Any idea why the tops were paper thin and wrinkled?
Used Bake Toujours chocolate Italian method recipe and used black cocoa and black food coloring in an effort to get black shells.
by RepublicCute7683
6 Comments
emmmy415
I’ve had this exact same problem when making macarons with cocoa powder, it seems to make them extra finicky. Only thing I can think of is using a bit less cocoa powder. Black cocoa in general can be kinda hard to work with, maybe cutting with regular would help?
InteligntDonky
Thinking a little too much wet to dry ingredient ratio. Cocoa is not as strong or absorbent as almond powder. I find adding 5-10 grams of extra almond powder helps in addition to 1/4-1/2 tsp of meringue powder to the egg whites to help stiffen up the shell.
Kaidalexis
Cocoa is tricky and black cocoa is even harder since it has zero fat. I’ve been trying to get a jet black – black cocoa based shell for Halloween and while I can nail the shell visually, the texture is too cakey/brownie like – so I’m still working on them. Wrinkly tops either come from too low of oven temp (cocoa likes it hotter), underwhipped meringue (cocoa tends to be very drying), or wrong ratio. Usually using higher powdered sugar helps to wet the batter and thin it out.
Some suggestions I’ve thought about – cutting the black cocoa to 50% of total cocoa solids and using 50% natural cocoa
Decreasing the total cocoa solids used to prevent drying to like 10-15g per batch
Playing with the ratio of almond to powdered sugar
InkandPage
You need to use less cocoa. What I ended up doing was using brown food coloring to give them the chocolate color. You can’t get the dark brown color with just cocoa or they get wrinkly and the texture seems almost like a brownie.
lolcatman
Need stronger meringue
slightly-convenient
Happens to me when I over macranoge or the meringue is too weak.
6 Comments
I’ve had this exact same problem when making macarons with cocoa powder, it seems to make them extra finicky. Only thing I can think of is using a bit less cocoa powder. Black cocoa in general can be kinda hard to work with, maybe cutting with regular would help?
Thinking a little too much wet to dry ingredient ratio. Cocoa is not as strong or absorbent as almond powder. I find adding 5-10 grams of extra almond powder helps in addition to 1/4-1/2 tsp of meringue powder to the egg whites to help stiffen up the shell.
Cocoa is tricky and black cocoa is even harder since it has zero fat. I’ve been trying to get a jet black – black cocoa based shell for Halloween and while I can nail the shell visually, the texture is too cakey/brownie like – so I’m still working on them. Wrinkly tops either come from too low of oven temp (cocoa likes it hotter), underwhipped meringue (cocoa tends to be very drying), or wrong ratio. Usually using higher powdered sugar helps to wet the batter and thin it out.
Some suggestions I’ve thought about – cutting the black cocoa to 50% of total cocoa solids and using 50% natural cocoa
Decreasing the total cocoa solids used to prevent drying to like 10-15g per batch
Playing with the ratio of almond to powdered sugar
You need to use less cocoa. What I ended up doing was using brown food coloring to give them the chocolate color. You can’t get the dark brown color with just cocoa or they get wrinkly and the texture seems almost like a brownie.
Need stronger meringue
Happens to me when I over macranoge or the meringue is too weak.