Macaron blues.....

S

sallybr

Well-known member
Well, I made macarons again for the fourth time this weekend.

From a super fancy cookbook by no other than Pierre Herme. I followed the recipe to a T, aged the whites for 5 days, etc etc etc

He instructs to bake at 350F with convection. All seemed to be going well, until baking - 4 minutes BEFORE the suggested baking time I checked and they seemed fine. In the space of 60 seconds more they had turned a horrible shade of brown, nothing to do with the beautiful bright green they started with -

I almost cried - anyway, checked my notes and many recipes, they all bake macarons at 300F or if made with Italian meringue (like these were), even lower.

Now I wonder how can it be possible that Pierre Herme would bake them successfully at such high temperature?

I had already made a white chocolate pistachio ganache and did not want it to go to waste, so I quickly made ANOTHER half batch without aging the whites (no way to do that on a whim) - and managed to have a few nice looking macarons to bring to the department today. But about 70% of my production had to go to the trash... so frustrating!

I never expected to have problems from such a reputable recipe source!

 
I am afraid this won't work in our oven... (more)

our oven heats very slowly and cools very slowly too

I doubt there will be much change in temperature by turning it off for 5 minutes, I could be wrong, but I think it will be safer for me to use a lower temperature from start to finish, which is what I did in the past when baking with Cindy and in my own adventure with raspberry macarons earlier this year

I wanted to try baking bread starting from cold oven, but again my Bluestar takes so long to heat, it never worked well, whereas other people rave about that method

 
I am not a baker but I did a little poking around about baking in a Blue Star

lots of chatter about how long they take to heat up and cool down. Some are saying up to 45 minutes for a higher temperature which is ridiculous. The ovens are larger and they supposedly have less insulation than many of the smaller ovens, and that is why they take longer to heat up. It is also said that once they heat up they really crank out the heat. So, I am thinking that maybe the heat is your problem. I think your idea of a lower heat is worth trying. Then keep your eagle eye on them.

 
Sally, it is coincidental that you post this. I ate lunch with friends over the weekend...

...and one of them is a professor of French Language at a prominent west coast university. She holds a PhD, and is working with an older professor who is actually from France. He is also a trained pastry chef (schooled in France) and he OBSESSES over macarons. He considers himself an expert and is hyper-critical of any macaron he encounters. He can tell what is not explicitly perfect just by looking at a picture of a macaron!

She showed him a picture of a macaron she bought here in Scottsdale. It came from a French pastry shop. He said, "It looks good, BUT, I can tell they over-worked the meringue."

From a picture.

Such an obsession!

Michael

 
I mean to your friend's Professor.... wish I could! (more)

every time I make them I learn something, but I also make a new mistake, it seems

anyway, this time the temperature ruined it, and I feel it was not my fault - well, I could have known better.

the taste was ok, but it definitely did not look right, and of course I had to discard so many due to overbaking, they tasted wrong.

 
I managed to salvage a bunch and I will blog about the whole thing (more)

once I get the energy to do it. Right now I want to put macarons out of my mind .... smileys/wink.gif

the second batch I baked with no convection at 300F and the color was gorgeous. THey did not develop nice feet, though because I used fresh egg whites and was in such a hurry I probably did not follow the method properly

the filling was incredibly tasty, though - probably one of the best sweet concoctions I ever made - so that was worth it

 
Oh, I made the highest ever muffins in a convection oven. Same recipe came out flat in reg oven.

Also vote for baked chicken and consistent cookie baking time with convection oven.

Flan, on the other hand, was a complete disaster due to the fan blowing the tender custard.

 
I have two big Dacor ovens, one has the convection feature and although I have had them now for

15 years, I confess to never using the convection part of it.

 
Came close to ruining a peach pie at a freind's house last month in hers.

And that's the story of every one I've tried to use. When I toured the Sunset test kitchens they told me the ended up taking them out.

 
that's it indeed.....

I am still in shock about the instructions from Pierre Herme

I simply cannot see how anyone could make macarons baking at 350F with convection, which will take it to a 375F more or less in a normal oven

especially with the Italian meringue -

I wonder if maybe in professional kitchen, baking dozens of baking sheets at a time the oven environment would change?

anyway, I am not done with macarons. I lose a battle, but not the war.... NO SIREE!!!! smileys/wink.gif

 
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