What To Know Before Adding Eggs To Your Macaron Batter

Macarons are as aesthetically pleasing as they are deliciously tasting. You might be used to getting the dessert at your local French bakery, but there's always a way to make them at home too. With many baked goods such as cakes and cookies, eggs are an essential component to thicken or bind all of the ingredients in the batter together. But to pull off lavish homemade macarons, only the egg whites should make it into the mixing bowl.

The main reason you don't want yolks in your macaron batter is that you need to whip up a meringue for the batter, and the fat in the yolks will stop that from happening. Egg whites are mostly water which turns into foam and eventually transforms into stiff peaks of meringue with the help of a mixer and other ingredients like sugar. The fat content of the yolks will interfere with the proteins and stop that foam from forming. Additionally, yolks give a yellow color to your batter and prevent the airy texture you expect. Egg yolks just don't belong in meringue, although a small amount shouldn't ruin the batch.

If you don't want to risk ruining your batter with yolks, start with store-bought boxed egg whites to play it safe and reduce food waste. However, there are many hacks to separate eggs easily for macarons and other dishes. Use an egg separator if you have one in the utensil drawer. Otherwise, use a strainer or empty water bottle, or keep it old school and use each side of the eggshell to separate the two parts by hand. Do this over a separate bowl, not the mixing bowl for the batter, so you don't risk yolk (or shell) falling in.

Are you ready to try your new egg-separating skills? Start with our pistachio macaron recipe that uses the whites of 2 large eggs to make 25 macarons. Another option is to make these white chocolate-raspberry macarons which requires 4 ounces of egg whites to pull off 36 macarons. And if you really want to perfect your game before you crack an egg, check out these tips for baking the best macarons, including some advice on dealing with the egg whites we've discussed.