Day Four

I think that today might be the hardest day to get past. The fatigue right before entering the home straight in a race. Well I will persevere.

Uneven feet and cracked tops

Today’s macarons were under mixed. Which I have to admit feels like a bit of a triumph although the produced was a step down from yesterday. Under mixed macarons can be fixed before piping, over mixed ones can't. So now I'll take the 30sec test a little more serious, i.e. if the ribbon hasn't melded with the batter at the end of 30sec then I'll mix a little more. The thing that made the difference in my batter was the fact that I made a full batch and it is much easier to whip a strong meringue with a full batch. Not only does it take longer for a larger quantity of sugar and water to reach 110oC (who knew) but it is also much easier to whip a larger volume of egg white, so I was able to get the egg whites to a stiff peak well before 110o and then just maintained the volume.

Chocolate caramel macarons

The macarons were still shiny on top, but a lot of them had a little raised bit in the centre (over mixing) and the feet didn't form evenly. Some of them didn't have feet at all (now they can't run away, muhaha) and those that did had a foot on one side and not the other. I'm not certain if this was a factor related to under mixing or not, I'll have to look that up.

Chocolate ganache filled

I found a macaron trouble shooting guide on food nouveau, while this guide is exclusively for French method macarons I think that i can follow Marie's advice about uneven feet: only rest between 20-40min and when using an oven with poor circulation (yes!) leave the door ajar with a wedged wooden spoon. So considering that I have to put my macarons in the oven in two batches I'll let them sit for 20min, bake 2 trays (15min) and then put in the last two trays. 

Pulse