Macaron Troubleshooting & A New Recipe

Blogging about macarons today!

Yes I know, I blog a lot about macarons but even with all the information I've posted on the blog, I still get a ton of questions in my email box. An overwhelming number of emails, emails that I don't always have the time to answer punctually, so I felt a need to address the questions in one space on the blog.

I'm posting a troubleshooting guide to help folks with their macarons.

I'm also posting another french macaron recipe. One that I've been working on for almost two months. I've been crafting a recipe that produces a cookie that is a bit more reliable.

French macarons don't get any more perfect than this.

Those three towels contain notes for no less than 8 macaron recipes

My counter covered in notes, which as you can see, are on paper towels. I have thick masses of folded paper towels, covered with my scribbling, tucked into binders in my kitchen. I'm considering putting a roll of real paper on the towel holder in my kitchen, since I use rags to clean.

One of the hardest questions I've had to address with my baking has to do with hollows.

When I make a batch of macarons, about 90-95% of the cookies are perfect and 5-10% will have a gap between the soft interior and the shell. Why this inconsistency within a batch? I have absolutely no idea.

Two macarons from the same batch. The macaron on the left has an air pocket above the interior and the macaron on the right is perfect.

Now when folks come to me with macarons like the one on the left, I tell them not to worry. The cookies are still wonderful. No one is going to bite into that cookie and spit it out.

Still the hollow problems that many people have seem to go far beyond the insides shown above. They find that every cookie is completely or mostly hollow. So I did some research in my own kitchen trying to replicate what was happening for others and what advice I could give to fix it. I toyed with baking during high and low humidity, using dehydrated egg whites, soft meringues, firm meringues, and new recipes. I also looked into how these cookies were baked in professional kitchens. In the process I discovered the answer and crafted a recipe for a macaron that is quite reliable.

Let's start with my latest recipe for French meringue macarons, in the instructions I'll give advice on how to avoid making hollow macarons. This recipe preforms extremely well in my kitchen and I hope everyone else will have lots of luck with it.

Same recipe, larger cookie, this time on silicone baking mats (note the shorter ruffled feet)

Even slight variations in oven temperature don't doom this cookie, provided they're cooked for an adequate length of time.

Not So Humble Macarons v3.0128
yields approximately 50 cookies
5g dehydrated egg white powder
28g granulated sugar
225g confectioners (powdered) sugar
125g almond meal
100g aged egg whites

Note on the ingredients: Dehydrated egg white is not the same as meringue powder. Meringue powder is not an appropriate substitution so please don't use it. Many well stocked grocers and health food stores carry dehydrated egg whites, just ask where they keep them. They're also readily available online.

I've been baking with old whites. My eggs have been averaging 5-6 days aged, in the refrigerator, lightly covered with a paper towel.

Recommend using Bobs Red Mill almond meal or grinding your own by weighing out the almonds and half the powdered sugar into the bowl of your food processes and grinding them until very fine. Sift to ensure an even meal and then sift together with the remaining powdered sugar.

Prep two half sheet pans with parchment or silicone baking mats.

Pre-heat your oven to somewhere between 290-300°F.

Start by weighing out your sugar and egg white powder into a small bowl. Mix with a fork until uniform and set aside.

Sift together your almond meal and powdered sugar.

Weigh out your egg whites and begin beating them on low speed until foamy. Begin slowly sprinkling in the powdered egg white and sugar mixture as you beat. Then increase the speed to medium and beat until a firm meringue forms.

You want firm, glossy peaks in your meringue, you don't want to beat all the way to stiff peaks. So hold yourself back.

Beat in food coloring gel now and then add 1/3rd of the almond mixture. Folding it in gently. Once combined, add another third of the almond mixture, and so on. For visual reference on how to combine and fold, see this video by Chef Nini.

Add your batter to a piping bag with a round tip (any size bit under 1cm works fine) and pipe rows of macarons.

Pick up the pan with both hands, and holding it level, tap it firmly onto the counter several times. This will bring up any air bubbles in the cookies. Pop the bubbles with a toothpick if they don't break while tapping.

These cookies NEED to rest on the counter. Between 30-60 minutes depending on the humidity.

Bake the cookies for roughly 15 minutes. One sheet at a time.

