I made lemon macarons before, years ago, and they turned out perfect. I tried a lemon recipe different from the last one I had used (because it was in a book I lost when I moved recently) and they just keep coming out like this- puffy, cracked, little to no feet. Everything is fine until I fold in the dry ingredients and then no matter how little I add my mixture is just too thick. I got it as thin as I could while still having enough of my almond flour and powdered sugar for this batch and they all still cracked and puffed up.
This was supposed to be a Valentineās Day gift for my boyfriend. I work 9-7pm the next two days and do not have time to make another batch. This is the second batch Iāve made today, and the first one puffed up with NO feet. At least this one has feet, but when I try to lift them off the silicone mat the middles stick to the mat completely and separate. The ones that survived have NO taste- literally nothing. $200 worth of ingredients down the drain.
But what went wrong???? Oven too hot? The recipe I used says 300Ā°F, and thatās what I used, middle rack, 18min as directed. I really donāt know what else went wrong and Iām so upset I donāt want to try again- I think Iām just gonna trash these and find something else to give him š
by Pin-Cushion-Witch
2 Comments
There’s definitely a bunch you could still use here and I know they’d still taste amazing, the small ones look pretty decent. We’ve found that big ones cook differently, so maybe they need to all be the same size in a batch?
Based on my personal experience.
Batter too thick – Sift almond flour and powder sugar 2-3x, discard remaining lumps on the sieve. This happened to me when I was new and I didn’t sift my almond flour.
Bubbly/wrinkly/cracked top – The macaronage process is messed up. I’m gonna be honest, you don’t really need to actually macaronage if you know how the texture should look like. I try to make the batter just a bit under-mixed so when I put it into my piping bags, the batter will still be deflated.
Brown feets – Oven temperature a bit too high. I make mines 290Ā°F. Flip baking tray upside down so the tray has even baking. If your oven is like mine and it is super sensitive to being opened, (disrupting the temperature inside and then the oven changes its heat, spiking the temperature higher than the desired temperature) then I would warm up the oven for about 30min-1hr. Just allow it to stay on the desired temperature for that time.
Hopefully I’m not missing some other tips.