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.