Kitchen Musings

Welcome to the Macaron Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) page. I've been making macarons for more than 3 years now and would like to believe I may have some answers to your pressing questions regarding what could be the world's most intriguing cookie.

1. What recipe do you use?

My recipe has changed over the years but I have come up with a standard as basis for all my recipes:

 140 grams almonds
200 grams powdered sugar
40 grams sugar
100 grams egg white

A lot of books don't touch on how to grind your almonds when in fact this is very important to your end product. When using a food processor, try grinding the nuts a bit first and then put your powdered sugar in and then grind further. I started with a home food processor and I always had to sift.

2. Do I need to age my egg whites?

Not necessarily, if you have the patience to whip the moisture out of your egg whites.  Please note that the longer you beat there is a greater risk of your meringue breaking. The purpose of leaving out your egg whites for 24 hours is to concentrate the albumen of your whites, the less moisture, the better for your macarons. A recipe from one of my baking classes used fresh whites and did not dry the macarons and just put them straight in the oven. {please note for italian meringue for macarons less than 2" diameter, you put them straight into the oven after piping} and the macarons were fine. This recipe uses more sugar and produces sweeter shells which I am trying to avoid. More sugar keeps the water in your meringue and stabilizes it. So really it's a matter of choice. Here's the recipe:

8 ounces almond flour
8 ounces confectioner’s sugar
7 ounces egg whites
6 ounces sugar

3. How do I know if I have mixed my batter enough?

Ah, proper "macaronage". First, you need the proper tools. I always have a spatula and bowl scraper for every batch I make.

A spatula and a bowl scraper

I use the spatula to lightly mix the dry and the wet ingredients and use the bowl scraper to start mixing the batter with minimum strokes. Macaronage takes patience, I do a test and then walk away to maybe prepare the piping bag and when I come back and the batter still looks like this, it needs a few more strokes.

Not ready

The batter above probably needs 3-5 more beat downs with the scraper, I repeat the "wait" and when it looks like this...

could use one more beat down

The above batter when tapped strongly should flatten out. Note- it is better underbeat than overbeat. If your macarons have peaks just soften with a wet finger or tap on the countertop.

4. Why don't my macarons have the foot? Why are they flat?

Remember what I said about overbeating? You've unleashed all the trapped water in your meringue and now your batter is too liquid it spreads into odd shapes. 

5. Why do my macarons have air-pockets?

From my years of making macarons, I can see 3 reason why they would have air pockets.

a. The macarons are underbaked. If the shells on the outside look done and baking them longer will burn them, try lowering the temperature so you can bake them longer.

b. Your almonds are not ground fine enough. The truth is home food processors cannot grind the nuts fine enough in a single pass without turning the mixture greasy. Break up your nuts in the food processor, add the confectioner's sugar and give it a whir. Pass the mixture through a sifter and re-grind the bigger particles. What sifting does to flour does the same for your tant pour tant in that it makes it easier to mix into your beaten egg whites. 

*Choose a sifter whose mesh is not too fine, otherwise you'll sift forever.

c. I do not sift any longer which means I have to spend more time with "macaronage" . I also like to beat my whites to very stiff white peaks which make it harder to beat down but it produces better shells with less moisture in the whites. This makes them too "poofy" and have air-pockets if not beaten down enough. 

B and c are related in a way. It basically bakes down to how good you get your dry ingredients meshed within the matrix of your beaten egg whites to give it enough structure to hold up without deflating after it cools down. I have also suggested adding more almonds to some folks so you will have more dry ingredients to add to the mix.