Making Macarons

I got a sense of baking invincibility after I conquered the icing of Denny’s cake and the anticipated chocolate drip. A couple of YouTube tutorials and I felt instilled with a false sense of confidence. So when time came to make Noah’s cake I was totally sure I could not only make the cake itself but also the decorations to sit on top. With yet another YouTube tutorial up my sleeve I went into the making of macarons sure I’d crack it first time. Not so much.

I had all the tools at my disposal, the ingredients and hey, I’d watched the tutorial. I had this. So it turned out I started my macaron making journey with the Italian method, which involves heating the caster sugar and adding it as a syrup to the meringue. I had the thermometer, I got it to the right heat. I followed all the steps correctly including letting the macarons rest for 20 minutes before baking, as prescribed by the baker on my laptop. Except she is baking in England where humidity is a rare occurrence and I’m baking in Sydney where it’s pretty much par for the course. So when the ‘skin’ I was expecting to form on my cookies didn’t I put both trays in the fridge. Big mistake, huge.

What I ended up with that first attempt were basically almond biscuits. Attempt no.2, still using the Italian method. This time the look was nearly there but the ‘feet’ or ruffled bottom of the macarons spread out and got burnt.

Okay more tutorials. I have probably watched every single macaron tutorial on YouTube and I highly recommend you do the same. Each one gives you something a little different and most use the French method which calls for less equipment and is on the surface, easier, though I have yet to reach my desired result with it. I’m not sure if I was overbeating my egg whites or undermixing my batter, setting my oven at the wrong temperature, cooking for the wrong length of time. I tried everything, including putting an empty baking sheet above the macarons. Basically it was one disaster after another, including one all-nighter where I stayed up until 4.30am!

Suffice it to say Noah’s cake was topped with store bought macarons much to my displeasure and the whole affair severely knocked my confidence. Okay… two weeks on from my spate of disasters I decided to try again. Taking what I’d learnt from my many failures – which I would almost say are necessary in such a technical bake because it is only through your mistakes that you understand how to do it right – and referring to the lessons learnt from the tutorials I’d watched, I began again.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWSOJMcvDec

This tutorial from Cupcake Jemma is probably my favourite. It is incredibly in-depth and Jemma and Dane give great pointers and references to guide you through the process. I wrote down all the steps, the measurements, the temperatures, everything. Here’s what I learned that helped me achieve proper macarons.

Lessons in Making Macarons:

Almond meal (or almond flour) – this needs to be blitzed until super fine, ideally in a food processor as its easier and quicker. However if you don’t have a food processor like me, you can sift your almond meal through a sieve which hurts your hands and takes longer but is so worth it. That’s what will get your smooth macaron shell. I sifted it three times between two bowls then I sifted in my icing sugar (powdered sugar).

Easy little hack that I learnt from Georgia’s Cakes when it comes to neatly sifting icing sugar. Pour into a sieve over your mixing bowl, take a round-bottomed glass and gently circle the glass into the icing sugar. It pushes the sugar through without creating that cloud that usually happens making you feel like the confectionary version of a coke head.

Buy a digital kitchen scale. Macarons are one of the most technical bakes you’ll ever make and accuracy is the key to getting them right. You’ll want to measure out the exact amounts of egg whites in particular, for this recipe, you’ll need two batches of 72g. One egg white goes into the dry ingredients and the other will be whisked up into Italian meringue. Also make sure you’ve left your eggs out of the fridge for a good day to bring them completely to room temperature.

Add way more food colouring than you think you should, the meringue and baking process will dilute the colour. I add my colouring to the almond paste as per Cupcake Jemma and Dane’s tutorial.

As for making the Italian meringue. I highly recommend buying a digital food thermometer. I bought mine from Spotlight for $20 This is essential for making your meringue as the first step is heating your caster sugar with 60ml of cold water to the exact temperature. Once you’ve combined the sugar and water, give the mixture a swirl with your finger to ensure the sugar isn’t sticking to the bottom of the pan, then start heating. You ultimately want it to reach 118˚C but keep testing it and once it gets to 110 ˚C start whisking your egg whites. You want them frothy but not stiff when you add the sugar syrup, which you’ll need to carefully pour down the side of the bowl to avoid splashing while the whisk continues. Bring your meringue to a glossy, slightly floppy consistency in that it’s not quite stiff peaks but flops over when you lift up your whisk.

Macronage – the process of folding your meringue into your dry ingredients. This is the do or die step of the process and the one I kept faltering over in my initial attempts. The key is not to undermix your batter. Of course you don’t want to overmix either but this is what scared me into repeatedly undermixing! You’re looking for the mixture to ribbon into itself. You’re also looking for it not to be forming a V shape when it falls from the spatula, that as Dane explains is the consistency of choux pastry which we are not making in this instance, so keep mixing until that V is no longer and the batter is ribboning nicely with visible lines that stay for a few seconds. Then you are ready to fill your piping bag which should be fitted with a round nozzle about 1.5cm wide.

I recommend printing out a macaron template (there are loads online) and placing it underneath your parchment paper on the baking tray. Just don’t forget to slide them out again once your macarons are piped! Parchment or baking paper apparently helps the macaron mixture dry out better than the silicone mats you can also buy. I’ve not tried the latter so I can’t attest to the truth of that. Once you’ve piped your macaron rounds you want to drop the tray on a flat surface a few times to bring any air bubbles to the surface. You can also take a toothpick and carefully pop any remaining air bubbles too. Then leave them to rest for anywhere up to an hour, depending on the levels of humidity where you are.

You’ll know they’re oven ready when you touch them and no mixture comes off on your fingers. The process of resting them helps them form a skin over the top which may or may not be visible but as I said, you can feel for it even if you can’t see it.

Don’t pop them straight in the oven yet. You want it at the exact right temperature because these things are a science and need precision and accuracy!

Buy an oven thermometer. Trust me it could be the difference in success or fail. First of all, ovens all run at different temperatures so though the recipe calls for 165˚C test your oven ahead of your baking day. I discovered I needed to preheat mine to just over 150˚C to get the right temperature on the thermometer. I tested this out a couple of days ahead of actually making my macarons so I was prepared when the time came.

On preheating the oven, I placed my thermometer in again (on an empty baking tray) and only once it showed the correct temperature did I place my macarons in the oven with a strict 12 minute timer switched on as they went in.

Also if you’re making more than one tray of macarons, keep a closer eye on the subsequent trays as they may need to come out of the oven a minute or two earlier than the first tray. You can test if the macarons are ready about 10 minutes into baking by just touching the top. If it moves to separate from the bottom it still needs the further minute or two but if its firm it’s ready.

Once they’re done, whip them out and gently slide the baking paper off the tray and let your macarons rest on a flat surface. If you leave them on the tray they’ll carry on baking. You don’t want to touch them now until they are fully cooled so in the meantime you can get on with making your filling of choice.

I opted for an easy buttercream filling for my first batch of lilac macarons, then a raspberry and white chocolate ganache for my second batch of pink macarons. You can fill yours with anything you like.

Another note. On making chocolate macarons, Dane suggested I substitute 3 tablespoons of the icing sugar (that goes in with the almond meal) for 3 tablespoons of cocoa powder, otherwise the mixture could end up too dry and the wrong consistency. I can attest that it worked beautifully! I filled mine with a chocolate orange ganache.

Another note I learnt, don’t touch your macarons with damp hands once they’re baked, you’ll leave little wet spots on the beautiful shells.

One last tip, as tempting as they look once you’ve assembled the shells with their delicious fillings, they’ll taste even better left in the fridge for a couple of days as it allows the flavour of your filling to mature into the shells.

Enjoy!

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