TK: French Macarons for an inexperienced baker like me

Honestly I am not a fan of french macarons. I don't over hype it to anyone even. But what I do know is they are gorgeous to look at and whatever taste it has is over in two or three bites. I have always loved it when my bakes are uniform and macarons have a huge tendency to be because you get to have templates. Oooppss I'm getting ahead of myself. I have only found one out of a dozen articles I've read so far to have been able to perfect it on the first try. I did mine (which I still have to prove on the next bake) on my third even with a few lapses - some macarons have become lopsided but not too much to prevent it from standing on it's back. But! In this third test I was able to have feet, no burnt edges, not hollow, no cracks nor sticking on the paper (except for one!). It had even held it's shells beautifully even if I left it in room temp. The outer appearance was so good I was able to distribute it in the office FINALLY. I never had a single macaron thrown out this time.

+ O French Macarons! +

French Macarons are expensive especially if you get to compare it to, let's say cupcakes especially if you're let's say hungry. Macarons could barely satiate your hunger. It really is only a dessert. If you're an avid consumer of this, I will let you in on a secret: making it is not as expensive as you may think. The very basic recipe for the famed shell of a macaron only involves 4 ingredients:

First Bowl: Almond Flour/Meal + Confectioners Sugar

2nd Bowl: Egg Whites + Granulated Sugar

Granted that an unbranded almond meal/flour is expensive (200++ PHP for 200 GRAMS) and confectioners too but the yield in each recipe is astoundingly plenty. In the recipes I got I think you could get as much as 40 shells or more, depending on the size you are trying to achieve. So you ask me what makes a macaron expensive? Well I would like to say it's all in the technique baby!

WHAT I LEARNED SO FAR:

THE OVEN

Even if the oven that the bf gifted me is quite huge than what I'm using before, it's not IMHO ideal to cram in two cookie pans so whenever I bake it takes more than 1 go in the oven. In my bakes I had 4 (or sometimes more) pans ready to go. In each batch I had to adjust whatever setting I have in the oven because contrary to what you read, realize that your oven is not accurate. Now even if it is, your oven is different from another baker's. Because of this, by my 2nd test I have already got myself an oven thermometer. From there I found out the cause of the burnt bottoms (and tops!) as I experienced in my first. My oven is too dang hot. A 140C setting in my oven is actually 170C according to my thermometer. Later on this would be my gauge on whether I still have to lower my temp (sometimes 130 goes 160 for some reason) and even open the oven door a bit to reach ideal temperatures (138 - 140 is just fine). I followed this dutifully on the 3rd try and never got any burnt shells. I was also able to fully do the recommended 20 minutes of baking unlike in my first attempts that I'm not even reaching 10 mins that the shells have either:

• burnt the shells OR


• formed cancerous feet OR


• worse, BOTH!

The setting that worked for me was:

1. I have used the Convection Fan (!!!)


2. Retained my temp around 138-150, sometimes I saw it rise to 160 but I do my best to lower it as soon as I spot it on my thermometer


3. 18 Minutes is too early for feet, I achieved mine around 20, got better results around 22-23.


4. I keep a grease pan at the bottom of the oven as well since I found one blog which does it to prevent the bottom from burning too quick.

THE TEMPLATE

I usually just bake with parchment paper (Glad) but on the very last batch I retained my macaron mat (acts like Silpat only that it has ready made templates, costs around 400PHP). That was actually the best batch of all, I don't know if that contributed at all so I might get myself a new mat to test it as well. On my very first try I was too cocky and have piped it without any guide and I ended up with too many uneven shells. After trying it with templates, I am never going back.

ALMOND MEAL / FLOUR

First two attempts were almond flour and when the branch of Wonderbake only had almond meal, I tried it instead. It worked well too! There is a branded bag of almond flour in Rustan's (Century Mall) but I am not sure if I'm ready to test it with a 600PHP worth of ground almonds. One good tip is to sift at least twice with confectioner's sugar, one of which should be sifted together. This I read in some blogs make the almonds less oily because of the sugar being incorporated together with the ground almonds.

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="1458"] The ONLY French Macaron from my first test. The rest are either cracked, hollow or burnt.[/caption]

FOOD COLORING

P.L.E.A.S.E. use the gel type.

EGG WHITES

When you start making macarons and you're off to researching on egg whites and you're a beginner like me you'd see the word "aged" a lot. Apparently it means differently too with different bakers. Some say you just need a room temp egg (still whole) while there are extremes that had to let white eggs (uncracked!) out in room temp. They fully swear by it too! In all of my tests I never went as far as that, but I do bake with room temperature eggs (I simply rest the uncracked eggs on my dining table).

I am also a complete novice when it comes to separating yolks and whites that I look stupid on how I do it. I tried juggling it on their shells but I end up piercing the yellows. I attempted it with my hand and I ended up not separating it at all. What worked for me was I prepare 3 bowls and I crack the eggs on a small bowl and tip the contents on the large one, using an egg separator to prevent the yellow from falling. When I feel like I've separated enough whites I put the yolk on the other bowl. On the instance that upon breaking the yolk on my "tip bowl", I get myself a new one to prevent any yellows in my whites. I was told the meringue would never rise with just a simple drop hence the precautions.

THE LAVA EFFECT

One of my irks is how in almost all recipes you would read that you should stop when the macaron mix have become a "lava consistency". Just what the f is a lava consistency anyway? The 2nd one I think I did it but it was the worst test I ever produced. Based from my tests I think I finally know what it is and I can't fully describe if it's really lava. All I know is that you need to adjust your manner of mixing your macaron (there is a specific move you have to find any youtube video and it would be the same) according to your recipe. On my 2nd test I got up to 60 rounds and yet it still came out undermixed.

The last one was atleast 31-35 times and it was the perfect time to stop! I deduce there are two factors involved: the recipe and your own strength. If there's a lot more flour I reckon it's harder to mix and is dependent on how strong you are in fully incorporating all the ingredients. And oh before I forget. I dump the entire flour and sugar mixture over my meringue. My reason for this is this would ensure that I won't overmix at all, and the dry ingredients would be "soaked" on the meringue at the same time. Don't take my word for it, this is coming from someone who manually hand mixes chocolate chip cookies. Yes. I'm too lazy to bring my hand mixer out for that.

THE RECIPE

I will have to update this in the future once I find the best recipe. The last one I used produced really good shells but the taste (based on the people I gave it to), found it too sweet.

In summary, you need to do a mental checklist on every test you make to ensure that you prevent the same issues from happening again. You kind of understand it too after a while even without checking any blogs anymore. I sometimes guess for the cause of my issues and get it right when I check. I do hope though that my next ones would be the same or even better! It would be a bummer to get back to the old issues again. All that effort for nothing would be truly sad.