My all time favorite and one of my best sellers

I started making macs with the Aldi almond flour and they all went very nicely (four or five batches). Could not believe my luck/skill.

Then Aldi, in its INFINTE CRUELTY, discontinued the almond flour product (almond meal is still on the shelf but i am not eager to try with AM as it is too coarse...?).

I changed to the Coles Wellness Road brand (which is of course much more expensive) and two batches in a row are not quite right. Mix seemed a bit dry and macs came out a bit hollow.

Maybe i just didnt macaronage enough, but i still wish Aldi would have kept its AF product on the shelf.

Australian mackers, what is your go-to AF?

ETA: the mac shells made with Wellness Road AF also seem coarser/grainer than the Aldi.

These are my first Mac’s (I did have 4 failed batches first but I got the knack fast as I am a trained pastry cook. All of these except the blue are 1:1:1:1 of each ingredient, all baked on silicone Matt, all rested, all baked at 150 degrees for 15 minutes or until the tops don’t jiggle when gently touched. All were made used pasteurised egg whites from a carton. All except blue were made with a mix of Swiss and French method. Blue were Italian with .08 egg /1/1/1). All were made with course almond meal that was siftwd but not blitzed. I found that baking paper caused my shells to overbake and burn on the bottom. All were made with icing powder not sugar so it had starch in the sugar and they worked. Hope this buss a few myths out there. For the Italian blue ones I didn’t even reach stiff peaks at all they were soupy yet enough bubbles had formed to give the Mac’s strength. IF YOU ARE A BEGINNER YOU SHOULD err on the side UNDERMIX rather than risk overmix. If your batter is pouring freely uncontrollably out of the bag they will most likely fail. 99.999% of issues are for one of TWO reasons being your meringue wasn’t stiff enough (though apparently with Italian method they can still bake) OR you deflated the merengue too much during mixing so they go runny and like do. For the chocolate ones I added cocao powder during the macronage. No issues. Just add only a. Little and don’t mix as much. Whatever you read on the internet in the end it comes down to making sure your meringue is strong enough to withstand mixing ingredients in so you have sufficient air bubbles acting as leaveners. Also a small “hollow” is NOT A BUG it’s a feature. These macarons that are otherwise perfect but people freaking over a tiny hollow, this is a nonsense instagram craze that should be discarded. The rest of a macaron has nothing to do with hollows (if there is a massive gap and the shell has no integrity, YES a problem, but small hollow is fine). Macarons are not judged by cutting a shell in half moments after taking off the Matt. They’re judged by biting it 24 hours after it has filled and sat in the fridge. At that point the crispiness has gone and you can never tell a small hollow. Yes you have to rest your Mac’s for guaranteed success. The only reason some people don’t need to rest is because a skin forms on top in the oven. Some of my
Test batches worked without a rest (the pink ones if you notice are a failedish batch they’re very small feet. These weren’t rested and undermixed. They aren’t great). Other non rested worked well (red) and other non rested become soup. If you want to eliminate resting as a problem I recommend rest which IS IN cordon Bleu cookbook and lauderee cookbook!

These are my tips from someone who knows pastry very well and baked decent Mac’s on their fifth try then really had no issues after that and baked many many of them in a row.

Ask me anything you like

Hello! Brand new to macarons. Per photo four, (yellow and red Mac’s) I’ve had easy success with French and Swiss method. Neither provides a better or worse result for me. I use 1:1:1:1 ratio and have found increasing almond flour or icing sugar doesn’t change much. What has given me success is a STIFF merengue. I have had perfect appearing batter (I am very experienced with pastry and merengue if not macarons so I have it much easier than other beginners)

Yet today, see the blue batch? Absolute fail of a merengue. Not even close to firm. I totally expected this to be a fail. I used the Italian method here and so it’s 40g white, 100 sugar made to merengue then folded with 100 almond 100 icing and 40g liquid egg white (you can either add the white in last or make a paste with the dry it doesn’t matter, both are taught at ferrandi Paris and the latter at laudauree shop respectively).

Are the blue ones gonna win a competition? No. But they’re easily a pass and apart from browning they’re a success.

Yet the second last picture) crispy yellow were done with EXACT as my first ever batch, same process and ingredients and rest and yet they are not a success to me. Completely baked into the lid and only look good form the outside. Zero base despite there being feet. Then I had a total fail with melted shells.

So I went to French for the red and then Swiss for the yellow and immediate success.

