Macaron equipment - basics, essentials & luxuries

The basics and the essentials

• Bowls - You'll need some for mixing and quite a few for holding all the various ingredients. I find the Kalas bowls from Ikea very useful and cheap ($2 for 6).

• Spatulas - make sure they are silicone and preferably one piece. You'll need at least 2 of these
• Scales - analogue old school scales are good, as  long as you can adjust them to tare the weight.
• Sifter - very important for combining the almond meal with the icing sugar
• Mill - similar to the sifter, but better for breaking up the lumps in the icing sugar
• Small saucepans - you'll need these for making all those fancy fillings, caramels, ganaches, buttercreams. You'll probably need two as you'll also need one for cooking the sugar for the meringue
• Electric whisk - this is absolutely essential for whipping up the egg whites into meringues. You can try by hand with a traditional hand whisk, but you'll be there for a long time. A basic hand whisk can be picked up for A$10-20 from most major supermarkets.
• Cling wrap - you'll need this for covering your almond paste mixture while you get on with the meringue. I also use it to wrap the spatula as there is usually a great deal of almond paste stuck to it.

• Baking trays - you'll need at least 2 of these, buy them as big as your oven will allow. The more shells you can pipe onto a sheet, the less batches you'll need to bake.

• Baking paper - This is necessary for piping the shells onto, some people use double sheets for a bit of insulation. Some people use double trays

• Thermometer - If you are going to be making your meringues using the Italian/cooked sugar/sucre cuit method, you'll need to be able to keep an eye on the temperature. Candy thermometers can be bought for around $10 in most department stores

• Piping bags - don't bother with those cheap kits from the variety stores as the bags are a little small and have a tendency to burst. You can use a zip loc bag with a corner cut out, but this is harder to pipe accurately with. You can pick up good quality disposable piping bags on ebay, which make cleaning up a breeze

• Good quality saucepans - copper or aluminium pans are ideal for cooking your sugar

Not essential, but very helpful

• Stand mixer - I use a Kitchenaid Artisan mixer and it definitely makes whipping up the egg whites and pouring boiling sugar much easier
• Food processor - for blending the icing sugar and almond flour to make a smooth Tant Pour Tant
• Digital scales - especially one with tare function as ingredients need to be precisely weighed out and being able to tare the scales and pour directly into bowls or pans
• Kitchen timer - ideal for keeping track of the baking - e.g for letting steam out of the oven, turning trays etc.
• Oven thermometer - because no ovens are perfect
• Digital thermometer - makes finding the sweet spot between 118 and 121 degrees celsius a little easier when boiling the sugar. These can be bought cheaply enough on ebay
• Piping nozzles - sizes 7-20. These are awesome! you'll need the size 11 for piping the shells and all the othersizes are great for piping and decorating
• Bag clips - these help to prevent the batter/fillings pouring out while you fill the piping bag. I also use one on the top and twist it to keep the bag taut. The Ikea clips are great for this
• Tall vase to hold piping bags open - if you're working alone, you'll need one of these to help you when you spoon the batter into the piping bag - it's practically impossible to fill it yourself. 
• Macaron piping template - unless you have the piping skills of Adriano Zumbo you'll need to put one of these macaron templates under the baking paper. (don't forget to remove it before baking though).

Luxuries - used by professionals

• Aluminium baking sheets - these are more resistant to kinking in the oven like steel trays can, which can create an angled foot on your macarons
• Silpat silicone baking mats - these are much better than baking paper, but pretty expensive
• Steel/copper mixing bowls