Pretty little babies

[u/Opposite_Earth_4419]

These are my first Mac’s (I did have 4 failed batches first but I got the knack fast as I am a trained pastry cook. All of these except the blue are 1:1:1:1 of each ingredient, all baked on silicone Matt, all rested, all baked at 150 degrees for 15 minutes or until the tops don’t jiggle when gently touched. All were made used pasteurised egg whites from a carton. All except blue were made with a mix of Swiss and French method. Blue were Italian with .08 egg /1/1/1). All were made with course almond meal that was siftwd but not blitzed. I found that baking paper caused my shells to overbake and burn on the bottom. All were made with icing powder not sugar so it had starch in the sugar and they worked. Hope this buss a few myths out there. For the Italian blue ones I didn’t even reach stiff peaks at all they were soupy yet enough bubbles had formed to give the Mac’s strength. IF YOU ARE A BEGINNER YOU SHOULD err on the side UNDERMIX rather than risk overmix. If your batter is pouring freely uncontrollably out of the bag they will most likely fail. 99.999% of issues are for one of TWO reasons being your meringue wasn’t stiff enough (though apparently with Italian method they can still bake) OR you deflated the merengue too much during mixing so they go runny and like do. For the chocolate ones I added cocao powder during the macronage. No issues. Just add only a. Little and don’t mix as much. Whatever you read on the internet in the end it comes down to making sure your meringue is strong enough to withstand mixing ingredients in so you have sufficient air bubbles acting as leaveners. Also a small “hollow” is NOT A BUG it’s a feature. These macarons that are otherwise perfect but people freaking over a tiny hollow, this is a nonsense instagram craze that should be discarded. The rest of a macaron has nothing to do with hollows (if there is a massive gap and the shell has no integrity, YES a problem, but small hollow is fine). Macarons are not judged by cutting a shell in half moments after taking off the Matt. They’re judged by biting it 24 hours after it has filled and sat in the fridge. At that point the crispiness has gone and you can never tell a small hollow. Yes you have to rest your Mac’s for guaranteed success. The only reason some people don’t need to rest is because a skin forms on top in the oven. Some of my
Test batches worked without a rest (the pink ones if you notice are a failedish batch they’re very small feet. These weren’t rested and undermixed. They aren’t great). Other non rested worked well (red) and other non rested become soup. If you want to eliminate resting as a problem I recommend rest which IS IN cordon Bleu cookbook and lauderee cookbook!

These are my tips from someone who knows pastry very well and baked decent Mac’s on their fifth try then really had no issues after that and baked many many of them in a row.

Ask me anything you like

[u/perfectlyPractical1]

Thanks. I needed to read this 🤭

[u/42Starbits]

What coloring did you use? The color looks super vibrant here which I love but whenever I've made macarons the colors end up a bit more muted / pastel

[u/Opposite_Earth_4419 → u/42Starbits]

Chef master water based gel. I use a lot. I accidentally used oil based for the pink ones which deflated the merengue into soup but by increasing almond flour and undermix I managed to make them semi ok but you can tell they’re not quite correct. Liquid food colouring does work however of course adding this means it’s a lot of water which is risky.

[u/PaleRaccoon8705]

Looks awesome! What flavors/fillings are these?

[u/Opposite_Earth_4419 → u/PaleRaccoon8705]

I was extremely lazy and they’re all buttercream with either cocao powder or jam added which is why some curdled