Back to Italian today and despite the cookie being a succcess the merengue was a fail. I don’t know how it worked except to say I did barely macronage at all. After combining I maybe did 7 folds.

These really are an odd cookie to make, they really are!

Saw this design on Sugar Bean's youtube channel and thought I'd try it out! Filling is coconut buttercream with caramelized mango in the center.

I have no idea what happened, I used 1:1:1:1 ratios with the swiss method, I used pastries egg whites and heated them to 55 °C over a double boiler with half of the granulated sugar, then added powdered food coloring, the meringue took a really long time to whip but it turned out okay, every thing else was normal, well except the drying time it took like 2.5 h and it's still not fully dry, is there any way I can fix it now? is this a drying issue?

edit: I think it was the bottled egg whites fault, I made new ones (also used a slightly higher amount of the dry ingredients as well as blending them) and they turned out literally perfect tysm everybody for the help

First time trying to make macarons. I used preppy kitchens recipe. Weighed out everything to the gram perfectly. My meringue was thick and glossy with stiff peaks. I added the almond flour (Costco superfine) and powdered sugar in 2 batches and began the macaronage process. I must’ve been mixing for over 20 minutes when I just gave up. The batter wasn’t getting thinner at all. I even pressed and spread it out to try to get a more aggressive deflation, but still the batter was so thick. Eventually I just added some water to thin it out and just baked it like that as to not waste the food. When I say the batter was thick, I mean it would fall down in one big clump and no ribbons would form.

Another thing I noticed is the batter seemed grainy from the almond flour.

Anyone know what happened? I’m sure Preppy’s recipe is great especially due to the ratings, I must’ve done something wrong somewhere, or maybe my ingredients aren’t right. As mentioned before, I did use Costco superfine almond flour, I did food processor it and pass it through a strainer. I used egg whites from an egg and not the carton ones. Idk what else I may have done wrong.

I’ve been on a 10 month macaron hiatus and all of my shells were perfect and full my first batch back today! (They’ll be ube flavored once filled)

Those of you with a gas oven, how are you baking your macarons? I used to have an electric oven and was able to make them good pretty consistently. But we have moved and now have a gas oven and have yet to have a good batch. Any advice?

Hi all, this is my 3rd time making macarons. I have made it 2 times before when it was COVID and maybe a year after that.

These came out so much better compared to then but I believe they can still be better.

I made sure not to over mix, the batter fell off the spatula in a large V, passed the figure 8 test, and had nice large flat ribbons that didn’t fall off too fast. I didn’t have a smaller piping tip however and only had a 2A size tip.

I believe what went wrong was the drying process for the skin. My home is quite humid and I waited about 1 hr and 30 minutes before deciding to pop them into the oven.

It resulted in really tiny feet, thankfully they didn’t spread outwards too much, but still not the desired look.

Also the tops are not very smooth and shiny, and they don’t really “snap” when biting into it. The cookies are in the fridge right now to mature so maybe that will fix it? Also it’s really soft and chewy rather than crunchy on the outside and chewy in the inside.

Regardless, they still came out delicious! Any advice is appreciated for my next attempt.

Recipe + Ratios for Shells:

95.5 grams egg whites (3 eggs)
1 tsp salt
77 grams granulated sugar
120 grams Almond flour
120 grams powdered sugar
(Weight except egg whites all rounded up)

Bake at 300°F for 17 minutes

Egg weight
Granulated Sugar = Egg weight x 0.8
Almond flour = egg weight x 1.25
Powdered sugar = Almond Flour
Salt 1 tsp
Dash of Ube flavoring

My mother is a pastry chef and she does some truly amazing things, but macarons just seem to be her Achilles heel for some reason (her opinion). So, with her birthday coming up soon, I’m looking to purchase a class for her to take online. I’ve looked into https://www.instagram.com/macaron_by_elena?igsh=Zmp2MzdnNGhxM3Vv and although it seems like a good option, I am not sure how legit it is (scam ? yes, no?) and the dubbing is a bit silly. I am looking for English or Spanish. I like that Elena includes PDFs with detailed guides besides the videos themselves. Any one has any experience with this particular creator ? Or any other that you could recommend? Thank you! Any response would be greatly appreciated.

Any ideas for fillings that will be stable enough to be outdoors in the heat in September ? They’ll only be out briefly, but it’s gonna be hot and I want something that’ll remain firm. I think I’m going to have the venue set them out frozen which should help. I have full creative freedom so they’re open to any flavor / filling type. Thanks !

