Okay, I don't have any photos of Batch Number 7. They were going to be gloriously yellow, with a zesty lemon filling, good feet, lovely dome and a shiny crust. My confidence had been boosted by the last few batches, and I was catching up with a friend visiting from overseas on the weekend, and wanted to make a batch for her birthday.
Alas these little divas can certainly shoot you down. I made this batch on a Wednesday night, thinking that they will be perfect on the Saturday. A whole lot of little factors contributed, most important of all I don't think I aged the egg whites enough, but for the life of me I could not beat up a nice meringue. (I only aged the whites for 4 hours this time.) I knew my macronage was too flat and runny, not like the desired "molten magma" consistency. The resultant shells were flat, amoebic, and too, too crunchy. I pressed on, hoping that the maturation process would save them, but all I got were awful, crunchy macarons that looked ugly and tasted wrong. The most important lesson I learned from this is that in making macarons, you can not get over-confident. It doesn't matter how good your last batch was, you're only as good as the next batch you can make. A lesson in humility indeed!
Lessons Learned :
- Separate the eggs and age the egg whites at least overnight. I usually separate the eggs the night before I plan to make macarons, put them in a bowl and into the fridge, then bring them back to room temperature before beating the meringue. Being the obssessive person I am when weighing out my ingredients, I find that 200g of egg white will lose about 5-10g in weight (ie/moisture) overnight.
- Don't get over confident!!!!
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