Transforming Failure Into Success: 4 Lessons Learned From Failing at Macarons

Like many of us, I have been watching more TV and Netflix since lockdown began. Nadiya’s Time to Eat, hosted by Nadiya Hussain, was a wonderful distraction for seven amazing episodes. After finishing, I needed more Nadiya. Enter The Great British Bake Off (GBBO). While I do enjoy baking, the idea of watching a baking competition had never appealed to me. How could watching people bake cakes be entertaining? But, to get my dose of Nadiya, I decided to watch her season of GBBO (Season 6/Netflix Collection 3).

Nadiya’s season was unsurprisingly delightful (and still remains my favorite) and ended up being my gateway to the series. I have now watched 8 seasons/80 episodes. You can’t watch this many episodes of a baking competition and not be inspired, so I was soon whipping up cakes and desserts galore. One thing I noticed while watching the show is how often and effortlessly the contestants made macarons. They weren’t making them as their main dessert either - the macarons were usually a decor element or accompaniment to their main. I thought, “Aren’t macarons supposed to be hard? I guess not.” And that’s when I decided I would learn to make my favorite rose macarons as effortlessly as a GBBO contestant.

I’d like to say that I was immediately successful, but *spoiler alert* it took me two epic failures before I was able to make pretty good macarons. It will be some time before I master them, but there are some lessons to be learned from my failures.

Lesson 1: Identify the root cause of the failure

There are two main methods of making macarons - Italian meringue and French meringue. Italian meringue is more complicated and requires you to cook the egg whites by slowly adding hot sugar syrup, but this leads to a more stable batter. French meringue is more straight-forward but the batter can be more delicate. Here’s my analysis of what went wrong:

Round 1

I used Italian meringue and ended up with chunks of crystallized sugar. I could tell things were going horribly wrong as I was pouring the syrup into the bowl with the egg whites and it started to crystalize as it touched the sides of the bowl.
I made the macarons too big and did not space them out enough when piping.
They were under-baked. After this failure, I learned it’s better to over-bake macarons than under-bake them. You won’t ruin them, and they will soften up to the right texture in the fridge if over-baked.
The silicone baking mat did not allow enough heat through to the bottoms of the macarons, and they didn’t form a good bottom crust.
I used too much food coloring.

Round 2

I did not macaronage long enough. This is the technique of folding in the ground almond/sugar mixture into the egg whites. It’s critical that you do it long enough to get the perfect texture but not so long that you knock all of the air out of the batter.
I didn’t use enough food coloring.

Lesson 2: Don’t be afraid to change your approach

Although I had an idea of how to fix what went wrong in Round 1, I decided to go with French meringue for Round 2 the very next day. Making the sugar syrup was a lot of extra effort, and it was very difficult to work with when using my hand mixer (stand mixers are recommended for Italian meringue). My Round 2 macarons ended up looking like pale, lumpy, fluffy clouds, but they were still much closer to my idea of “perfect” than Round 1.

Lesson 3: Make sure you understand the process before diving in

In the case of macarons, this meant reading the recipe multiple times, having all of my tools and ingredients prepared, and truly understanding how to perform each step before diving in. In my second failure, I was googling “stiff peaks” while trying to beat my egg whites to perfection, and I really should have familiarized myself with the stages of beating egg whites before starting the batch.

Lesson 4: Persevere

I was understandably very deflated after back-to-back failures two days in a row. It took me about a month to work up the courage to try again, but I always knew I would. I decided to go with French meringue again for Round 3, and this time, I reviewed my recipes and researched all the techniques described (beating egg whites, macaronage, etc.). I was rewarded with a very successful batch of macarons with amazing flavor, texture, and color.

**Round 3: The Goldilocks batch, just right**

***

My friends and family wondered why I subjected myself to this torture, and why I wouldn’t give up and say, “macarons just aren’t for me.” It wasn’t for the prestige of being able to say I could do it, but because I absolutely love macarons and enjoy a challenge. I would have loved to have gotten it right the first (or second) time, but the failures made me a better and more resilient baker. Whether you fail at macarons or any other goal, there are often lessons to be learned from failure that can ultimately lead you to success.

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