Saturday, April 30, 2011

Batch #7 - Zesty Lemon Macarons (Epic Fail!)

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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