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Macarons can be really intimidating if you haven’t made them before. I hope this guide will answer some common questions and make you a little more comfortable tackling this challenging bake.
Macaronage
Macaronage is the technique used to mix your ingredients together when making macarons. It’s a fickle beast, and it’s easy to get wrong.
You want to fold the mixture as gently as possible so as to not knock any air out of your meringue. Once it’s all mixed together, you need to smooth your mixtures around the sides of your bowl.
The aim is to make the mixture slightly runnier. Ideally, your mixture should fall off your spatula in ribbons, which take some time to reabsorb back into the mixture. This will result in a macaron with a smooth, shiny top and a chewy interior.
If it falls off in clumps, you haven’t mixed it enough. If it falls off quickly and immediately reabsorbs back into the rest of the mixture, you’ve over mixed.
Macarons that have been under mixed will come out lumpy and hollow. If they’ve been over mixed, they’ll come out flat.
Flavours and Colours
Adding colourings and flavours to your macaron mixture can cause serious havoc if you’re not careful. Changing the amount of liquid in the mixture can make your macarons come out flat and soggy.
For colourings, you should always use gel or powder food colouring. As these contain less water, they won’t affect your mixture as much as a liquid food colouring would.
For flavourings, be concious of how much you’re adding. As macarons are a simple recipe, you don’t need to use a huge amount of extract or essences for the flavour to come across.
Equipment
Whilst I’m a firm believer that that you can makeshift most things in the kitchen to fit your purpose, macarons don’t seem to follow that rule.
To bake good macarons you’re going to need non stick mats. You can use specific macaron mats that have size outlines as well, or silicone cookie sheets. Trying to bake macarons on greaseproof paper, foil or anything else just simply doesn’t work (trust me( I learnt that one the hard way.)
I also recommend a non stick spatula to do your macaronage. I find it just generally makes it easier to get your mixture into a piping bag later.
Hopefully this has made the idea of baking macarons slightly less scary, and it can be a useful guide to learn the technique. Remember that practice makes perfect, and you’ll find your own way of doing things the more you bake them!
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