My Top 7 Tips about mastering your Macarons

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Macaron or macaroon (depending on how comfortable you are with saying the French “on” like in “Manon” ) are to me, such a delight to bake! There are so many things I love about them. They are amazingly cute, they are delicious, easy to drop in a little box to share and extremely photogenic ^^

But unfortunately, they have a bad reputation to be difficult to make. I am not going to lie, I was always scared to try myself at it. If I remember well, I think I didn’t do too bad the first time! Which means, there is no reason why you can’t be successful yourself.

But before, let me share a story of my early love for macarons. My mum and dad have an egg farm, and one of their client specialised in making chocolate and macarons! My dad used to deliver the eggs every Wednesday, and me and my sister would always fight to go with him that day (In France we didn’t have school on Wednesday). The only reason why because we knew the chef baker would either give us the left overs of the batch or dad would buy us a bag of macarons! (If you were lucky you would have the extra big ones !!) Anyhow, my dad also always bought us half a kilo of macarons for our birthday and that was the best day ever ๐Ÿ™‚

Now, let’s help you to make Macarons!

manon lagreve macaroon

 

  • Lesson number 1: Utensils. Before you start attempting Macarons, make sure you have everything you need. There is nothing worth than being half way a recipe and realising you don’t have the right nozzle, or piping bag. I have listed the things you need below.
  • Lesson number 2: Meringue. Make sure you are comfortable with making a successful Italian meringue before attempting the recipe. I personally do them with Italian meringue since my oven is a bit temperamental (they hold better and you have more chance to be successful than with French meringue)
  • Lesson number 3: Know your oven. I would recommend to turn down your oven from 10-20 degrees if you are not sure, and then turn it up ifyou feel it could do with a higher temperature.
  • Lesson number 4: Put a tray to heat up in the oven where you will place the second tray of Macarons on top for baking.
  • Lesson number 5: Once you have piped the shells onto your tray, leave it to dry for about 20min, until you can touch the top of the shell and it doesn’t stick to your fingers.
  • Lesson 6: Half way through the bake, open the oven and turn the tray. That will ensure an even bake.
  • Lesson 7: Just do it and try ๐Ÿ™‚

 

 

Shop this recipe

 

You can make the shells any flavour you want, the recipe bellow is the basic and then you can add flavouring  to the shells. The ones I made in the picture are with cacao powder and Matcha powder. You can be creative ๐Ÿ™‚

Quantity:  40 Macarons

Utensils: 2 baking trays (or 4 if you can put 2 trays at a time in your oven), 2 piping bags, a round nozzle 5mm, grease proof paper, thermometer, electric mixer, a pan

Difficulty:

Plain Macaron Shells

  • 2*55g of egg whites at room temperature
  • 150g of grounded almond ( powdered almonds)
  • 150g of icing sugar
  • 150g of caster sugar
  • 50g of water

