Troubleshooting the Macaron

You might have noticed that I've grown quite fond of making macarons.  These airy sweet treats are limitless when it comes to flavor combinations.  They are made with ingredients that aren't as calorie loaded as other desserts, keep for longer periods of time, and easier to store.  With these advantages, I decided to take it upon myself to attempt to master the art of macarons.

Macarons are not easy.  They have been called the pastry that turns your hair white.  They make even well-experienced bakers scream in horror.  And it is rumored that even the best pastry shops throw out about 25% of their macarons.  I've made about 30 batches of macarons now, and I've mostly figured them out.  I still have batches that I feed to the dogs, give to the homeless, and dump into the bokashi bin.  This post is a tutorial for trouble-shooting macarons.  I won't be posting or talking about recipes as there are plenty of them floating around, and I follow the same base recipe regardless of flavors anyways.  The posts I found to be the most helpful are from mytartelette.com (unfortunately seems to be down now).  Here's a link to a pdf file that has been kind of the cliff notes version of the macaron bible. 

Here's some fun photos of macarons.

This one is a togarashi lemon with truffle oil.


Some pumpkin spice chocolate and mint chocolate.  You can see that some aren't covered yet.


And now they are covered.  Perfect macarons.


This is often how I transport them.


These are Tipsy Ispahan -raspberry, rose, lychee, and St. Germain Elderflower liqueur. Those were the pretty pictures.

Now let's get down to some not so pretty ones.  Here's a quick reference chart for various macaron problems along with photos of some at the end.  I'll keep updating this post from time to time with more information and more fails.  Please keep in mind that these are methods that work for me in my kitchen with Texas humidity.  They may/may not work for you or in your kitchen.  Enjoy and if there's anything that you think I should add, email me at Jennie at misohungrynow dot com or @misohungry on Twitter.

Problem	Possible Issues	Fix
Egg whites don't seem to stiffen	Egg whites have too much water	Age egg whites at least overnight.  I leave a tupperware of egg whites in the fridge at all times.
	Added flavorings or coloring too early.	Never add any flavorings or color until the very end. Not even spices as some have oils.
Egg whites seem to flatten or liquefy when mixing in the powdered sugar and almond meal	Too much flavoring, color, or additional liquid source.	Don't add so much! Easy does it! If my flavoring has oil (often does), I add just a few drops just prior to piping.
	Beating too hard.	Fold the egg whites gently. After adding coloring and flavorings, I fold no more than 10 times.
	Egg whites weren't whipped long enough.	Whip egg whites until very stiff peaks. Then whip for another three minutes.
	Egg whites sat without movement for too long.	Don't waste time between steps.  Get a move on it.
Top of Macaron seems bumpy or blemished.	Too many chunks of almond meal or flour  in the batter.	Sift the almond flour before using.
	Too many chunks of almond meal or flour  in the batter.	Process the almond meal in a food processor for a longer period of time.
Macarons maintain a stiff peak after piping and baking.	Batter too stiff.	Fold a few more times or add just a few drops of liquid (flavoring, coloring, or water).
	Batter too stiff.	Rap the bottom of the pan on the counter to flatten.  I heard macarons are particularly fond of Sir-Mix-A-Lot.
Macarons liquify after piping.  They can also run into each other and hold hands.	Too much flavoring, color, or additional liquid source.	Don't add so much! Easy does it!
	Beating too hard.	Fold the egg whites gently. After adding coloring and flavorings, I fold no more than 10 times.
	Egg whites weren't whipped long enough.	Whip egg whites until very stiff peaks. Then whip for another three minutes.
	Batter got warm or over-handled with piping	Pipe macarons quickly taking care to not hold the piping bag in your hands too often.
	Piped batter too closely.	Pipe macarons further away from each other.
No feet develop.	Batter is too wet.	See the liquefying problem.
	Air was beaten out of the batter.	Gently fold the batter.  Quit messing with it!
	Too much flavoring, color, or additional liquid source making the batter too wet to rise.	Don't add so much! Easy does it!
	Luck.	Sometimes, things just happen.
Macarons crack on top when baking.  There are two types of cracks.  1. Macaron is too delicate. 2. The foot develops on top creating a large bubbly crack.	Shell too delicate because the batter was too wet.	See fixes for egg whites flattening.
	Macarons did not dry to form a shell on top prior to baking.	Allow macarons to dry for longer periods of time.  Heat up the oven to dry out to the room or use a hair dryer to dry the macarons.  Or turn on the heater or air conditioner to dry out the room.  The top of the macarons should be very dry to the touch prior to baking.
	Temperature too high when baking in humidity.  Humidity kills.	Lower oven temperature when higher humidity levels. In dry weather, I bake for 11 minutes at 350. In medium humidity, I bake for 12 minutes at 325.  In wet weather, I bake for 13 minutes as 305 degrees.
Macarons stick to the bottom of the pan.  Perfect ones will pop off cleanly.	Baking surface was a bit dirty.	Make sure baking surface is thoroughly clean prior to piping.
	Silpat is old or cheap.	Go for the gusto and buy the expensive stuff. Some people use parchment, but I'm a huge believer in the silpat.
	The bottoms are not fully baked.	Bake for a while longer. Check every 45 seconds.
The tops of Macarons come off, but the bottoms remain stuck to the pan.	Baking surface was a bit dirty.	Make sure baking surface is thoroughly clean prior to piping.
	Silpat is old or cheap.	Go for the gusto and buy the expensive stuff. Some people use parchment, but I'm a huge believer in the silpat.
	The bottoms are not fully baked.	Bake for a while longer. Check every 45 seconds.
	Luck.	Fill the tops with extra filling and stick them together anyways. Scrap off the bottoms and eat them.
Macarons are inconsistent. Some are perfect, some are terrible.	Uneven airflow.	Bake only one pan at a time.
	Uneven airflow.	Make sure to rotate the pan halfway through baking.
	Uneven airflow.	Use a wooden spoon to keep the oven door cracked.
	Temperature change in batter or over-handling in piping.	Work quickly and don't mess with the batter.
	Luck.	Sometimes, things just happen.
Macarons rise and then deflate.	Removing from heat before fully baking.	Leave them in the oven until they are done. I've accidentally taken macarons out of the oven when they are only needing to be rotated.  That's how I learned this lesson.  Re-baking them does not fix the problem.

