Stress less Eggless Macarons
My top 9 tips for trouble-free eggless macarons
Hey Butterwickers!! It’s Jyoti again.
I hope you are all excited and looking forward to the next post in my story.
Before we begin, I have a few question for you.
How many of you have tried to make eggless macarons and failed?
How many of you wanted to try and make eggless macarons and were too scared too?
How many of you are fascinated at the process and how those fluffy feet come to be?
I answered yes to all the above before I mastered the art of the eggless macaron. If you go on the internet you will find some real magicians and stars who have got the vegan macaron down to a tee. For that reason, I’m not going to share the recipes with you and leave it for you to make your discoveries on the internet. You know most are pretty good I will be honest, and I am forever indebted to them for giving me the start I wanted…thank you so much!
My first eggless macarons were trial and error based on what I learnt from all those wonderful stars who shared their recipes online. On the journey, as you will have seen in my previous blog posts, I have made more mistakes than most and each one of them was a lesson learnt on how not to make macarons. We don’t admit defeat easily do we? “No Jyoti” I hear you shout.
I am going to share my most valuable lessons with you so that you can short circuit your own success and make the most delightful vegan macarons for your family and friends.
As you work through the recipes you come across on the internet, I am sure you will find one or two favourites as I did. Bookmark them! They will be your best friends.
In this post you will find my absolute top 9 tips to pay special attention to when you follow any one of the recipes. You will recognise the different stages as I describe them below and the video in this blog will help. If not just feel free to drop me an email and I will be happy to reply with any help I can give. Here we go…
My top 9 tips for trouble-free eggless macarons
1. Start with a simple recipe and prepare the raw ingredients. Be accurate with your measurements
If you use aquafaba, reduce the tinned aquafaba by about a half in volume by boiling it down. Let it cool really well in the fridge for an hour or two
Blitz the almond flour and icing sugar together in a food processor. Do this only for 10 seconds otherwise you will end up with almond butter. That was a tough and expensive lesson for me
Sift the almond flour and icing sugar powder with a fine sieve. Too coarse and the macaron surface will be grainy
Make a marzipan paste with the sifted almond and icing sugar with some of the aquafaba first as this helps with keeping the air in the final macaron mixture
Add a bit of vanilla paste (1 to 2 teaspoons) to the marzipan to give a nice taste to the shells.
2. Learn to feel what a good batter looks like. A nice lava-like flow
Too thick and it doesn’t spread, ending in clumpy, plumpy shells
Too runny and it spreads too fast and the macs don’t bother to wake up.
3. Don’t over work the batter
Otherwise the oils will release from the almond flour and then the macarons just turn into yucky oily blobs. We’ve just made almond butter again….you would have thought I’d have learnt my lesson.
4. Use powder colourings if you can
This avoids the batter getting thinner by having too much liquid in the mixture.
5. Stick with the Italian Meringue
Italian meringue helps to give a shiny and much more consistent bake to your eggless macaron shells
Use a digital thermometer to measure the temperature accurately
Boil the syrup to a temperature to 119.2 then take it off the heat
The temperature will keep rising and you must let it come down to 120 degrees when you add the syrup to the whipped aquafaba…add it slowly with love whilst the whisk spins slowly.
6. The right amount of drying the macarons before baking is critical
30-45 mins is good…but…
Master checking the surface has a skin and that the eggless macarons have firmed up a bit
If you under-dry them they struggle to cook consistently and they tear on the surface
If you over-dry them they don’t develop nice feet, oh my it’s such a intricate art-form
Use fans to dry the macarons before baking. This helps speed up the process as vegan macarons are more sensitive than eggy macarons. It also makes the drying consistent.
7. Practice piping
To get the same sized macarons every time
They will vary slightly in size and you will eventually end up matching them anyway. So you want them as similar as possible in size to not waste any
Tap the trays to remove air bubbles. Not too much as the macarons will keep spreading.
8. Use a 2 stage bake
Bake the eggless macarons at 120 Celsius for about 25 minutes followed by a 10 minutes at 100 Celsius
You have to take control of the eggless macarons and not let the oven bully you!
Keep checking they are not discolouring. If it looks like they are on the first bake, vent the oven for a few seconds ready for the second bake.
9. And finally the most important point
….be patient, have lots of funs and I wish you success from the bottom of my heart!