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Hello it’s Hidamari.
I am into making macarons lately.
So here are my tips for making macarons.
▷Basic ingredients (amount easy to make)
egg white 60g
granulated sugar 60g
almond powder 70g
powdered sugar 80g
The ingredients are simple though, it would make it easier to use fine granulated sugar (sugar in the form of small grains) so that sugar will easily mix into egg white and have less chances to fail.
Please make sure to use almond powder and powdered sugar that does not contain cornstarch.
Some almond powder and powdered sugar contain cornstarch to prevent it from getting clumpy but it also makes it difficult to dry.
What is more, macarons are usually baked in the oven for a very short period of time,so that cornstarch is not baked completely,you feel an unpleasant texture on your tongue.(in short it gets too powderly and makes untasty macarons)
▷other variety of flavors
cocoa, green tea, black tea flavor, etc +4g
If you add the flavor too much, most likely it will fail so it’d be better just to add the color onto the macaron dough.
If you would like to also make the taste stronger, it is better to flavor the cream inside of macarons.
It is convenient to use food coloring only to color the macarons.
▷How to make it ：
1. Mix almond powder and powdered sugar and sift them into a bowl. If you add flavor powder, put it together into a bowl.
2. Make a meringue. Mix a beaten white egg like you cut it with a mixer. Add granulated sugar by 3 times and make it a hard meringue.
beaten egg white that are completely mixed and cut into
I normally add 40-45% granulated sugar for the first time. In order to make a stiff and hard meringue it is recommended to add a little more than ⅓ of all the granulated sugar at first.
The timing of the second time to add granulated sugar is when the egg white and granulated sugar get mixed well and the bubbles get smaller.
The timing of the third time is, the bubbles get much smaller than the second time and then the texture becomes finer and smoother.
You can make sure if the meringue is well made or not by lifting up the mixer so that you can feel the solid and heavy meringue.
Although it is the best way to make a perfect hard meringue by adding the whole amount of granulated sugar in the beginning, it takes so much time to whip and if you make it too hard.
It also could make it a lot more difficult to macaronage afterwards so it is needed to adjust in order to make a perfect meringue.
If you add a food coloring, it is now to add it when you complete the hard meringue.
3. Sift almond powder and powdered sugar 2 to 3 times into a meringue, mix them with a spatula
Sift almond powder and powdered sugar again then add to the meringue.
There is a lot of almond sugar and powdered sugar, it is quite hard to mix them all together if you add all of them in one time. That is why, add them by 2 to 3 times and mix it each time.
4.Do the macaronage when it gets less powderly.
By using a spatula and side of a bowl, press macaron dough gently onto an edge of the side of the bowl. I do it imaging like I shape the form of the meringue’s bubbles. Macaron dough starts to get all glossy, and liquidity when you scoop it.
It all depends on how hard the meringue but it’s roughly about 50 to 60 times.
Once you do macaronage too many times then you can’t turn it back.
Plus,air bubbles get crushed when you put a dough into a pastry bag.
Left one is dropped with a plopping sound.
Right one is dough is glossy and running.
If you add cocoa powder the bubbles easily get crushed because of cacao oil fat.
So I would do a little less macaronage than normal.
Matcha dough tends to turn out to be firm so there’s no need to worry about.
5. Put a macaron dough into a pastry bag with a piping tip and squeeze out on a cooking paper.
The size is up to you but I personally think 30 to 40 mm size would be easy to eat and looks cute.
A piping tip is necessary to form macaron nicely. This one I used is 13mm in diameter.
6. Dry the dough until you can gently touch the surface with your finger, then make sure it doesn’t stick to your finger or it isn’t on your finger after you touch it.
This part is the most important step of french macarons.
So, please make macarons on a very sunny day. It takes so much time to dry them on a rainy day, even if you are sure that the surface is dry but eventually they get broken often.
When you touch it gently, you feel the softness but the only surface is dried, it will become a beautiful macaron without becoming hollow inside.
When you dri it too much longer, the macaron will become hollow inside but still looks beautiful.
7. Bake them in the preheated oven at 180℃ for 3 minutes, lower the temperature to 130℃, bake them for another 8 to 9 minutes.
Bake them at a high temperature at first, make sure if there is a pied around the macarons,then lower the temperature, bake them until they get completely dried inside.temperature and time are just a standard guideline so adjust them and try several times depending on your oven at home.
You can make sure if it’s well baked or not is that you press the macaron on the surface then if it isn’t too fluffy then it is done.(Please wear gloves, it's hot.)
If you want to bake them a little more but then, they get burnt on the surfaces, in this case you can leave the macarons inside of the oven for a little while to get them dried.
8. Cool then down on the top board, both macarons and top board got completely cooled down, take the macarons off from the cooking paper.
The reason for leaving them on the top board is to let them completely dry. If the macarons are easily taken off from the cooking paper then that means it’s well done.
My tips are,
1.bake them on a sunny day
2.make a hard stiff meringue
3.don’t reduce the amount of sugar (important!)
Once you have all the tips and how to, it’s easy to make them so please everyone try it :)!
