Making Macarons: A Healthy Dose of Humility

Imperfect macarons.

For those at least as obsessed with baked goods as I am, there comes a time when certain treats known to be difficult are too tempting not to try. Stuff like croissants, puff pastry and yes, macarons. It happens that many of these things are French. This is somehow unsurprising.

First, however, a quick and critical point of distinction that is echoed in virtually every English-language recipe for macarons I've ever seen. In a nutshell (no pun intended), these are not even close to the same thing as coconut macaroons (of the sort commonly seen in the US on Passover). Rather, these macarons are shells made from almond meal (yes, that's why it was a pun), egg whites, and sugar, that are then filled with richly flavored buttercream. When done well, they are sublime in a way the coconut counterpart can only dream of.

Ok, back to my story about trying difficult things. Every recipe for macarons notes that they are finicky and difficult. There are multiple web pages dedicated to macaron troubleshooting, and multiple videos. You can't whip the eggs so much that they dry out, or so little that they won't provide structure. You need to be sure the almonds are ground extremely fine, but can't run the food processor so long that they become a paste. You have to use egg whites, but they can't be fresh...you need to let them dry out a bit on the counter. And macarons are created by squeezing the batter from a pastry bag, preferably in perfectly round little formations that hold together, but don't have an obvious little pointy bit from the pastry bag tip. Plus they should be colored, but you can't use more than a couple drops of liquid food coloring. Obscure powdered colorings are the preferred strategy.

Dry ingredients.

Once they emerge from the oven, moreover, everybody can tell if you did it correctly or not. Did they puff up? Hopefully. Did they crack? Hopefully not. Are the bottoms perfectly flat? Hopefully. Did they turn brown? Hopefully not. Did they develop 'feet'? Hopefully. And are they perfectly round, shiny, smooth and free of blemishes? They better be!

Despite all of these very good reasons not to attempt macarons as a project, I got a new cookbook a few weeks ago (Sugar Baby by Gesine Bullock-Prado) that had an entirely too tempting recipe. So I decided to try them.

The first step was a shopping trip, as her recipe calls for "egg white powder." I had never heard of these, but was happily able to find some at Treasure Island. Then I needed almond meal, which it turns out Trader Joe's has at about half the price of similar products elsewhere. Oh, and I had to "age" my egg whites by leaving them on the counter for a few hours. Ok, all set to go.

Waiting for sugar to heat up.

The first step was to get all of the dry ingredients together (210 g almond meal, 200 g confectioners sugar and 14 g egg white powder) in the food processor and process until very fine, but not too long.

Next I put 3 "aged" egg whites and 3g of salt in my stand mixer, with the whisk attachment, to get them ready.

I then put 200 g of sugar and 1/4 cup water in a saucepan, stirring until the sugar dissolved and then heating until it reaches 240 F.

A few of my favorites.

Prior to this, though, I had started the egg whites beating when the sugar reached 210 F. This was just to get them foamy and ready for the sugar mixture, which got poured into the egg whites slowly down the side of the bowl (so the eggs don't scramble from direct heat) with the motor running at low speed. Once incorporated, I increased the mixer speed to high and let the egg whites beat until they held soft peaks.

Cracked macaron

Ok, now back to the dry ingredients. I first mixed 1/4 cup of water into these to form a paste (apparently this type of paste is good, though almond paste is not), into which the egg white mixture is then gently folded. They need to be combined until there are no more white streaks, but not over-mixed.

I then put this mix into my pastry bag, and piped it onto baking sheets covered with silicone mats, and baked for about 35 minutes at 275 F.

As you can see in the photos, a few of them came out nicely. They had feet! The tops were rounded! They were puffy and had flat bottoms!  But many did not. They cracked and/or had cratered bottoms, and didn't get very puffy.

Lime buttercream.

I did some troubleshooting to find out what I had done wrong. According to one web site that seemed possibly helpful, cracks are an indicator that your macarons have been mixed too much. Or that they have not been mixed enough. Thanks...  They still taste good, though.

And to fill them I made my first Italian-style butter cream made with egg whites and flavored with lime zest and lime juice.

They're pretty tasty. I'm thinking I'd like to try them again to see if I can get better results. Stay tuned!