Macarons are the hardest of the common bakes to scale, because small errors show: a gram too much water in the meringue, a humid afternoon, or an oven with a hot corner, and a tray comes out cracked or hollow. Bulk macaron bakers write the recipe to the gram by percentage, use an Italian meringue, which holds up better in a big mixer than a French one, pipe to a template, and count their failed shells on every batch. Done this way, a macaron bakery that made 58 at a time makes about 920 in a day, and the cost of a box of six falls from $7.13 to $2.84. Below is the recipe at three sizes, the steps, the losses, what a box costs at each size, and a free scaling calculator.
The short version
- Write shells and filling as one recipe, weighed to the gram.
- Use an Italian meringue; it holds up in a big mixer.
- Pipe to a template so every shell is one size.
- Bake full oven loads in an oven you've mapped for hot spots.
- Count failed shells on every batch; a fifth is common.
- Fill by weight and rest a day in the cooler.
- TaroStack keeps the recipe by weight, takes each batch's ingredients off stock and checks its yield. More below.
The recipe, by percentage
Petite Lune Macarons, the made-up macaron bakery in Kansas City, Missouri, I use in these examples, made about 58 macarons at a time until a café and a wedding order arrived in the same month. The recipe, weighed:
| Ingredient | % of the mix | Kitchen batch, 2.5 lb | One batch, 10 lb | The run, 40 lb | Cost a lb, bought in bulk |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Powdered sugar, shells and filling | 29% | 0.72 lb | 2.90 lb | 11.6 lb | $0.90 |
| Almond flour | 22% | 0.55 lb | 2.20 lb | 8.80 lb | $4.50 |
| Granulated sugar | 18% | 0.45 lb | 1.80 lb | 7.20 lb | $0.60 |
| Egg whites | 16% | 0.40 lb | 1.60 lb | 6.40 lb | $2.50 |
| Butter, filling | 9.3% | 0.23 lb | 0.93 lb | 3.72 lb | $3.20 |
| Water, for the syrup | 5% | 0.12 lb | 0.50 lb | 2.00 lb | $0.00 |
| Vanilla extract | 0.5% | 0.01 lb | 0.05 lb | 0.20 lb | $25.00 |
| Salt | 0.1% | 0.00 lb | 0.01 lb | 0.04 lb | $0.40 |
| Gel color | 0.1% | 0.00 lb | 0.01 lb | 0.04 lb | $30.00 |
| The whole mix | 100% | 2.5 lb | 10 lb | 40 lb |
The 40 pounds cost $88.48 in ingredients. Almond flour is a fifth of the weight and nearly half the cost. At this size every ingredient is weighed on a scale that reads to the gram; the colors and salt to a tenth. How percentages work for other recipes is in scaling recipes for production.
The steps, at 40 pounds
- Age and weigh the whites. Egg whites separated a day ahead, weighed by percentage for each mix.
- Make the Italian meringue. Sugar syrup to 244°F poured into whipping whites, about 10 pounds of batter a mix.
- Fold by the mix. Almond flour and powdered sugar folded in until the batter flows in a ribbon.
- Pipe to a template. A printed template under the parchment, the same diameter every shell.
- Rest and bake. Rested until a skin forms, then baked in loads of eight pans, rotated.
- Sort and count. Every tray sorted; cracked, hollow and lopsided shells counted and written on the batch.
- Fill, rest and box. Filled by weight, rested a day in the cooler, then boxed with the run's lot and date.
The run takes about 12 hours of labor over two days, shells one day and filling the next.
What a box of six costs at each size
| Per box of six | Kitchen batch, 2.5 lb | Bulk run, 40 lb |
|---|---|---|
| Ingredients | $1.03 (grocery prices) | $0.58 (bought in bulk) |
| Packaging | $1.10 | $0.70 |
| Labor at $20 an hour | $5.00 (15 min a box of six) | $1.56 (4.7 min a box of six) |
| Cost of a box of six | $7.13 | $2.84 |
Almond flour by the 25-pound box halves the ingredients, and the labor falls from 15 minutes a box to about 5. The failed shells don't fall with size, so the cost of a box depends on that count more than on any price. A box sells for $16. Pricing is in how to price macarons, and the year in macaron business plan.
The failed shells
Petite Lune counts about one shell in five that doesn't make it to a box, and treats the count as the run's most useful number: humid days, a new bag of almond flour or a change of oven shows in it first. Broken shells go into crumbles and cake toppings, which turns some of the loss into a product. How to measure a yield and track it is in batch yield formula.
Get the calculator
Download the macaron scaling calculator. Two sheets: scale the recipe, where you type each ingredient's percentage and cost a pound and the raw mix you want, and each ingredient's weight for the run fills in, with the mixes, sheet pans, oven loads, what comes out after the bake loss and failed shells, the box of sixs it fills and the cost of each box of six; and weigh the loss, where what went in and came out over a few batches gives your average bake loss and failed shells. It's an ordinary Excel file with no macros, and it works in Google Sheets, LibreOffice and Numbers.
Where this stops working
Eight flavors, runs twice a week, almond flour from two suppliers, and a wedding order of 600 in one color. A sheet can say how much almond flour a run needs, but not which bag went into which batch, or whether the failed shells crept up after the new oven.
How TaroStack does it
TaroStack keeps the recipe by weight, takes each batch's ingredients off stock and checks its yield.
The recipe in the units you use. A recipe holds each ingredient by weight, with almond flour bought by the 25-pound box and used by the gram, and the cost of every box comes from what you paid. "What could I make right now" says how many runs the almond flour, sugar and egg whites on the shelf allow.
Each run a batch. A run takes its ingredients off stock, records the lots of almond flour and egg whites it used, and gets a lot of its own for the boxs, with how much came out good, how much was rejected and the labor minutes.
Yield checked from history. From your own batch history, TaroStack says whether a recipe yields what it claims and which ingredient's quantity is off, so a failure rate that creeps up shows in the numbers. A bag of almond flour that went stale is an adjustment with its reason, spoiled, and shows in the waste report.
| The job | Spreadsheet | In TaroStack |
|---|---|---|
| Ingredients for Thursday's run | Multiply, then check the shelf | What could I make right now |
| Which almond flour went into a run | Not written down | Lots recorded on the batch |
| The real failure rate | Weighed now and then | Good and rejected on every batch |
| Almond flour gone stale | Thrown out, forgotten | Adjustment with a reason |
Recipes, batches, lots and yield are on every plan, from $49 a month. The first 30 days are free, with no credit card. If you'd like a hand setting up, ask, and we'll do it with you.