When Numbers are Everything

6 attempts.
3 screw-ups.

There, the grand statistics of my macaron making adventures.  The remaining three attempts have been gratifying.  The macarons formed nice feet and at the second and third attempt, they had plump, pouffy little bodies.  They are by no means perfect and I am still battling with hollow shells within a batch. Nonetheless, I celebrate every lil success and here are my favourite pics from the last two batches.



My Tiffany macarons - Loving the colour! 
And they pair well with Cuppucinos!




Lavender macarons with buttercream


When you are a amateur baker, there is always a 80/15/5 chance of getting the macarons right;  80% chance of complete failure (feetless, browned tops, cookie-like texture), 15% "manageable" success (with feet, but may have cracked tops, hollow shells, uncooked insides etc), and 5% perfect awesomeness. You'll get a hint of the success rate by first, looking at the egg white meringue, before the dry ingredients are folded in.  The  second hint, is the look and texture of your macaronage after the folding  and the third, after the resting period where the skin/shield forms.

I tried a new recipe for chocolate flavoured macarons last week.  In my overzealous state of mind, I had forgotten a very important piece of advice I had read, "macarons only work based on precise measurements, do not adjust them".

In the world of macaroon making, impatience is a dirty word.  The new receipe calls for cup measurements whereas my usual one uses grammes.  I had a conversion print out (credits to B) but I misread the copy and used bread flour conversion for all the ingredients.    Conversion error is  a one-way-ticket to disaster-dom. I found this out later when I was troubleshooting the dismal results, and realise the conversion for each ingredient from cup to grammes is so very different.  Plus, the recipe seems to call for a lot less icing sugar than the one I normally follow, which could have caused an imbalance in the equation.  Had I been dilligent to do the calculations before I embarked on the mission, it would have saved me a lot of grief (and egg whites..and almond meal..and the list goes on).

How did they turn out?  ....Well, they ended up looking like mini brownies...

"Photos?"...  No,there are no photos - zilch, zero, na-da, DONCH HAVE ... I was an inconsolable self and photo taking was the last thing on my mind.   On hindsight, I should have taken some photos, that would have been a great visual element on my hall of (baking) shame to remind myself never to repeat this mistake, ever.

I was too eagar and possibly too complacent with my little succes that I neglected to dissect the receipe in detail.  Similarly, most of us hurry through life  in our quest for materials gains, personal fame and glory, wanting to achieve the most within the shortest time without nary a pause to focus on the significant, intangible aspects which on the contrary give us the greatest fulfilment - i.e giving our time to our loved ones, spending  quality 'me' time with ourselves, setting time aside for self development.   Arr, life lessons from baking macarons...

PS : I made another batch using the correct measurements and still they turn out like brownies.  This time, I suspect the ratio of the dry ingredients versus egg whites/sugar was a bit off in the recipe.  Going to stop trying using this recipe till I can figure the right ratio.  This second time round, I remembered to take a pic, they tasted great by the way!



Spot the Difference - Brownies or
Chocolate Macarons?



Now, before I get caught up in yet another hoola hoop of macaron baking frenzy, I'd like some suggestions on what I can do with left over egg yokes besides making hollandise sauce and creme brulee? It's such a waste to toss them out but I'd be challenging my cholestrol level if I have any more scrambled egg yokes.  Any ideas?

Happy week ahead!