The Great Macaron Nightmare

Many of you know that I am a bit of a perfectionist. This is a blessing and a curse. On one hand I am able to take a recipe, doctor it up, and produce something creative and beautiful. On the other hand, I tend to throw away and give up on desserts when they don’t live up to my standards. I sometimes get embarrassed by the idea of sharing these flops on my blog but in reality making mistakes is how we learn and continue to grow. I wanted to take the time to share one of my flopped recipe experiences and the struggles I had during the process.

I had this grand idea of commemorating the first year of Confessions of an Amateur Baker by recreating one of my first bakes. My first ever blog post featured coconut macaroons that I made for my friend after she had surgery on her foot. Instead of recreating the dessert, I wanted to make macarons and talk about the common misconceptions about the two cookies in my blog post. Often times people think that macarons and macaroons are the same. Macaroons are soft cookies made with shredded coconut and originated in Italy. Macarons have a meringue and almond flour base and originated in France. To help highlight the difference between the two cookies, I decided to channel my inner Lorraine Pascale and whip up a batch of chocolate and vanilla macarons.

I picked out two recipes which are listed below. To make things easier, I’ll just focus on the chocolate macaron recipe which called for the following ingredients: almond flour, powdered sugar, cocoa powder, egg whites and granulated sugar. I whipped the egg whites first and gradually added the sugar while the mixer was still running. I then sifted the dry ingredients into the egg whites and used a rubber spatula to incorporate the two mixtures together. This step is very important to do as it helps keep the egg whites from deflating. The first struggle I had started when I noticed that the batter was very thick. I wasn’t sure how to fix it and was concerned about ruining the mixture, so I left it alone. The next struggle occurred when the recipe talked about preparing the shapes of the cookie. I followed the directions and drew circular shapes on parchment paper so I could use them as a guide. I then piped the batter in a circular motion using the pre-made shapes.

After wondering why my cookies didn’t look right, I learned that I need to use the flooding piping technique instead. The flooding technique for macarons consists of piping the batter in the center of the pre-made shapes and then tapping the pan to help the batter spread out and fill the shape completely. I was frustrated when I came to this realization and scraped the piped batter back into the piping bag to try it again. Once the piping was done, my frustration subsided, and I was pleased with the outcome. I then let the cookies sit out for an hour to help dry them out before baking them in a 300 degree oven for 16 minutes. While the cookies were baking, I threw together my chocolate ganache center using chocolate chips and heavy cream. I melted the two together in the microwave and set it aside to cool.

Just when I thought everything was going according to plan, I took the cookies out of the oven and noticed that the tops of my cookies were not flat like the recipe indicated. I tried to come up with multiple solutions to help smooth the tops out but because they were already cooked, there was not much that could be done. Just when I thought things couldn’t get any worse, my ganache did not set properly which caused a problem when I went to pipe it between two of my cookies. Not only did the ganache ooze out of the middle but the macarons were lopsided and leaned to one side. I refused to take a picture of them because I was ashamed and ended up throwing them out.

There are a couple morals to this story. The first is less is more. I didn’t know it at the time but I definitely got a little too ambitious with this task. I was excited about making something new and overwhelmed myself by making two kinds of macarons. The second moral is perfectionism and high standards sometimes cause unrealistic expectations and thoughts. Nothing in this world is perfect and it is part of human nature to have difficulties and struggles so that we can learn how to navigate them. This is something I tend to lose sight of sometimes but am working on accepting. The final moral of this story is one that comes from my boyfriend, Tom. Never throw out baked goods no matter how ugly they look or if you’re not pleased with how they came out. The so called undesirable desserts will always be enjoyed and appreciated.

https://houseofnasheats.com/chocolate-macarons-recipe/

https://www.aheadofthyme.com/2017/02/classic-french-macaron-with-vanilla-buttercream-filling/print/5617/