Here's a batch of cracked macarons.  This batch cracked because the shell wasn't strong enough (crack type 1) which is often caused by too much liquid in the batter.  Notice that there is a single perfect macaron with feet in the photo among all the other cracked ones.


I knew that the batter for that batch was ruined so I let someone make shapes out of the batter.  Goldfish-shaped macaron, anyone?  Ironically, all these macarons had feet!


Another photo of some perfect looking macarons, and some not so perfect ones.  This batch was pumpkin spice, with too much pumpkin (liquid) in it.


Here's a photo of some trays of macarons drying before baking.  The batter on these were a little too stiff and thus the peaks on the macarons.  However, if I had to choose, I'd choose too still over liquifying macarons.  You can also see which ones I piped last.  Look at the very far back right pan.  Half of the macarons have peaks and the other half don't.  The ones that don't have peaks were piped last and un-stiffened from the warmth of my hands and the handling.


Here's a better photo depicting the peak of the macarons when piping.  They should slowly flatten out and then dry.


Here's another photo of some perfect macarons, and some crack (type 2 crack) macarons.  You can't really tell in this photos, but many of these had feet.


A close up of the same photo.


Here's another photo of the same batch pre-bake.  I lived life a little too close to the edge, and I piped them too close to each other.  Oopsie.


This is a crack (type 2) because the macaron did not dry out enough.  Typically, a macaron should dry so that the top has a skin.  When the macaron bakes, the skin holds the top together as the macaron rises and develops feet.  The skin on this macaron was not dry enough to keep from cracking as it rose.  I call this type of crack a foot on the top.  If this type of crack was on the bottom, we'd call it a foot.



Here's another photo of a macaron from the same batch. You can see that this crack/foot started to develop on the bottom but wasn't quite right.  The crack also traverses around the macaron and towards the top just to the right of the point.  The point is there because the batter was too stiff when piping.  It didn't quite flatten when drying.


Here's a photo of various problems.  1. Crack (type 2, also called foot on top). 2. They are stuck together. 3. One has a pointy top.


Now here's some photos of pretty macarons.  See how the foot rises from the bottom? The top is smooth (sprinkled with coconut though).  No cracks on the top.


Here's another photo from a macaron from the same batch.


Now here's a photo of a macaron from a bakery (not in Texas) that looked very peculiar.  I have a strong suspicions that these feet were......FAKED!  You can see that there is a round smooth bottom with defined edges on this macaron.  The "feet" sticking out and only around the outsides of the macaron.  They did not rise from the bottom.  Also, the macaron has uneven bits from using grainy almond meal.



I shift my dry ingredients after weighing.  My scale weighs to 0.1 of a gram.


I use a glass to hold up my piping bag so I don't overhandle the batter.


I use bobby pins to keep the bottom closed.  The batter will spill all over the place without it.


And here's a bobby pinned filled bag.  I better get to piping before the batter starts to act funny.