Macaroons and How to Avoid a Nervous Breakdown

Pistachio macaroons - made in November 2010

I am now committed to teaching another 500 or so people to make macaroons before the end of March so they have slightly taken over my life. I have become very frustrated with them, not because they always go wrong but because sometimes they come out of the oven with lovely smooth tops with the little frill around the bottom and other times they are very much not right with quite different degrees of not being right. And the question that keeps churning around my mind is why, why, why? So then I read up about them and find all these macaroon gurus seems to have conflicting information and none have the magical answer.

This post is NOT about giving you the perfect macaroon recipe (this can be covered later)  but to give you the right mind set to make macaroons with which you are happy (ie perfect - this is also another question to be dissected; who is to define perfection?). I am writing this entry as  a consequence of my classes yesterday, 10th January and the general comments and interactions I have been having with students over the past few weeks. Please read the following carefully to the conclusion to see if you get the point I am trying to make.

Because I have up to 12 in a class, apart from doing the interactive demonstration and making enough macaroons for everyone to taste, I have also committed to provide enough macaroons for everyone to take a few home with them. My oven will happily take two trays at a time. Each tray will accommodate the macaroon mixture of 1 egg which is about 20 - 24 shells.  I can bake 40 - 48 shells at a time. I am making 2 flavours of macaroon and therefore in total I am baking 80 - 96 shells which make 40 - 48 sandwiched macaroons. If I have 12 in the class and they each sample one of each flavour, this only leaves 16 - 24 macaroons for taking home. I feel this is a bit mean as some people may have one macaroon. So, what to do?

You will note here I have not even mentioned the macaroon quality - bear with me. For last Saturday's class I baked  masses of macaroons in advance.  In the class we made the macaroons as I normally do using the quantity based on 2 large eggs. They came out beautifully, generally flat tops, ruffled skirts at the bottom (the feet) and everyone was happy and also took lots home.

Yesterday I thought why am I am making so many macaroons in advance, why don't I increase the ingredients so the students make more macaroons? I can use a third shelf in the oven so we make at least 60 at a time and  lots extra for taking home. Also why don't we make 3 flavours instead of 2 so that each student would be able to taste 3 and take home 4 - 6 macaroons.  I carefully measured all the ingredients based on using 3 large eggs. This was my error.

As some people were piping for the first time the macaroons were generally quite large and the 3 egg mixture fitted onto TWO trays. My alarm bells did not go off - larger volume of ingredients require a longer baking time and perhaps a slightly higher temperature to get the same result. The macaroons were generally too sticky, being slightly undercooked so they stuck to the paper and can become a sticky mess.And I was rushing slightly trying to cook three batches instead of two.

Finding the macaroons were very sticky after the first class,   the chocolate ones were very cracked looking,  and perhaps making the extra quantity being cooked in the class was not the answer, I  hurriedly made another batch during the turn around before the next class and then re- ground  the chocolate nut dry ingredients. Why?  Because I had read a post on a macaroon expert's blog from a link sent by another earlier student who had been finding macaroon changeability so frustrating. The expert said it is the fineness of the nuts that is key. So in my panic I thought I must try this.

So the next class - this time making 2 flavours of macaroon but still using the 3 egg volumes. And again they are too sticky,  as had been the batch I had baked between the classes (also 3 eggs). We all had quite fun in the evening but despite my cheerfulness I was quite upset and worried. There are a further 500 students to go. 

And of course the answer came when I woke up this morning. The whole point of teaching these classes is that if I prepare properly then everything will work - My brain is tuned in to trusting my preparation. Last Saturday we made the macaroons as I would in my sleep and they came out fine.  Yesterday in Tuesday's afternoon class, I increased the volume of ingredients in each batch, forgot I had done so and did not adjust the cooking times. I also  tried to do  too much by upping the volume of macaroons being cooked in a two hour time slot by 500%  - TWO major changes from normal.

When you see two recipes for macaroons; in one, the author may shout "it is the fine grinding of the nuts that is the key to my perfect macaroons" and another will say " I never double grind my nuts but the age of the eggs whites is all important" both are correct.  I surmise they are correct because they TRUST their preparation technique not because their recipe is the best. I think it likely that they were each  practising like mad and beginning to trust themselves and happened to find that as they began to trust themselves they may have discovered that it is either the finer nuts that work for them or the old egg whites for the other - So they have latched onto the final change that occurred during their practise rather than the realising it is they themselves who have the magic touch that comes through experience.

So practise, practise, practise.  Recently I experienced extreme and intense happiness for the first time and I described it to a friend as it being like the first time having an orgasm - it is a wonderful elusive moment to capture but you worry whether it will happen again- isn't macaroon making a bit like that?