Italian Method Macarons: 5 Critical Points You Need to Know

hi everyone welcome back to my kitchen in this video we are going over the Italian method for making macarons we'll be making an Italian meringue instead of the French meringue that I've gone over previously now this is the method I started my business with so it was fun to revisit it and also a little confidence shaking as you'll see my few different trials to get it right we're gonna go over the five key things that you need to know to make successful Italian Mac's at home so you don't do the same mistakes as me so let's get started and learn some things [Music] so let's just start with the differences between the French and the Italian methods and it is the meringue we've got the Italian meringue method which is the hot sugar syrup into egg whites compared to the French meringue which is just the raw sugar into your egg whites really quickly if you're asking yourself why the Italian method or why the French method every Baker has their preference some of the main advantages to the Italian method is a sturdier meringue people tend to have more time with the meringue to to fuss with it and is more forgiving when your macaron ah Jean it's hard to over mix your Italian method another advantage is really nice smooth tops the look and the aesthetics of it usually are the the win an award and say if there was a magical award for macarons but the disadvantages of the Italian method which i relearned as I did this experiment hey guys and welcome back today we are going over the Italian method of how to make macarons hey guys and welcome to day 2 day 4 I relearned that they're more finicky in your oven when you don't have a really nice commercial grade oven or a fan in your oven also Italian method is more dishes there is the hot sugar syrup dish that you have to do and when you're doing max in large production it can get time-consuming the last disadvantage and the biggest one for me is that the Italian method seems to be bit more sweet I can feel it more in my cheeks like back here when I when I eat it it it's just a little bit too sweet for my teeth so with these such similar recipes you'd think it would be fairly simple to switch back and forth between the methods which is what I thought however it was not that way it took me four times to get this down and it was definitely a confidence shaker I had this amazing community lifting me up giving me tips the ones that the women bakers who are just used to the Italian method gave me tips which I very much appreciated and with that along with my own notes from the beginning of my business those together allowed me to make successful Italian max but it was definitely a learning process through those four those four trials so I'm gonna share with you those five tips that I told you about in the beginning that will help you successfully make your Italian macarons at home number one is going to be you want soft peak egg whites before adding in your sugar syrup when you're doing French method I put my sugar in the raw in when it's still liquidy but when you're doing the Italian method make sure you have soft peaks formed and you have them whipping as you heat up your sugar syrup a good rule of thumb is to when your sugar syrup is about a hundred and eight Celsius you can turn on your mixer to start whipping your eggs on medium your egg whites will get to a nice soft peak by the time your temperature gets to 118 Celsius or 244 Fahrenheit and that brings me to the temperature you definitely want to get it to the 118 to 44 Fahrenheit mark this is critical you need a thermometer for this method because if it's too high you could get fragile tops too low of a temperature you don't evaporate enough moisture and you'll get wonky lopsided macarons so make sure you've got your sugar syrup and your thermometer calibrated and it's at the right tap so for all of this we are using a road to pastry recipe that we will put in the description below so you can follow along with the measurements key point number two you want medium peaks of your for your meringue as a quick reminder medium Peaks is when you have a nice blob of meringue come out from your beater and the tip just kind of fold over as opposed to that beautiful stiff meringue that you have from your French method which goes all the way up and the tip stays straight up pointing and then if you have ever seen soft peaks they are just basically a blob of your meringue and then the tip kind of melds back into the entire meringue the beater so those are your differences so you're looking for that medium peak here not stiff peak like French method this was my problem the first time I tried I did a stiff peak and that's why all my Mac's were lopsided so medium peaks and not mixing on high when you pour that sugar syrup in be on medium high like a 7 or an 8 if you're a KitchenAid and whip for a total of about 4 minutes you still want your meringue to be slightly warm to the touch when I tempt it it was about 40 Celsius and I think is like a hundred degrees Fahrenheit so that's number one and number two the third critical point you want to macro nage more so because this meringue is