Macarons are sweet lil' things made with just three ingredients: egg whites, ground almond and sugar. Sounds easy? Not quite. There is the issue of overmixing to worry about, the uncertainty of whether the 'feet' develops/is right etc etc.
One of the common questions our customers ask us is "Can you use a convection oven to bake macarons?"
I say......"YES!" I decided to try it out myself to dispel any believes that macarons can only be baked in conventional/deck oven.
Pardon the poor-photos because they are taken with my mobile phone but here are the yummy French macarons fresh from UNOX convection oven:
Every macaron in the baking oven is evenly-coloured without cracks (although some of them are odd shaped because of my lousy piping skills), how nice is that!
Some tips I got online about baking macarons:
- It is better to undermix than to overmix when mixing in the almond and icing sugar into the egg white. Fold quickly but evenly.
- It may be good to use aged egg whites because they contain less moisture. I left the egg white in a bowl overnight, covered with a paper towel.
- An oven with good humidity extraction will help with the baking of macarons which need to be as dry as possible.
More macaron flavours next time!