Chocolate Ganache

  • 200g of dark chocolate
  • 66g of heavy cream
  • 1/2 tsp of salt

Method

  1. Preparation steps for the shells: In a pan, mix the caster sugar and the water and heat on medium heat until the sugar has devolved. In the meantime, in another bowl, mix the almond powder and the icing sugar and the first 55g of the egg whites. Mix until it forms a paste. Reserve.
  2. Make the Italian meringue: In the bowl of an electric mixer, add the second 55g of the egg whites and start to whisk it until soft peaks. Bring up the heat under the pan with the water and sugar mix, and bring to 118 degrees. When the syrup has reached temperature, slowly pour into the beaten egg whites still mixing. Then leave the meringue to cool and reach room temperature ( about 8-10min).
  3. Finish the macaron batter: When the Italian meringue has reached its consistency, then add 4 tablespoons to the almond paste and start to mix well for the mix to be smoother. Finish with adding all of the Italian meringue to the paste and Macarone for about 5 min. You need to get a soft mix but not liquid. Don’t hesitate to mix well and breaking the egg whites.
  4. Pipe the shells: Pre heat the over at 165 degrees and place your 2 first oven trays in the oven so that they can reach temperature. Take the other 2 oven trays, and cover with grease proof paper. Pipe the shells ( you can use a pre-made template if you are worried about the size – I usually count a few second in my head to make sure I dispose the same amount of batter for each shell).
  5. Dry the shell: Leave the shells to dry for about 20min.
  6. Bake the shells: Bake for about 13 min, turning the tray half way through the bake for an even bake. Once baked, leave to cool and the shell would easily come of the grease proof paper.
  7. Make the Ganache: In a pan, heat up the heavy cream until to the point of boil. In a bowl, cut the chocolate in squares and pour the hot cream on top, mix well with a spatula until the ganache is smooth. Reserve 15 min in the fridge for the ganache to harden.
  8. Assemble the Macarons: Find the shells that match in terms of size, and fill one shell with some ganache and place the second shell on top.
  9. Reserve in the fridge for at least 1 Day ( or overnight) before eating. This is soooo important because your macarons need to take the moisture of the fridge to be delicious!

Can’t wait to see your creations!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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12 Comments

  1. Teodora Kiryakova
    November 20, 2018 / 9:09 pm

    Thanks for sharing your recipe!!!
    Can you add what is the quantity of the powdered suger that you add to the almonds?

    • manonslittlekitchen
      Author
      November 20, 2018 / 10:34 pm

      Hi Theodora,
      It is 150g as well ๐Ÿ™‚

      Thank you!
      Manon xx

  2. November 20, 2018 / 9:40 pm

    Does this make 40 total sandwiches or 40 individual shells? I’ve made several different recipes with different flavor combos but they never are JUST RIGHT. Your macarons in the photo are so cute, and I can’t wait to try your recipe. Thanks for sharing!!!

    • manonslittlekitchen
      Author
      November 20, 2018 / 10:33 pm

      Hi Austina, it will make about 40 shells yes! Might depends of how big they are though and how many donโ€™t get right (happens to me all the time! ๐Ÿ˜‰ )
      Happy macaroning <3
      Manon xxx

  3. Viktorija
    November 20, 2018 / 10:30 pm

    Can’t wait to try it out! Been preparing myself for quite some time cause my first try was a disaster ๐Ÿ˜‚

    • manonslittlekitchen
      Author
      November 20, 2018 / 10:31 pm

      I hope that with these tips it will help you! <3
      Manon xx

  4. Alex
    November 22, 2018 / 11:40 am

    Fantastic tips! Really want to master these.
    When mixing the almond paste and Italian meringue what do you use? An electric mixer or just a wooden/metal spoon? Thank you x

    • manonslittlekitchen
      Author
      November 22, 2018 / 11:48 am

      Glad you like it Alex! I actually use a spatula with a plastic scrap end to really mix well and break the meringue ๐Ÿ™‚
      Hope that helps!

      Manon xxx

  5. Suzanne Sexton
    January 31, 2020 / 12:30 am

    I’m going to give these a try. The last time I tried to make macarons with Italian meringue I had a mess. I later realized I boiled the sugar to 118 F instead of 118 C. Too many things going on at once. Your method sounds much easier than the recipe I used.

  6. June 25, 2020 / 1:54 am

    Hi Manon!

    Thanks for these tips!
    I was wondering if you might try out Aquafaba in macarons and share what you have learned from those as well, if I may ask. I have a few vegan friends, and I canโ€™t seem to get them right! Thanks again for all of your help!

    • manonslittlekitchen
      Author
      June 26, 2020 / 9:49 am

      I have actually never made them with aquafaba! I’ll guess that they won’t be very stable and probably need some

  7. Kristen
    October 16, 2021 / 2:23 am

    Hi Manon! I cannot wait to try this recipe (I am obsessed with macarons. Two questions for you: your recipe calls for “grounded almonds” is this the same thing as almond flour? Also, I love the little design you did to your macarons in the picture above, did you use edible paint to make this design? Thank you so much for all your time and help!

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