I've been trying a bunch of macarons recently, and thought a chocolate peanut butter one would be good. I'm still pretty new to baking though, and I was curious for some feedback on this batch.
Ratio:
115g egg whites
100g granulated sugar
125g almond flour
125g powdered sugar
15g chocolate powder
My normal ratio is more or less the same minus 15g of egg whites and minus the chocolate powder, plus 1/2 teaspoon extract of whatever flavor I'm going for
I thought I mixed decently well, and the macarons looked okay on the tray but if you guys see anything to point out here I'd love to hear it.
They dried on the counter for about an hour, and humidity was 70%. I was able to poke the piped circles and not have any batter stick to my finger.
The first batch (the smallest tray) I put in for 16 minutes at 300°F, rotating around halfway through. They got some feet although they didn't lift off the mats cleanly, so I thought I needed higher temps.
I changed the temperature to 315°F and waited for the oven to settle. My thermometer read about 310°F and wasn't moving so I put the tray in. The second batch got wrinkly tops and no feet. I left it in for a minute longer on each rotation as well and they still didn't peel cleanly.
At that point I was tired of dealing with it so I just put the third tray in at 315° as well for the same amount of time and got the same results.
After doing some research I have some hypotheses:
• Do I lower my oven temp to 285° and go for longer (~20-25min)?
• Do I need more granulated sugar for a chocolate recipe?
• Some other third thing I'm not considering?
Curious to hear your guys' thoughts as this is only my seventh batch of macarons, any and every input is appreciated 🙂
by 42Starbits
3 Comments
Im still learning myself, but with chocolate I replace the almond flour. So if my recipe calls for 65 g of almond flour, I use 60g and add 5g of cocoa powder. Maybe theres slightly too much in the way of dry ingredients?
I’m only on my 5th batch, using the recipe from the Flammarion Patisserie book, when I’ve had them stick I believe they’ve been underbaked. I’m still working on the time and temp. I’m currently at convection 300 for 17-18 minutes. I also burp the oven at the 10 minute mark – crack the door quickly to let out a little steam.
That’s more egg than the recipe I’m using. Are you using an Italian or French meringue? And are you keeping some of the egg out of the meringue?
One more thing, the little holes/bubbles on your second image, my last couple batches I’ve experimented with using a toothpick to make those disappear after you’ve dropped the trays on the counter a few times. If you get to them quickly after piping them it seems to work. Who knows could be the blind leading the blind – so grain of salt on everything from me. 🙂
I know I’m gonna sound crazy when I say this, but when I started asking around two friends that did chocolate macarons, they explained to me that the cocoa powder would continue to get thicker as it sat in the meringue so that you needed to do your meringue a little looser. And yes, I agree with a person that said replace your almond flour and your powdered sugar with it so if you use 65 g of almond flour and 65 of powdered sugar and then you want to put 10 g of cocoa powder in there I would make it 60 almond 60 powder and then you could still put in your 10 of cocoa..
honestly my batch took like 3 tries to get right and I still didn’t like the ones I did 😂