Tuesday, June 15, 2010

beginners luck

So, as it turns out, macarons aren't all fun and games.

I really have no idea what went wrong here, but they were looking fine until just after the 5 minute mark, when they puffed up way too much. Once I took them out of the oven, they sunk like a stone into their little feet. I think it could be due to a few things I did differently from the first time.

  1. I went by feel when mixing the almonds and meringue together. I used the same recipe with the directions from another where it said that the batter should flow like magma. Based on what I've read about macaron failures, I think it's very possible I over mixed it;

  2. I tried tinting them with regular ol' food colouring. I used exactly one drop. Most recipes I've seen only use powdered or gel food colouring to minimize the moisture content, but I did happen on one that just said 'food colouring', so I thought I could get away with it. Maybe not;

  3. I traced out circles on my parchment as a size guideline, but I think I used too much batter to fill them. It spreads out quite a lot, actually (probably from the over mixing), so I really should have only piped the outline then slightly filled the rest in rather than gobbing it all on to fill the circle;

  4. I think they're overcooked as well. I can kind of see the pink tint to them, but there's an unsightly golden ring around most of the tops, and I don't like it.
Anyway, I'm not even going to bother making my filling (sob! I actually planned a nice rose buttercream). Instead, these are going to stick around to accompany some strawberry rhubarb sorbet I made today (Idle Husband loves these cookies no matter how they turn out).

You haven't seen the last of me, macarons!!

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