Once the cookies lift easily from the parchment or silicone baking mat they're probably done. To be sure, pop a cookie off with an offset spatula and break it open. The insides should be set and not overly moist (wet uncooked meringue is no good). If it is too moist the cookies will collapse when they cool.

To avoid hollows: aim for slightly overcooking the cookies, rather than under cooking them. Yes, this means your cookies might cool a little crisper than you like your macarons, but bear with me.

This is how the pros make their macarons. Do you think they magically produce perfect macarons straight from the oven? Heck no. They mature them. They cook the shells enough to set the interior and then remove any lingering crispness through the power of osmosis.

Hermé points out an interesting aspect of his macaroons that seems to challenge the basics of most pastry teaching - freshness. "As soon as they're made they're not ready to eat, but they're really at their best after 24 or even 48 hours," he says. "An osmosis takes place between the garnish and the biscuit. When freshly baked this is hard and crisp, but it absorbs some humidity from the filling and its inside becomes more tender while the crust on the surface stays intact." Masterclass: Macarons (link)

(I love that Pierre used the scientific term to identify what is happening. )

This is exactly why professional bakeries lightly spray the bottom of their shells with a syrup that matches the flavor of the macron. The syrup isn't just for flavor, it restores moisture to the shell and speeds the cookies maturation. The syrup, along with the moisture of the filling, melds with the macron cookie and 1-3 days later the texture is marvelous.

This is why maturation is so important and how professionals turn consistent tray, after tray, of these temperamental cookies.

If you're aiming to bake a cookie that is ready to eat later the same day, you can do it with practice, but you're going to have your work cut out for you. It is difficult and takes a lot of familiarity with baking these cookies, you're riding a very fine line between not done/done/overdone. I bake so many macarons a month that I can do it just by snatching a cookie from the oven, breaking it open and judging the inside.

Do you know what all that trouble for perfect cookies saves me? A few hours of maturation. That's it. And you know what, those beautiful, fresh from the oven macarons are not even "perfect" yet. Maturation is what makes macarons perfect. The maturation process melds the flavor of the filling with the shell, balancing the sweetness, adjusting the texture and making the cookie plain delicious. As skilled as you may become in your macaron baking, your cookies will always be better after maturation.

So if you're struggling with the interiors of your cookies, aim for slightly over cooking them. Edging a little onto the dry side is both acceptable and fixable through maturation, wet interiors that collapse into hollows generally are not.

What if you over do it? Really over-bake the cookies?

Well, I impulsively decided to over-bake a batch of my macarons to test this, giving them an extra 3-4 minutes in the oven. Enough to make them crisp like savoiardi biscuits.

Peanut Macarons with Salted Caramel Peanut Filling

I filled these cookies and then placed them in my refrigerator to mature. Every 24 hours I allowed a cookie to come to room temperature, then I tested it to see if the texture improved.

It did. Perfectly.

That was one tasty bite. The delicate shell gave way with a slight crackle to a soft interior that melted in your mouth. It was perfect. It just took a few days maturation.

Once crispy and unpleasant, these cookies absorbed enough moisture from the filling to completely undo the effects from the extra time in the oven.

So that's my final word on how to fix your macarons if you're having trouble with hollows. Err on the side of slightly over baking the cookies to ensure the insides are set and then mature the cookies to give them the proper texture. If it's good enough for Hermé, it's good enough for me.

Now onto that troubleshooting guide I promised:

Macaron Troubleshooting

Per Ms Humble's Experience thus far

My almond meal seems too moist/wet

• Place it in a warm (not hot) oven, spread the meal thin on a pan and allow to dry out over several hours.

My almond meal has seed coat in it

• If the meal is finely ground, seed coat is fine, it just produces speckled macarons. The peanut macarons above are made with such a macaron meal.

My meringue is grainy

• Meringue is over beaten and broken. Try beating it on medium-low speed and checking often to ensure you don't push your meringue too far. There is no rush here, this isn't a race to make the fastest meringue.

My meringue is a loose foam, it won't come to a firm meringue

• Not beating the mixture long enough.
• Beating in a plastic bowl.
• Beating in a bowl that isn't impeccably clean.
• Trace of yolk in the whites.

Beat in a very clean (VERY CLEAN, not a trace of grease or oil) stainless or copper bowl. Add a little acid to help strengthen your meringue if you're beating in stainless steel (couple drops lemon juice, 1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar, or a small pinch of salt).

