Cracks and domes, flat and hollow, expect the unexpected when learning to bake a french macaron. Macarons are indeed a finicky little sandwich cookie. It’s not called the world’s most difficult cookie to be cute. It took me lots of tries to crack this little beast. I decided to document these macaron mishaps that ultimately led to success.

Continuing from lesson two of macaron mishaps, I kept right on baking this tricky devil. I was determined if I could make this little guy, all other baking efforts would be a piece of cake. The french macaron taught me a lot about baking in general. Mainly how to be okay with imperfections.

Today’s mishap will involve cracks and domes. So, I read about hollow shells. Some said it is over-beating or under-beating the mixture. Others said it was a result of under-beating or over-beating the egg whites. That’s not very helpful. There were lots of of other contradictions. One thing was a consensus: temperature still too high. American recipes tend to bake macarons at a higher temperature than the rest of the world for some reason. I think we try to hurry all recipes nowadays.

Onward and upward as they say! I searched for yet another macaron recipe. Trying again, I snapped a few pictures for family and friends. Why are they over the top? This time, not hollows, they exploded out of their shells and were wobbly little cookies. But they weren’t too over-baked and they didn’t have too many hollows. I got four decent looking cookies. But again, they were way too sweet. Let’s try again, shall we?