Macawrongs - When Macaron Baking Doesn't Go Right

Does the above picture ever look like some of the macarons that come out of your oven? Over the past couple of years many a "macawrong" has come out of my oven! It definitely has been upsetting when I crack open the oven and instead of beautiful smooth macarons with lovely feet (the ruffled edges on a macaron shell) I see a pan of these shells there. In fact, just this week I experienced a batch of macawrongs myself.

The purpose of this post is to continue to encourage you all to keep baking those macarons. Yes, they can be finicky despite all the work we put into them. Let's do some digging into why these macarons look like this. My hubby Dan, an engineer by trade, who has seen me through this journey of macaron making will also help dissect what likely happened in these macawrongs. 

In the macaron shell above, there appears to be a nice feet or pied (french for the ruffled edge). However, the top of the macron appears to almost mushrooming over the top. When we look at this macaron shell from above, it also seems that the piping was inconsistent given the slight irregular shape of the circle. One of the possible causes for this above macawrong is due to over resting. Yes, that can happen! Resting your macarons for up to 2 hours depending on humidity can lead to positive results, but in this case this shell was rested for over 4 hours (it was a humid day, so I had thought that resting it more might help).  

In the macawrong above we see that there's a "fissure" where the feet should be. These are not feet, as we can see the bottom of the shell is rounded into the mat. We think this was due to two things, a large air bubble inside the macaron which caused the top of the shell to rise very quickly and result in the split. So tamping (or banging the sheet of macarons on the counter) can help bring the air bubbles to the top and the flatten the pointed tip on top of the macaron. Also using a toothpick to poke out the air bubbles after tamping will help.

This macawrong was caused because the shell was likely not dried long enough. When the macarons are dried enough, it should be dry to the touch. So when this macawrong was baked in the oven, it immediately cracked due to the heat of the oven. This crack can also occur if your oven is too hot or there is an air bubble in the macaron.

To ensure the best possible macarons follow along in my Macaron 101, Macaron 102 and Macaron 103 posts. I walk you visually through all the equipment you will need and also tips and tricks at each step to help you be as successful as possible in your macaron journey. 

Let me know how it goes and feel free to leave me comments and we can trouble shoot together. Have fun despite the macawrongs! Always know that one day perfect macarons will come out of your oven!