Vegan Macaron, Updates

1. The technique of allowing the shells to sit for about 40 minutes after piping but before baking has greatly improved my "peak" problem and allowed them to settle. Also, it's improved my "gut spilling" problem. Banging the sheet pan against the counter a few times also helps.

2. The addition of a teeny tiny bit of xanthan gum (or guar gum) just before the versawhip/syrup mixture achieves stiff peaks gives them a tiny bit more structure. xanthan gum also adds a flavor I don't love so a really tiny amount - less than a 1/4 tsp should do the trick (if you can measure an 1/8 or half of a 1/4 do that.). BUT I hate this stuff and it did make my mix just a bit too stiff in my opinion. It could be that just the smallest pinch helps, but I'm not sure.

3. I've also switched to adding the almond/powdered sugar mixture INTO the fluff mixture in small bits and using the technique in this video as suggested by another awesome site. This doesn't really seem to make a differnce, in the end. Just avoid overmixing (or undermixing?) and that's that.

See my ORIGINAL POST on vegan macaron success.

Vegan Macaron, first "successful" version.

Edit: Updates #1

First off: These are very much a work in progress. If I make any adjustments that help, I'll post updates on my blog. I might play around with the sugar-to-almond-to-liquid ratio and the temperature of baking as well as the baking conditions. The taste is spot on, the texture is 7 out of 10 (less "chewy" inside). The look is probably 7 out of 10 as well (The feet aren't as pretty and the tops aren't perfectly smooth). I may yet play with adapting other macaron recipes instead of the one I used as a base.

I've been trying to think of what to bring to the next vegan bake sale. I made some egg-free marzipan but there's tons of that stuff floating around. I decided to be a bit more ambitous: Vegan French Macarons! Now there has been some work on this before. But I wanted to avoid using egg replacer as I've heard the taste isn't great and sadly that last beautiful link is recipe-less. Sigh. I was going to have to do it on my own!

I did some research on vegan meringue and I noticed one common theme was the use of a modified soy protein called versawhip 600 K (the 500 version isn't vegan). Its really popular amongst enthusiasts of molecular gastronomy for making foams. Pretty cool stuff!

Note, if you stop before mixing the versawhip+syrup mixture into the almond/sugar mixture you basically have a really cool vegan marshmallow fluff. Seriously! You might consider making high hat cupcakes with it! Or fluffernutter sandwiches! Or, as my friend jk suggested, mixing it into homemade vegan chocolate ice cream adding a coconut milk caramel swirl and chocolate chips and you now have vegan phish food!! Now these haven't been tested by me, but they're just ideas that I'm putting out there.

I played around with adapting the macaron recipe from the LA Times. My reasoning was as following: egg white are made up of mostly water and a bit of protein so I wanted to maintain that ratio. I replaced the water from the egg with plain old water (though a flavored liquid should(?) work too) and the protein came from the versawhip -- though I added less because versawhip is much better whipping agent than the protein in egg whites. From there it was pretty simple.

I would normally add vanilla to these babies, but there's some talk that versawhip + alcohol don't play well. It might be worth folding into the batter along with the egg whites though.

I suspect with a more skillful hand -- by which I mean better piping skills - someone could really make some awesome macarons with this recipe. Plus, it's much simpler than any of the others I've seen out there!

Makes about 20 filled macarons or 40 tops. Since there are no eggs involved, this recipe is easily scalable to any amount you like! They'll keep for a few days in an airtight container but they are quite delicate.. they didn't take very kindly to being transported in my bike basket but then again I didn't take too many precautions.

Ingredients:

76 g water (about 1/3 cup)
6 tablespoons sugar
2/3 cup + 4 tsp almond meal
2/3 cup powdered sugar

1 tablespoon versawhip 600K

1. Preheat oven to 350F and take out too cookie sheets and nest them inside each other. Line the top one with parchment paper.

2. Mix the almond meal and the powdered sugar. Grind the mixture VERY finely. A coffee grinder/spice grinder is the best option as I found the food processor just didn't do a good enough job. Also, sifting once or twice won't hurt either.

3. In a saucepan, mix the water and sugar and combine over low heat just until all the sugar is dissolved. Should take a minute or two max.

4. In a stand mixer mix the dissolved syrup from the saucepan (sugar + water) and the versawhip.

5. Keep mixing until STIFF peaks form - this may take quite a long time.. upwords of 10 to 15 minutes just be patient!.

6. When the mixture begins to climb up the bowl and hold stiff peaks, cut the mixing. At this point you basically have your marshmallow fluff. Pretty cool!

7. Add half the fluff to the ground almond/powdered sugar mixture. Fold into mixture. Again, it won't look promising and be very stiff and hard to fold on. Have faith and carry on.

8. Add the remaining fluff and fold just until combined. Once combined, fold 2 times more and that's it. You want to just barely "lighten" the mixture.

9. Place the mixture into a piping bag fitted with a half inch tip (or cut the end off a ziploc bag)

10. Pipe onto parchment in nice, uniform rounds about an inch or so in diameter. The batter should be quite stiff, so you might want to smooth out the tops of the macarons with the back of a spoon so they aren't so "peak-y". Allowing the piped tops to hang out for a few minutes may also solve this problem in a more natural way. You can also try banging the baking sheets against a counter to help them settle.

11. Bake for 4 minutes, then quickly open the door to let out some steam. Bake for another 4 minutes and check. You'll probably assume disaster when you see that the guts of your macaron have spilled out into a strange mess, but do not despair. Bake for another 2 min or so and then pull from the oven when tops are nice and firm). You do not want to "brown" the bottom of the macaron.

12. Allow to cool. Once cool, you should be able to pull off the "whole" macaron and leave behind the leftover "guts". The bottoms should remain in tact.

13. Fill with whatever you like, here I'm showing you them filled with Dulce de Leche. Again, I can't recommend Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World enough, I'm sure any of the "butter" cream recipes in that book would be lovely here!