, TTPD white chocolate-dipped Oreos, and evermore braided bread. Next up, I have beautiful pastel-themed macarons to represent the Lover era.

The Lover era feels like so long ago; Taylor Swift has had so many eras in the past few years! Her lead single and music video for ME! got a mixed response, but I enjoyed the playful vibe. Watching the snake explode into butterflies was the perfect transition from the darker vibes and pain of the reputation era into a new glitter pen era. There are great bops like You Need to Calm Down or Paper Rings, but my favorites are deeper cuts – Daylight, The Archer, and Death by a Thousand Cuts.

Another great song off her album is Cornelia Street. I actually visited Cornelia Street when I spent my 40th birthday in NYC this past summer! We spent one morning exploring the West Village and saw Electric Lady Studios, Cornelia Street, and even the place Taylor Swift rented for a while.

As soon as I started this series, I knew exactly what I wanted for the Lover era. The colors and clouds from the album made me think of a delicate and airy macaron. I’ve only baked macarons once before, and I’d been looking for an excuse to try them out again. It’ll take more practice before I offer them at my home bakery. But these were an improvement over my first ones. I paired the light pastel shells with my favorite strawberry buttercream filling. Delicious!

It’s important to have some uniformity in the shell size since you will pair them up. I printed a guide to place under parchment paper for piping them. To create the swirly macaron shells, I started with a pink batter. I added a little pastel blue and purple food coloring inside the piping bag. As I piped, it created a beautiful swirl. I piped mostly round shells but piped a few hearts.

When I got them out, I was thrilled to see the feet on my shells! Macaron feet are the ridges that form around the base of a macaron shell. Baking macarons is a delicate process; there are countless ways that the recipe can go wrong. The feet on these were much more pronounced than on my first attempt. With the amount of time and effort that went into it, it was a relief to see those feet!

After letting them cool, I matched up shells and piped in a strawberry buttercream filling. I used my favorite recipe that I normally pipe on cupcakes. It’s packed with strawberry flavor. My recipe uses freeze-dried strawberries in place of fresh ones. It makes a less watery filling and is shelf-stable. Even without the fresh strawberries, there’s a bright flavor profile with a mix of sweet and tart.

To finish these out, I used a purple edible marker to recreate the album title in its era font.

I couldn’t stop eating these! They had a greater outer crisp with a soft, nutty interior that balanced well with the strawberry buttercream filling. I will definitely be making them again. Share these with your Swiftie friends and check out my other desserts in the series. I can’t believe I only have a few more eras to go. I just finished the cookies for my next entry; check back soon!