A few months ago I tried baking French macarons for the first time, and they were incredibly time-consuming and difficult to make. When I read this simple coconut macaroon recipe, I figured these would be an easy alternative to my French favorite, but things didn’t turn out quite as I had hoped.

I followed the recipe, which requires few ingredients and is very straightforward, exactly. I set my eggs out hours beforehand to ensure they were exactly room temperature. I watched the accompanying video so I knew exactly how to whip the egg whites and exactly how to fold them into the coconut mixture. I did everything exactly. Exactly, exactly, exactly.

I expected, after doing everything exactly, perfect little orbs to emerge from the oven, but was instead met with flattened, misshapen balls. Disappointed and confused, I turned to the internet to discover what I had done wrong.

Several theories popped up: over-beaten egg whites changing the structure of the proteins that hold the shape, humidity making them essentially melt, too many wet ingredients in the recipe, under-beaten egg whites causing them to go flat. Some reviewers of the recipe shared a similar complaint of following the steps perfectly and still ending up with a puddly outcome. An hour of assiduous research later, I still didn’t have an answer as to what I did wrong. (I did acquire an abundance of information on beating egg whites, though.)

Typically I have an idea of what to do next time to improve, but this is quite a conundrum. The theories I read take me in all different directions, and I can’t decide which one I think is most likely the culprit. Perhaps next time I’ll try a completely different recipe and then compare. I’m at a bit of a loss. At least they tasted good.