These aren’t the best macs I’ve made – but it is the best photograph of macarons I’ve taken. You can tell, because these don’t really have “feet,” the rough ring around the base of the macarons you can see here and here. Mine, by comparison, look kind of flat and smug and cynical, like their idea of fun is mugging the fluffy, innocent things in the other photos. The main problem with these was that I misunderstood the recipe, which is easier to do than you might think, because professional recipes give nothing but proportions, assuming that the cook will know what to do with them.

Macs are basically meringue, which, as everyone knows, expand when heated, and feet are created when the top of the macaron is strong enough to trap the expanding gases rather than cracking in a manner which might seem random, but is really the product of completely predictable microprocesses involving protein networks and water evaporation. In such a macaron, the only line of weakness is a uniform ring between the base (where they’re in contact with the baking sheet) and the shell, so the expanding gases force the shell off whole, and the feet are created by an outward explosion around the base.

The key to achieving this ring of weakness is to create a meringue which is stable everywhere except around this ring – which is to say that it has to retain water better everywhere else (the reasons for this are a whole other article). Suffice it to say that water allows the meringue to maintain its structure till the egg proteins have been heated enough to bond, after which the protein bonds will hold everything together. The shell, then, is nothing more than a patch of meringue which retained water particularly well, created by dusting the macarons with fine sugar, and waiting for the sugar to melt before being subjected to the stresses of the oven. Since sugar is hygroscopic, this kick of sugar helps the tops retain water long enough to form the shell.

In addition to creating feet, the shell emerges from the oven perfectly smooth - a very French gesture – from the people who make pastry with stencils and straight edges, and weigh out batter by the gram. Italians, by contrast, seem to think it’s fine for the tops of their cookies to look like they were created with a hammer, and don’t always bother with the shell for their macs, which they call amaretti. Indeed, the crazy tops are part of the look of amaretti, and are created by sprinkling sugar over the cookies and baking them straight away, without waiting. Amaretti, incidentally, means “little bitter things,” and they were apparently eaten with aperitifs, though I haven’t come across any recipes which might be in the least bit bitter.

The pictures you’ll find of macarons tend to depict a Necco wafer palette, in pastel greens and yellows and pinks, with chocolate and white – these colours tend to be the result of food colouring. With the exception of chocolate and pistachio, flavourings tend to be incorporated into the cream rather than the macaron itself, which always made me want to try making macarons with ground-up vitamin pills as a colouring agent. They have a fantastic nutritional content anyway – matching a powerbar, in many respects, and are sufficiently delectable that the thought of eating nothing but macarons takes a couple seconds to disgust me.

I encourage you to try this recipe – it’s a great introduction to two basic techniques – dealing with egg whites, and using a piping bag, and is far easier than it looks. As you might notice, it produces plain rather than chocolate macarons, but I also know that it works perfectly. =)

Macarons

250g ground almond (2.5 cups)
400g icing sugar (3.5 cups)
10g egg whites (about 2 tsp)

200g egg whites (about 7 egg whites – in fact, 7 egg whites less 2 tsp)
80g sugar, and a little more for dusting.

1) Sift the ground almonds and icing sugar into a large bowl. Plop the 10g of egg whites on top.
2) In a large and impeccably clean mixing bowl, beat the rest of the whites on medium speed till they form soft peaks. They should look like shaving cream. Increase the speed to high and add the sugar. Beat till they form stiff peaks, and are very shiny. You can actually feel the stiffness in meringue – touch it, and you’ll find that it’s surprisingly strong. Please try this – it’s really startling.
3) Fold the meringue into your dry ingredients – add the meringue to the dry stuff, rather than the other way around. This helps minimize the loss of foam structure and, consequently, volume.
4) Using a piping bag with a large round tip, create large (3”) discs of batter on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. You want to hold the bag perpendicular to your baking sheet, position the tip at about the right height (about 3/8” off the sheet) and squeeze gently and let the batter spread itself. The trick here is to stop squeezing before the disc is quite as large as you want. Stop squeezing, wait a moment, then lift the bag straight up – it’s best if you use a sort of bouncy motion, with a teeny dip before lifting the bag. I will post an illustrated guide to using a piping bag soon.
5) When you have a full tray, sprinkle some superfine sugar over the macarons, a very light dusting, with your hand about 12” away from the tray. If you want, pat each mac with a wet towel to flatten out the peak left by your piping. Start heating the oven now, to 325F. Let the macs rest for at least 30 minutes to allow the crust to form, then bake for 10 – 12 minutes. Touch test them – they should not dent when you touch them. Let them cool on the tray – this is important – to allow the bottoms to cook through, so that you can lift them easily.

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"Macarons" was written on 16 Mar 2005 and filed in Techniques / Recipes