super sturdy you're going to actually need to macro nage more however you don't want it to be as fluid as the French method so this sounds confusing but when you have this dirty meringue you're gonna have to beat it out a little bit more to get to the consistency you want and that consistency you want is gonna be a little thicker than the French meringue it's going to take about 10 to 20 seconds to melt in when you're doing your ribbon stage you still want it to be a nice ribbon stage and but it's gonna take about 10 to 20 seconds to meld into the the batter back into itself whereas I feel like the French method is about ten seconds tops it's a lot more fluid because your meringue isn't as thick and strong moving on to critical point number four so this one is very simple no resting necessary this was my favorite it was definitely an advantage for the Italian method macarons I didn't have to rest one bit so I was surprised I didn't believe it no crack he'd happened though no matter what surface I had it on parchment Teflon silicone mats everything worked no rest so that was great and the fifth critical point that I will go over is venting your oven these cookies I feel like the Italian method is so much more finicky with at least my conventional oven that does not have a fan I need I feel like if you have a convection and you have really good airflow in your oven the Italian method might be the way to go but when you don't have a fan it's very difficult for the Italian method to come rise up and to get all even feet so to combat the lopsidedness vent your oven put a wooden spoon in your oven door and let it release all of the steam that's coming out as well as the excess heat coming out if your oven tends to raise up in temperature like mine the venting helps so much it's definitely decreased my lopsidedness 90% so that my vent in my oven for the first eight minutes of baking and then I did ten minutes with a closed oven another advantage to the Italian method is it bakes less it was only 18 minutes as opposed to my French method which I baked 21 to 22 minutes depending on color alright so those are the five key points that I learned when I was doing my Italian my big deep dive into the Italian method meringue and trials I don't even know what to call them um I also wanted to say I had to flip my sheet trays over the right way and to double up my sheet trays and that really helps as well with even heat and not having lopsided macaron so if you guys want to do this at home I suggest either doubling up on your sheet trays if you're getting a lot of lopsided max and venting your oven those are some really big oven tips for you guys I also splurged a bit and bought a French steel pan these are the pans I talked about way back in my macaron tutorial video the first big tutorial video we put out I said in French pastry school we had these beautiful black heavy-duty pans so I I bought them and they are magnificent so if you ever want to purchase them I have them down below in the description off Amazon JB prints make some gorgeous pans and those of we used in pastry school beautiful even heat and definitely decreased lopsidedness as well and then you don't have to double up on your sheet trays all right so those are my five tips guys and a huge shout out to Baker's that helped me during this time we've got Kirsten from Nora's macarons Brittany from the weekly max Zena from majestical macarons Trini from indulged gourmet Chez Shayla from shez Shay's sweets and I know I'm missing someone else but all of these women were just so generous with their time and going over how they produce Italian macarons in their own home and for that I am so appreciative I love our community I love how we help one another and I hope this video helps you guys if you've liked this video please subscribe to our channel down below and like it it helps immensely and of course as always we love you guys and we appreciate all the comments start a conversation down below if you have any questions I've gotten a lot of comments saying people are the exact opposite and they have way more success with the Italian method in their own home and that is great this is specifically my experience in my oven and if you're having trouble with the French method try out this method it might be the win for you that's why there are different methods different environments make you know different methods work better so try them all out the next we are going to try out Swiss method macaron give me a hands up in the comments down below if you enjoy this with Swiss method best alright guys until next time peace out [Music]

Channel: Bake Toujours

Views: 134,236

Keywords: Italian Meringue, Italian method, macarons, Italian macarons, baking vlog, Bake Toujours, Italian VS French Macarons, best recipe, preppy kitchen, vlog, easy macaron recipe, perfect macarons, macaron shells, troubleshooting macarons, trouble shooting, french pastry at home, french pastry, baking at home, home baker, chef, pastry chef, trained pastry chef, baking, fun baking, fun recipe, best macarons

Id: AFf28YHp9XU

Length: 13min 18sec (798 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 01 2020