Make Your Own Superfine Sugar: Add 80g of regular granulated sugar to your food processor or blender. Pulse about 10-15x until granules are much finer, aka superfine sugar. Weigh 80g superfine sugar—should be about the same amount you started with. Can I use unsweetened coconut? I love unsweetened coconut for a lot of baking recipes, however, it’s not the best choice for this macaroon recipe. The macaroons will taste dry. Feel free to try increasing the egg whites and sugar, if you’d like. Sprinkle loaded macaroons:Carefully fold 1/3 cup (about 57g) sprinkles in the coconut macaroon dough before scooping and baking. Avoid nonpareils (the little balls). Fine Mesh Sieve: To obtain a shiny and smooth macaron shell, you must run the almond flour and confectioners’ sugar through a fine mesh sieve. You can use a hand crank sifter if you have one, but I prefer using a mesh one. Traditionally, macarons are made with French meringue. This method results in flat top macarons, but is more temperamental due to the unstable meringue. Using an Italian meringue as the base for macarons results in a rounder shell. The meringue is more stable, allowing for an easier control during macaronage (mixing of the batter). With this method, the macaron 'feet' are also much more even, with less air gaps.

Almond flour - it should be ground from blanched almonds. Some brands are more "oilier" than others so for the most consistent results, I like to make my own homemade almond flour. Alternatively, many readers have had good results with this brand. White chocolate cranberry macaroons:Add 3/4 cup (about 100g) of dried cranberries to the dough when you add the shredded coconut. Melt 4 ounces of pure white chocolate and drizzle over cooled macaroons. If adding food coloring, use gel or powdered food coloring as it will alter the consistency less than regular food coloring. Sift the almond flour and confectioners’ sugar together in a large bowl. The bigger the bowl, the more room you have for the macaron batter, and the easier it will be to manage. Use a spoon to help work any larger pieces through the sieve. You don’t want to discard a lot of that because then you won’t have enough dry ingredients in the batter.

What makes this classic macaron recipe foolproof?

If you've gone too far with your mixing, I'm afraid there's not much that can be done to salvage the batter. The macarons will become very flat and unlikely to have feet if the batter is too liquid.

Italian Meringue: Sugar is boiled with water to make a syrup which is then added to the whipped egg whites to make meringue. This is a very stable meringue but the method is more advanced and requires a candy thermometer and a lot of confidence.

Bumpy tops, imperfect shells: batter was not mixed for long enough, dry ingredients not sifted. Forgot to tap the trays to release air bubbles. Humidity and macarons aren’t the best of friends. Not much you can do about it,but keep in mind when resting the macarons before baking. Read through my tips and troubleshooting and watch the video to familiarise yourself with making macarons before attempting this recipe. French, Italian or Swiss