Saturday 27 October 2012

The secret behind perfect French Macarons

I'm going to tell you the key to the perfect macaron. It's only right that I share this with all the foodies out there who've wanted to throw their baking trays full of flat, puddly macaron batter at the wall.

To get that nice, high, billowy look to your macarons...it's all about WHEN you add the sugar to the egg whites.

Most recipes enforce how long you mix the batter..."no more than 50 strokes". And while this is true, it's not the most important in my opinion.

It all comes down to science. You need to make sure you start adding the sugar after no longer than 25 seconds of beating the egg whites...just until they get a bit foamy. This will immediately increase the viscosity or thickness of the whites, making it more difficult for air bubbles to form.

As you beat it with the mixer, the elastic egg whites stretch to allow air bubbles in, but then spring right back very quickly. This allows for very tiny air bubbles to form, which gives the whipped egg whites the texture of thick, shaving cream or whipped cream. That is what you want!
 

Also, when sugar is added near the beginning of the whipping stage, it gets very selfish. Sugar loves to bind water, so it hogs all of the water in the egg whites, leaving the egg proteins with less of a medium to move around in. This slows them down so that they can't arrange themselves at the interface between air and water as easily to form large air bubbles. So, instead they end up forming very tiny air bubbles, which...again...gives us shaving cream!

This will create a very stable foam that will hold up better to mixing (during macaronage) and piping.
Photo Taken at GOU Atelier Pastry Class: Passion Macarons

Now, if you don't want to throw anymore your baking trays full of badly done macarons, just participate to our next Macarons Class on November 21st, 2012!

Here are some photos from the last Atelier to encourage you!

GOU Macarons Class on October 24th

GOU Macarons Class on October 24th

Photo Taken at GOU Atelier Pastry Class: Passion Macarons

And there you have it. My secret is revealed.


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