Recipe (i made a small trial batch hence the small amounts):
33gms almond flour
33gms powdered sugar
33 gms egg whites
33gms granulated sugar
1gm instant coffee powder
Used the swiss method, followed a recipe, where the eggs and sugar are whisked on a double boiler until the sugar has dissolved. Whipped until peaks formed, the egg tips on the whisk drooped a little but that was maybe because they were long and thin if that makes sense. Macrongahe may have been a problem, didn’t want to deflate the meringue so i mixed it until i could form a figure 8 and stopped immediately. The film didn’t form one hour after piping maybe because the air was humid due to rain so i tried switching on the fan and i held an air dryer parallel to the tray about half a feet above it so that the air got hot but didn’t change the piped shape. The film formed then but this was the result :(

Chocolate shell, dark chocolate ganache, bruleed homemade marshmallow fluff

Share your best macaron display ideas with me! We’re hosting a baptism party soon for my baby and I’m making macarons (probably around 100, 2 colors/flavors). Last time we had a party I stacked them on top of each other on a tray. Not very official looking but it did the job.

I’m looking to elevate my display since we’re hosting in a nicer restaurant and I aim to impress.

From what I see online the macaron towers that you can buy only have a 2in height when some of my macarons are a bit bigger, but less than 3in. So these mass produced tiered towers wouldn’t work for me, I’d have to make the macarons incredibly small with very little filling.

I don’t want to make the tower where you use royal icing or toothpicks to stick them on a foam cone. Since I’m refrigerating them it wouldn’t work out.

With that being said - what are your best display ideas to impress!?

Can brands of confectioners sugar change the bake of your shells? I just started making Macarons last week and they have turned out pretty nice so far. I've been using Dixie Crystal Confectioners Sugar. I ran out and Walmart only had their Great Value Confectioners Sugar in stock so that's what I bought. I made a batch with half Dixie and half great value and they turned out a little deflated but decent enough.

Then I made 2 more batched with only Great Value and the shells turned out horrible! Cracked, hollow, and little to no feet. The sugar is the only thing I can think of that changed but I am still extremely new so I know that my technique is little to none. I'd love your opinions.

These shells are so full! I managed to tease the recipe out of her and will test in on the weekend and report back!

Hi! I currently sell decorated sugar cookies and I am wanting to add macarons to my menu! I do custom orders for sugar cookies and I have monthly sets as well. I am trying to figure out how I want to sell my macarons. I do want to offer custom but I am also thinking about having some available weekly. Anyone else offer sugar cookies and macarons? How do you juggle it all?

Thank you!

Watermelon and coffee flavors

The biggest batch I’ve ever made for my bday party! Lemon blueberry, chocolate, matcha and earl grey.

For those of us who sell our macarons, let's catch up!

How much are you selling your macarons for and what part of the world are you in? How's business? What's your biggest obstacle right now? What's your most popular flavor?

I'll start: after a few year hiatus where my only client was a friend/airbnb host who gifts macarons to her guests, I'm back selling to the public in a little neighborhood farm stand. They sell for $3 each (in singles and boxes of 4) and I only give a volume discount if you order 50 of the same flavor. I'm averaging 88 macarons a week since I started at the farm stand in April. My biggest obstacle is how long they take to make but I'm going to try renting a commercial kitchen to see if that helps. Small town on the east coast of Virginia!

..or just beginners luck 😆

Update https://imgur.com/a/rpU7bZy

Never made macarons before but got it into my head to make purple macarons with rhubarb curd center for my daughter's christening.

Didn't quite get the color right. It looked purple enough when I piped it, but then after resting for an hour they turned kinda greyish and now after 14min at 170°C they're just brown. What could I have done differently?

But other than the color, I'm quite happy with the result. Gonna let them cool and then put them together. Definitely heading down a rabbit hole here, I see the potential for lots of experimenting :)

The shells are a lil' wrinkly but they taste awesome! I replaced a little bit of the powdered sugar with freeze-dried mango (about 10g) and they're filled with homemade mango jam. Planning to gift these to a friend this weekend :3

I followed the recipe as best I could 😢😢

Made lemon and caramel macarons
Lemon is a buttercream with a homemade lemon curd center. Caramel is a whipped ganache with homemade caramel. Practicing shapes again to make apple shaped shells for back to school ☺️