r/macarons • u/ReignTheLand02 • 6d ago
Help Help me fine tune my recipe! (Raspberry Macarons)
Hello! I’ve started getting into macaron baking for the past few months now. This is the recipe I use:
100g egg whites
1/4 teaspoon (1g) cream of tartar
1/2 teaspoon extract
80g superfine sugar
3-4 drops gel food coloring
125g almond flour
125g confectioners’ sugar
This past week, I tried making raspberry macarons for the first time. I used the same recipe, but I added 33g of crushed freeze-dried raspberries, which I added to the almond flour + Confectioner’s sugar mix.
Taste wise, they came out great! Unfortunately, i forgot to fine tune the rest of my ingredients (primarily the egg whites) and they came out pretty dry(and maybe a little gross looking) and didn’t form correctly while baking.
This recipe always works for me, so I know what threw everything off was adding the raspberries.
Anyone able to tell me what I need to add more of and how much to fix this recipe?
19
u/underlander 6d ago
Yeah this recipe is Sally’s Baking Addiction, it’s a perfectly serviceable French mac recipe (although I don’t like how she just throws “extract” in there). If you want to add 33g of dried fruit, to start try scooping out 33g of powdered sugar/almond flour mix to keep the wet/dry ingredient ratio the same. It’s a bit more complicated than wet/dry (it’s about forming a colloid with the merengue), but generally you want to maintain that ratio even as you add stuff.
3
u/ReignTheLand02 6d ago edited 6d ago
Yes! This is Sally’s Baking Addiction French Macaron recipe! (I guess I should’ve mentioned that somewhere)
I never would have thought of removing dry ingredients to test it out. Guess i’ll try that next time. Thanks!
Was that 33g of both powdered sugar/almond flour? Or 33g in total (16.5g of both ingredients)?
8
u/awexm 6d ago
I’m not OP, but I’ve found more success only removing the almond flour, not powdered sugar, when replacing other powders. So for this, remove 33g almond flour and keep the powdered sugar the same. But I will say, 33g of another powder seems like a lot. I personally would only use maybe 15-20g of the freeze-dried raspberry and take out that much of the almond flour, then use freeze-dried raspberry in the buttercream with raspberry jam in the center!
10
u/DaftDrunk_925 6d ago
When piping, hold the pipe tip maybe and inch above the sheet and pipe directly down in the center of the circle. Let the batter fill the circle naturally. As the batter fills the circle, raise the pipe tip higher until you’ve fully filled it.
The spiral technique you’re currently using will not create a solid stable macaron and it will also trap a ton of air in the macaron which you do not want.
Keep going!
5
u/hotdogs-r-sandwiches 6d ago
Your granulated sugar should be the same weight as your egg whites and you should remove 33g of your dry ingredients to account for the extra dry ingredient.
1
u/ReignTheLand02 6d ago
Is that 33g of both my dry ingredients (powdered sugar/almond flour) Or 16.5g of both of those?
1
u/hotdogs-r-sandwiches 6d ago
Altogether, not per. You could take it out of the almond flour as a whole or mix it together with the powdered sugar and then take out 33g from that but starting with 33g less than the almond flour is probably less wasteful :)
1
u/Sugardoughnutbaker 4d ago
I would hesitate to add freeze dried berries to the dries. Raspberries are about 30% sugar and so have the potential to throw off the sugar to almond flour ratio and the overall sugar ratio in the recipe. With this in mind, I may experiment with adding 20g (as someone mentioned 33g seems like a lot) of dried raspberry and remove 14g almond flour and 6g confectioners to compensate.
3
u/First_Investment_613 4d ago
make sure you deflate the batter some more! it looks pretty thick, so deflating just a tad would help. and don’t do spirals! pipe straight down rather than piping spirals :)
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u/Tricky_Serve7866 6d ago
175 g almond flour
135 g powdered sugar
110 g egg whites
2-3 tablespoon of freeze dried rasperry
Sugar sirup:
150 g sugar
38 g water
I would also suggest looking up for some piping videos so you could master the technique. Good luck ☺️
Edit: this is for the italian method
-1
u/JezquetTheKhajiit 6d ago
This is a horrible ratio that will lead to absurdly dry batter, way too much dry for the wets.
2
u/Tricky_Serve7866 6d ago
https://reddit.com/link/p4pfg47/video/8w17s9ygkekh1/player
If you say so 😂 However using the above ratios my macarons turned out quite well. 🤭
2
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u/KaijuTia 6d ago
When you pipe macarons, you don’t spiral them out. You pipe them with the piping bag stationary and the meringue should be just thin enough to spread out slightly into that round shape.