Macaron w/ Dextrose

You know, there's not a week that goes by I don't post something about macaron. Partly is because there's so much variations you can go with this. Partly is because this finicky cookie does present a good challenge.

First of all, we made 6 batches total, 5 of which failed, but helped us debunked some myths. Second, the reason for using dextrose as opposed to sugar is because David is trying a new diet to eliminate fructose. I didn't read up on it, so please post all questions to David not me. I was only trying to make the cookies w/ a new ingredient.

Myths dunked:

After reading Brave Tart's post about Macaron Myths, I have to try a couple of them out. First of all, is that you don't need to aged you eggs nights in advance. I did out of practice and advice from many. But what I took from this is: separate your eggs while it's cold. But set them aside until it's room temperature because otherwise your meringue will fight you. And yes, still can't whip if it's not cool. So, she's right, you don't have to aged it over 3-5 days. You can set it aside for a couple of hours and it'll be ready.

The other myth that she helped debunked, you don't need to babysit your sugar while you meringue. That's true too. I dumped it all into the egg white while it is foamy and white. It whipped up a stiff peak like magic. I think the idea of putting sugar in little at a time is more so that it won't spatter all around and not get into the egg whites itself. Otherwise, there's not real reason for that.

Now, back to the experiments (the failed ones). Using Dextrose does have its fun, you do whip up egg whites quite quickly. What would normally take 5-7 minutes to whip up, dextrose whip up egg whites in 4 minutes or less. It made whipping stiff peak super fun and quick.

Sadly, because chemically, it is missing fructose, whenever you bake it, it became super liquid-y when you bake. (Failed #1) I also tried substitute it as icing sugar and put it into the mix. That's worse, because now it's doubly the liquid. (Failed #2) So we read somewhere that regular dextrose is about 1.5 times normal sugar, so we doubled both meringue and dried flour mix. (Failed #3 & 4) . I then started to put regular sugar back to the flour mix and keep the dextrose with the meringue. While that came out the best, not like normal, it tasted the best versus the rest tasted sticky and not come out at all. They normally just run into each other.

Just to redeem myself, I made a normal batch just to make myself feel better.