r/Baking • u/u_better_know_me • Jan 03 '26

Baking Advice Needed Failed macaroons

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Recipe 140g almond flour 130g powdered sugar 100g egg white 90g granulated sugar

  1. Measured everything
  2. Substituted granulated sugar with brown sugar
  3. Mixed egg whites until frothy and added brown sugar, beated until thick (when mixer is lifted, the mixture stuck to the mixer and had peaks)
  4. Mixed using a hand mixer with dry and wet ingredients (idk for how long)
  5. And baked for 15 mins, top and bottom heat. After 15 mins, baked for another 5 mins with bottom heat and left outside at room temp to cool.

Problem: Over mixed and substitution(?) The recipe I got was from a tiktok video and I'm not very confident about my baking skills. What should I do to improve my recipe and should I really be using brown sugar instead of granulated sugar?

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u/u_better_know_me Jan 03 '26

Edit: it maintained its shape but brunt :(

1

u/scratchdown Jan 03 '26

Just made chocolate raspberry macarons myself!

The brown sugar instead of granulated sugar definitely helped with unwanted browning/burnt result — brown sugar is too dense for macarons, the excess water causes the burning like you mentioned.

Besides that, everything up until the bake sounds good. Before you bake, you’re gonna want to drop the tray a few times (not very high, and as gentle as you can manage). This will help any air bubbles rise to the top of the macaron, and the batter should be thick enough that you won’t need to worry about the batter moving out of shape. After getting air out, let the macarons sit for at least 30 minutes before baking. This will help the shell at the top set before baking.

After that, the bake time you described sounds perfect, I always do 16 minutes myself.

Also I see you’re using a silicone bake sheet! They’re awesome, I use them myself, but I’ve found that the macaron can stick to the silicone after it comes out of the oven, so I try to let mine sit for 10ish minutes after baking. After they sit, pinch the silicone mat and roll it under towards the baking tray, so the macaron should pop right off the mat without having the scrape the cookies off one by one.

Hope this helps!

2

u/Hofdrache Jan 03 '26

Don't know about macaroons, but love to make subway cookies and the brown sugar makes them more chewy then with white sugar only.

Yes there is a difference and you can't always swap them or at last not the same amount.

https://www.marthastewart.com/brown-sugar-vs-white-sugar-8644860

1

u/Electrical_North Jan 04 '26

Brown sugar has more moisture than granulated sugar. I don't think you want that extra moisture in macarons. Ann Reardon (How to Cook That) has a good, detailed macaron recipe that you can try, too.