My macaron batter appears too thick

• Under-mixed
• Incorrect measurements of ingredients

My macaron batter appears too thin

• Over-mixed
• Poorly beaten or broken meringue
• Incorrect measurements of ingredients

My macaron tops are splotchy

• Inadequately beaten meringue
• Over mixed batter

My macaron tops are lumpy (grainy)

• Almond meal too coarse. Grind the almond meal into a fine powder or sift out the larger particles.

My macaron tops are domed and lumpy (fine, bubbly lumps, often lack feet)

• Under mixed (fine texture)
• Broken meringue (sandy texture)

My macaron tops are lumpy (wavy, like rumpled wax-paper)

• Over-mixed batter
• Under-beaten meringue
• Cooked at too low a temperature
• Not rested long enough
• Under-cooked

My macarons tops are lumpy (bubbles)

• Not taping the pan on the counter before resting
• Not popping air bubbles with a tooth-pick before resting

My macarons tops have peaks that don't settle down (even if I tap the pan)

• Under-mixed
• Incorrect measurements of ingredients

My macarons have scattered lumps of almond powder in them

• Not sifting the dry ingredients thoroughly before adding them to the meringue

My macarons have lopsided feet

• Warped baking pans or using thin pans that buckle in the heat
• Resting the pans on a surface that isn't level
• Strong heat from the bottom of the oven
• Oven too hot or has hot spots
• Using Fan-forced heat

My macarons have protruding feet

• Cooked on silicone baking mat
• Over-mixed
• Cooked too hot
• Poor or broken meringue

My macarons have no feet

• Under-mixing
• Resting too long
• Poor, under-beaten or broken meringue
• Cooked at too low a temperature

My macarons are not round

• Not using a piping bag and tip
• Not piping straight down onto the pan
• Reusing parchment
• Using wrinkled parchment
• Using warped pans

My macarons had feet in the oven but once they came out and cooled the feet were shorter.

• This is normal. The feet will shrink a little coming out of the oven. The shrinkage is more pronounced on silicone baking mats than on parchment, in my experience.

My macarons stick to the pan

• Under-cooked
• Baked too hot or too cool
• Prying the delicate cookies off with your meaty fists
• Baking the cookies on something other than the recommended silicone baking mats or baking parchment, like aluminum foil (NO!)

Ideally, the cookies should release easily while still in the oven. Test by trying to lift one of the cookies from the pan with an offset spatula.

Allow the cookies to cool on the parchment or silpat, or pop them into the freezer for a few minutes and they should be easier to remove.

My macarons are completely hollow. (Low profile shells. Interior is gummy and pooled in the bottom of the shell.)

• Over-mixed and under-cooked.
• Baked too hot and for too brief a time. Insides never set and collapsed when cool

My macarons have air pockets (pre-cooling)

• Under-cooked
• Over-beating the meringue to stiff, dry peaks
• Under-mixed, too much air left in the batter

My macarons have air pockets (post-cooling)

• Slightly under-cooked

My macarons are soft and break easily

• Under-cooked
• Cooked at too low a temperature
• Over-mixed
• Meringue under beaten

My macarons are feet-less, flat, bubbly, grainy and all wrong

• Broken meringue
• Under-beaten meringue

My macarons are hard coming out of the oven

• Cooked too long

My macarons browned while baking

• Cooked on too high of an oven rack
• Strong heat from the top of the oven
• Top element of the oven turning on (shield the cookies by placing an empty pan on a top rack)
• Cooked too long

My macarons cracked

• Cookies rise rapidly due to strong heat from the bottom of the oven. (Double stack the pans)
• Cookies were not adequately rested before baking.
• Cooked on too low of an oven rack
• Under-beaten meringue (may also be puffy and lack feet)
• Batter under-mixed (too much air in batter)

My macarons are puffy and porous

• Under mixed
• Inaccurate ingredient ratios (often too much egg)
• Used superfine rather than powdered sugar

My macarons are kind of crisp after they cool

• You need to fill and mature the cookies. They will be ready to eat in 24-72 hours
  

My macarons chirp like a bird

• Cookies left in the oven for far too long

Actually happened once. Forgot about the cookies for almost an hour and when they came out and cooled on the counter they chirped and squeaked for almost 10 minutes. It was very cool.

Pin It