Easy French Macaron Recipe (Macaroons)
I am often asked why have my macarons failed?! Why are there no feet?! Why have the macaron shells cracked? And which recipe do you use for your macarons? So here it is… french macaron recipe and troubleshooting.
On a recent holiday I found a 200 year old cookbook on my mums bookshelf. It tells that King Henry VIII granted an estate in Leadenhall Street to a Mistress Cornewallies in reward for the fine puddings that she presented to him. Follow these easy steps to make macarons fit for a king. You will aquire such indulgence that is pleasing to the palate and if you’re lucky enough perhaps you too will be granted an estate!
The picture above shows the 200 year old macaron recipe. They called them almond puffs. Personally I prefer to make them using my electric mixer using the recipe below.
French Macaron Recipe Ingredients
4 large egg whites (or 5 small) approx 140g (4.94 ounces)
1/3 cup or 70g (2.47 ounces) caster sugar (also known as superfine sugar)
1 1/2 cups or 230g (8.11 ounces) pure icing sugar. IF you wish to use icing mixture INSTEAD of icing sugar you will need 1 3/4 cups or 275g (9.7 ounces) icing mixture
1 cup or 120g (4.23 ounces) almond meal
2g (0.07 ounces) salt (tiny pinch)
gel food colouring (optional) note too much liquid will make the macarons fail so if it is your first time making them try with no colour until you’ve got the technique sorted.
Macaron Recipe Directions
This recipe makes approximately 40 shells or 20 filled macarons
Preheat the oven to 150C (302 degrees Fahrenheit)
Sift the almond meal and icing sugar and salt together, discarding any almond lumps that are too big to pass through the sieve.
Place egg whites and caster sugar into a bowl and mix with electric mixer until stiff enough to turn the bowl upside down without it falling out. How long this takes will depend on you mixer.
Continue to whip for 1-2 more minutes.
Add gel or powdered food colouring and continue to mix for a further 20 seconds.
Fold the almond & sugar mixture into the egg whites. This is the most important step and where most first time macaron bakers have trouble.
It should take roughly 30-50 folds using a rubber spatula but obviously this will vary depending on your folding technique. The mixture should be smooth and a very viscous, not runny. Watch the video to see what you are going for. Over-mix and your macarons will be flat and have no foot, under mix and they will not be smooth on top. See the macaron troubleshooting post for examples.
Pipe onto trays lined with baking paper, rap trays on the bench firmly (this prevents cracking) and then bake in the oven for approximately 20 minutes. Make sure you are using NON-stick baking paper or they will stick. Check if the macarons are done by quickly opening the oven and slightly pressing on top of one – if it squishes down slightly it’s not yet ready, close the oven so the oven temp doesn’t change. Taking them out of the oven too soon will mean the insides will drop and you’ll have hollow shells.
PLEASE make sure you watch the macarons FAQ and troubleshooting video. This way you can learn from the mistakes and questions of those who have made them before you.
Filling your macaroons
My favorite is flavoured ganache, but you can use jam and cream, butter cream or just eat them plain.
Ganache Recipe
100g (3.53 ounces) chocolate
30ml cream
Bring the cream to the boil and pour over the chocolate. Let stand for a minute and then stir. If it is not adequately melted then microwave for 20 seconds and stir – repeat until smooth. Allow to cool and thicken before piping onto macarons.
More macaron recipes for you:
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Macaron trouble-shooting & FAQ
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nut free macarons
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orange choc macarons
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 macaron ice cream sandwich |
SEE ALL RECIPES |
chocolate macarons
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fun with macarons
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Salted Caramel Macarons
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My Cookbook
Stores that sell my book listed by country:
http://bit.ly/ARcookbook
All recipe quantities in the book are in grams, ounces and cups.
Hi , can I just ask if I can replace almond meal to hazelnut meal, I dont like almonds
Hi Lyn, Hazelnut meal should work well for this recipe.
This really is the most consistently successful and easy macaron recipe. Thank you so much. I’ll be making these for my wedding favors.
My macaron becomes very stiky and doesn,t have feet
Can I use a blender to mix the macaroons?
Hi Oghenemaro, A blender would work for making almond meal but it won’t work for making Macaroons.
I love your videos nice job maybe you could make one and i dont know if you have but make one on how to make creme bula but thats my request thank
You rock
-Olyvia Levasseur
Hi Olyvia, Did you mean a Creme Brulee? If so, here isa link that you might want to look at http://wellness-wave1.news/public_html/?s=creme+brulee
Pronounced mah-cah-ron(rahn). Maca-ROONS are something else entirely.
