Macarons and coloring

[TexasMBA02]

I've recently become somewhat obsessed with trying to perfect these awesome little cookies.  I've stumbled upon some of Pierre Herme's recipes and they all look reasonably straightforward.  My question is around colorings.  There are a few things that caught my attention:

 

1) He doesn't specify gel or powder.  I assume from the amounts to use (by weight) he's referencing gel, which leads me to...

 

2) The amounts seem egregious.  In his preamble in one of his books he says to use colorings sparingly, but then his recipes seem to call for relatively large amounts of coloring.  Many of his recipes have anywhere from 5 to 20 grams of food coloring for a standard batch of macarons.  20 grams is essentially an entire .75 oz bottle of gel paste coloring.  

 

Is he actually suggesting that much coloring for a batch of macarons?

 

Thanks,

 

Dave

[pastrygirl]

Maybe. How big is the ‘standard batch’ and how intense are the colors?

[teonzo]

Hermé uses powder colorings diluted in water. So the amount called for in the recipes is the whole coloring + water. Can't remember the ratio of coloring to water, sorry.
But everything depends on which kind of colorings you are using, there can be significant differences between producers. So you need to adapt with what you are working with. If you are using powder colorings then be careful, since 1 g goes a long way.

 

 

 

Teo

 

[TexasMBA02]

Ok. That makes sense. Although, I’ve always heard you don’t want to add any liquid to the macarons so I’m intrigued by that approach. I’m getting his cookbook soon and I’m sure it is all in there. 
 

I believe his base recipes are 300g almonds, 300g powdered sugar, 220g egg whites. Makes about 80 halves. 
 

 

[Bentley]

I've never heard of mixing color powder with water (although that doesn't mean it can't happen).  Every chef I've ever seen doing macs mixes the coloring with the egg whites that are combined with the tant pour tant (not the whites that are whipped with the sugar syrup)

Edited December 24, 2019 by Bentley (log)

[teonzo]

Egg whites are 90% water, if you add 5 g water to 100 g egg whites the difference is almost null. Especially if these whites are the ones for the tpt and not for the meringue. You can sub 20% egg whites with water without troubles (the ones for the tpt).
If you mix the powder colorings with egg whites then you risk ending up with undissolveld colorings, which means micro-dots on the final shell. This is due to the proteins in the egg whites, which are an obstacle for the colorings ending in solution with water.

 

 

 

Teo