On my last few batches, during macaronage the batter gets thicker as I fold and continues to do so until it's a thick paste. I haven't changed my ratios and I weigh everything.
I've tried:
Drying my almond flour.
Using different almond flour.
Both blending and not blending the flour.
Under whipping my meringue.
Under heating my meringue (Swiss meringue)
Using different powdered sugar.
Nothing worked. It's like a perfect crime scene I feel like I'm going crazy
by polyzman
6 Comments
Could it be grease from the bowl sneaking in? I found it to be a silent macaronage killer. I clean all bowls and utensils and containers with either some lemon juice or citric acid, and avoid plastic unless it’s the spatula (that I degrease thoroughly with above mentioned lemon juice or citric acid).
This happened to me before too, the batter got thicker instead of thinning out. So I concluded that my almond flour was too dry because I always oven dry it. What I did was redo everything and add more egg whites to compensate for the dryness of the almond flour. After that, the mixture turned out fine and my macarons came out good.
i get this when i over cooked the egg whites.
Overmixed, the batter lost its air and collapsed. When it’s correctly macaronaged, it flows like honey; but once the air is knocked out, it stops behaving that way and turns into a paste.
It could be the macaronage step. The most important thing to keep in mind is you aren’t making a souffle, so there’s absolutely no need to treat it as such. The whole point of macaronage is to deflate the batter. I’ve noticed a lot of useless old wives’ tales when it comes to macarons; a lot of people seem to think you need to gently fold the batter. Get in there with your spatula and smear it around the bowl as hard as you like, and as quickly as you like. Scrape it down and repeat until you get the consistency you want. Make sure you remove as many air bubbles as you can. Hope this helps.
Update 1
I made a batch today careful not to overheat and overbeat the egg whites and had the same result. Noticed it early and added some unbeat egg whites during macaronage, they came out decent. I think next time I’ll try making a paste with the dry ingredients and some of the whites before whipping the meringue like a Swiss-italian hybrid.