Hi Des, thanks for the feedback.
Great recepie!
Thanks Macaronlover! It sounds like you would know!
I can’t believe they didn’t work 🙁 I am absolutely going to trying again.
Sadly mine did not work out 🙁 I am not sure what went wrong. They just didn’t rise, I made rows of under-mixed batter, medium and over mixed as you suggested if you want to get a feel for them. Not one turned out right.
Hi Jess, I suggest double checking your ingredients and measurements. Another issue could be if you are using food colouring. Some brands will impact the mix and cause them not to rise, especially if you are trying to get bright colours!!. Ann tends not to use colour or a little gel or powdered food colouring.
The same here, tried it a few time, can’t get it to work. I’m not sure if this recipe can be halved, didn’t want to waste to many ingredients… I even cut the caster sugar out so that my eggwhites will be dryer, as when I fold is it seems to get runny quite fast, not even 20 foldings in the process.I don’t know I’m out of ideas. Can you help?
Hi Elena, When you have that issue it could be that some fat or oil is getting in the egg white mix. This can be caused by even the smallest bit of egg yolk getting into the whites. Could this have been the problem?
First time making macarons..will not be my last! I can’t say I have had macaroons really ever… but holy cow they are awesome! These are per the above with vanilla buttercream filling.
I thought that I had overmixed it because the batter was acting way more runny than in the video. So I added more powdered sugar (40-50 grams) and undermixed it into the batter to thicken it up. Still when I piped them they lost their tails from my piping tip and were dead flat almost immediately.
Then I let them set out for a long time (life interrupted my baking…) — over 2 hours I am guessing. By then the tops were hard with a crust (I could touch them and not get sticky – just left a small indent with my finger).
Mine baked at 302 deg F (I am from the US) for 10 minutes for the very small (less than 1 inch diameter) ones and 14 minutes for the 1.5 inch diameter ones on the center rack of my standard oven (no convection).
Beautiful Mary great job
Can you explain the measurements again? I’m a little confused. I hope to try this recipe soon!
love the explanations for fails, especially for this type of recipe as it is a delicate mix
Thanks for the feedback MumzieT.
What’s the difference between caster sugar and icing sugar?
Hi Christina, caster sugar is looks like normal white sugar but with a smaller crystal size. Icing sugar looks like white and fluffy powder. They are both just sugar but ground more finely.
Your recipes are my favorite! I’ve tried multiple ones and yours always come out great! Made this beautiful batch today, thank you so much for great instructions 🙂
Hi Valeria, These look fabulous. Well done!
for this recipe how many macaroons does it make
Hi Salma, It makes 40 shells or 20 macarons piped at the size shown in the video.
Thank you so much for posting this recipe and video. Thanks to you I realized why my first attempt failed and ended up making PERFECT macarons on my second try!!! So excited. You’re the best 🙂
Great work Cortney.
Hi
I have had moderate success with macarons and I see my recipe is the same as yours. I bake mine at 138C but the colour fades, if I turn the oven down to a lower temp. the bottoms are unformed. Did I understand you correctly, you turn the oven to 150C then you turn it down to 125C I presume when you put the macs in the oven for 20mins. Please advise as I am really keen to achieve perfect macs.
thanking you in anticipation.
Rosalind (from South Africa)
Hi rosalind, I pre-heat the oven to 150 degrees C and cook for about 20 mins. If you have a fan-forced oven, you may need to adjust the temperature down.
Hi, thanx for sharing the recipe and i’d love to try it sooner.. But i wanted to ask, for making ganache flavour, what kind of cream should i use?
Hi Marissa, Use cream with a 35% fat content or higher. In the USA that is called heavy cream, in Australia it is just called cream.
First time macaroon baker – they came out great
Hi Laura, They look fantastic. Well done!
How do you know when its perfectly mixed not over or under?
Love the post. Please tell us the name of the 200 year cookbook.
Hi Rina,
The cookbook belongs to my mum and says FAMILY COOK on the spine, it is this book here… http://books.google.com.au/books?id=DtsqAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA3&lpg=PA3&dq=%22in+the+primitive+ages+of+the+world,+when+the+preservation+of+human+existence%22&source=bl&ots=ZHKnL17Non&sig=-oXkld5zCkG2RpGCEn7apDBcF5o&hl=en&sa=X&ei=2YL2ULf_GKetiAfP7oHICg&ved=0CDIQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22in%20the%20primitive%20ages%20of%20the%20world%2C%20when%20the%20preservation%20of%20human%20existence%22&f=false
You might also enjoy this link http://www.angelfire.com/md3/openhearthcooking/aaCookbook1800.html