Hi! I am allergic to nuts, and I have a friend who is vegan, so against all rational advice I am trying to make vegan, nut-free macarons. I’m using Bravetart’s recipe which uses toasted pumpkin seeds. In place of egg whites, I am reducing aquafaba by 50% and then cooling to room temp before whipping. I’m baking in a gas oven with a rimmed baking sheet on parchment. I’ve tried the following:
—300F oven temp
—285F oven temp
—265F oven temp
—rotating after 10 mins
—flipping the rimmed pan over so that heat distribution is more even
For the first 5 or so minutes in the oven, the macarons rise perfectly, but after that the feet spread everywhere. I know this is a very unconventional ask but I’ll accept any tips!!
by peony156
10 Comments
Sorry, my formatting was a bit funky on my post!
Vegan, nut-free macarons baking lopsided?
Hi! I am allergic to nuts, and I have a friend who is vegan, so against all rational advice I am trying to make vegan, nut-free macarons. I’m using [Bravetart’s recipe](https://web.archive.org/web/20170812215616/http://www.foodwanderings.com/2011/06/pumpkin-seed-matcha-macarons-with.html) which uses toasted pumpkin seeds. In place of egg whites, I am reducing aquafaba by 50% and then cooling to room temp before whipping. I’m baking in a gas oven with a rimmed baking sheet on parchment. I’ve tried the following:
—300F oven temp
—285F oven temp
—265F oven temp
—rotating after 10 mins
—flipping the rimmed pan over so that heat distribution is more even
For the first 5 or so minutes in the oven, the macarons rise perfectly, but after that the feet spread everywhere. I know this is a very unconventional ask but I’ll accept any tips!!
This is specialist territory. I’m sending vibes 🙏🏽
Maybe a molecular gastronomy or professional baking sub might be better.
i spent 8 months trying to perfect aqua faber based macarons and got close once. lol 🫠 it was for a school project i concluded it was too hard, expensive and finicky to keep attempting. thank god i got good marks hahaha id never wanna make macarons again if i didnt
God bless you!!!! I struggle enough with the regular recipe. Keeping you and your vegan nut free macarons in thoughts and prayers
I tried these, key is low and slow. Lower your oven and bake longer.
Vegan macarons are so hard to achieve, and adding a nut-free option into the mix is next-level challenging. I have a little advice but not a perfect solution, so take what I say with a grain of salt 💛
Aquafaba sucksssss. It is SO fickle and reducing it is even trickier than not reducing it, because it comes out different every time. I battled it for 2.5 years (70% crappy batches, 30% wins, which always got me thinking I had figured it out somehow) before switching to another plant protein (check out Gerbet on Freefromthat.com – not the exact thing I use but super close).
If you want to keep taking a crack at aquafaba, look for a recipe that doesn’t call for reducing the liquid. The reduction – IMO – is what causes lopsidedness. Too reduced? Lopsided. Not reduced enough? Lopsided! If you can take the reduction out of the equation, you might get better results. The “pies and tacos vegan macaron recipe” tends to have a lot of success!
The other variable is your non-nut flour. I’ve heard that Tigernut flour (which is a tuber, not a nut) is a really good 1:1 almond flour replacement. I haven’t tried it yet but it’s on my list.
There’s an FB group called “Vegan Mac Attack” that troubleshoots vegan macaron baking – it’s how I got good over the years.
Keep at it, and godspeed!
Resting them too long?
One thing ive learned about baking and food science over the years is that sometimes the ingredients that are used are b/c it’s the only ones that work. Maybe try changing one thing at a time? Try making one that’s vegan with nuts and then one with eggs and no nuts. Combine the things you see from that and see if you can adapt the recipe on your own.
I don’t know a thing about vegan macaron, BUT I can assure you that under the correct condition I have baked swiss meringue cookies with perfect feet before.
The conditions:
– strong meringue
– drying of the meringue cookies
– oven, which needs to have very good circulation
I actually gave up baking meringues because they keep growing feet, if no feet they burst. 😂 what a problem to have.
I say before you try to fix the recipe try the following:
– How well have you dried your macaron? You need to make sure it’s dried not on one side only which usually happens when you fan from the side. I use dehumidifier with a ceiling fan. Your relative humidity needs to be below 65%.
– Is it convection or conventional oven? Convection bake at lower temp (120-140C), convention bake at higher temp (150-180C)
– improve air circulation. Use the back side of the tray for flat, no raised edge. Trim off excess baking sheet to improve air circulation.
– Work on your piping skill. You want to pipe near 90 degree angle, apply even pressure on all side of the bag.
Nuts substitute:
– rice flour
– tapioca flour
– mixture of both (which is used in a lot of vegan flour)
The nuts in macaron really is to add flavor. They don’t improve feet. Anything that is too greasy is not ideal.
A few things, generally flip vegan ones every 5 minutes. If you are using gas remember it gets WAAAAAY too hot when you heat it click on to maintain heat. At that point I have to open it a crack to let some heat out to avoid spread out batter like this.
I only do vegan and I bake around 265-270 for 20 minutes, rotating every 5 minutes.
A more successful recipe I tried was pies and tacos all purpose flour recipe and used aquafaba instead of egg whites. Simple google search and you should be able to find it.