Random 16 - 1 Step Forward, 2 Steps Back

Had some ripe bananas last weekend, but didn't feel like making macarons, but decided to get off my butt and at least make Jialin Tian's Banana Rum Caramel Ganache.  Boy - that's a tasty combo - different flavors at different times (rum up-front, than banana & caramel sweetness, than the chocolate richness comes thru).

So - this weekend, I decided to make the shells. Using the extra jelly-roll pans & silpats I had, so it'd go faster. What a disaster - first batch I cooked too hot and too long - by the half-way point, the lower tray were small volcanoes, and the upper tray fared better, but ~40% of them had expanded horizontally and merged.

2nd batch I moved up the oven racks a notch, lower the temp some, and lowered the time. But - oven was still to warm, and I think there wasn't enough airflow, so lower tray was still volcanoes, and I ended up under-cooking them a bit, trying not to toast the 2nd half of the batch.

Ended up w/ only ~30 "respectable" looking macarons, so I filled them and and a few macawrongs for home consumption, and brought 2 dozen into work today.

Because the filling is so "wow", I think they'll still be enjoyed, but I definitely need to get back to good / reliable shells.  Funny - I think part of the problem was that I was using the "fool-proof" recipe from Macaron Magic, but forgot that I had lowered the heat / increased the baking time, but this time I forgot to lower the heat... Which just goes to show you, at least from my opinion, making macarons fool-proof is 3 things -

1. Experience #1 - A good, reliable recipe (most of which is standing on the shoulders of others)
2. Experience #2 - learning what "right" looks like during the macaronage 
3. Experience #3 - your kitchen - in this case, my oven. 

But, all in all, not-great shells with a really great filling are still pretty awesome!

Batches 13, 14 and 15

After a year and a half of being busy, I finally had some time & energy to try again.  Friend of mine started up making Macarons using "Macaron Magic" by Jialin Tang - he said it was somewhat like the Cooks Illustrated version of making macarons - author was a PhD scientist who tried to take the guess-work out, so I got the book and tried some recipes.

My thoughts:

• Macaron Magic book is quiet detailed, lots of pictures, and tries to tell you what you're going for at every stage, so better than many.
• Her "enhanced recipe" is pretty much the classic 1/1.3 ratio (1100g egg whites : 300g sugar + 75g water for meringue; 110g egg whites : 300g almond meal + 300g powdered sugar for wet dough base), except with some additional powdered egg-whites to help control moisture content.
• It's not fool-proof - 1st batch as so-so, 2nd batch was great, 3rd batch was so-so again. It still comes down to "macaronage" (or what she calls a"quasi-meringue")

So - OK book, better for people starting off than those doing OK / pretty well so far. I still think the biggest problem is getting folks to understand the "molten lava" stage, and being ultra-consistent on a recipe (see below - I had a great batch with #14, and then left out something and added more liquid, and #15 shells weren't nearly as good)

• Random #13 - I did 3 fillings to see what worked - Dried Apricot Jam w/ Southern Comfort (way too sweet), Fresh Berry Jam (very tasty, bit too sweet), and Caramel. 
• Random #14 - wanted to offset sweetness somewhat, so added 1/2 teaspoon salt to the meringue (in addition to the 1/2 teaspoon dried egg whites and 1/2 teaspoon Cream of Tartar) and Vanilla seeds from 2 Vanilla pods. I also put in 1 teaspoon of Beanilla Amaretto flavor to the wet dough base, to pop the almond flavor some, and then did Calamansi Jam (from Honomu Jams, Big Island, Hawaii) with a Orange Blossom Swiss Butter Cream.  Great combo - little sweet still, but best macarons overall so far - consistent shells, nice flavor profile - lots of almond flavor, nice burst of citrus w/ the Calamansi, and then smooth buttercream with subtle floral highlights.
• Random #15 - Decided I bought cream to make Ganache, so despite having some left-over Caramel Cream to use, I was going to make Ganache after all. The final macaronage was a bit wet, so the shells expanded horizontally, and ~60% of them were too merged to salvage into decent looking Macarons (and were promptly eaten as rejects, or made into funny looking macanots). Also have air-pocket underneath top shell, so I believe the extra wetness from adding 1 tablespoon vanilla extract + 1 teaspoon amaretto flavor. And their a little sweet - I forgot to add the salt this time...

I think I can reproduce the shells from Random #14. I'm also changing my print-out grid of 1.25" circles - instead of trying to do 10x6 in staggered rows, and running into merging problems if their a little wet, I'm going to do 9x5 - 3 trays @ 10x6 gave me 180 shells, now it'll be 4 trays @ 9x5 for 180 shells. I've got 4 jelly-roll pans, but I think I'll buy 2 more, so I can do 2 trays at same time in oven w/ a extra pan below to keep the bottoms from cooking faster than the tops.