I've spent the last four days in macaron-making/recipe-testing mode. And wouldn't you know that I stumbled across a game-changing tip when making the last batch of many, many batches?!?
Here are some of my favorite macaron recipes to date:
The Simple Tip for Making Macarons that I Discovered by Accident
For a bit of background, I have a LOT of cookie sheets. When you've spent years decorating cookies, you accumulate more than a few cookie sheets.
So, when testing this recipe, I pulled out two cookie sheets. One of my favorite textured cookie sheets from OXO and another goldtone cookie sheet like this one.
When you make macarons, you can tell they're baked through when they easily lift from the parchment paper. The macarons did that, but I could feel a bit of stickiness on a few of cookies when I lifted them from the paper. I had to go gently as to not separate the top of the cookie from the bottom.
A few did separate. I cried. Then I ate them.
On my last batch, I adjusted my recipe and had a bit more batter, so I grabbed another sheet of parchment and the first cookie sheet my hand touched in the cabinet.
It happened to be a shiny, silver (aluminum) cookie sheet. Let me tell you, not only did the cookies lift easily from the parchment when they were done, the macarons practically SLID off of the parchment. Same batter, same resting time, same baking time, but what a difference.
Now I can't wait to make more macarons with SHINY cookie sheets!
