Mayonnaise... conquered

A story of failure, perseverance, and success:

Somewhere between Maine and Boston on our drive home from Thanksgiving, Andy and I decided it would be a good idea to make homemade mayonnaise. Like, from scratch. By hand. Yeah, I know, we clearly have issues. Our specific plan was to make a homemade mayo to make an aioli spread for an upcoming dinner of burgers, but we would soon find out that our plan was not going to be as easy as we thought. Once home, I did a ton of research on mayonnaise recipes, techniques, tips, and stories. I found a lot of consistencies in my research - the ingredients would consist of egg yolks, oil, salt, vinegar and mustard. The technique involved a slow (slow!) and steady drizzle of oil to create an emulsion (I knew all about emulsions thanks to my obsession with Alton Brown and his unique scientific explanations on the Food Network). Andy and I got home and got to work making some homemade mayonnaise.

Fail. 

We completely failed on our first attempt. Actually, we completely failed on our first 3 attempts. First we tried an electric hand mixer on low speed, but all we got was yucky oily soup. Eww. We came to the conclusion that one or more of our ingredients were not at room temperature, hence no emulsion. We tried a second time using a food processor (mostly because our arms were numb from the hand mixer attempt) and room temperature ingredients, and a second failure ensued. We got out the immersion or "stick" blender and the beaker that came with it, and we almost had success on the 3rd try. Well, actually we had success for about 10 seconds then decided it could use just oneeee moreeee whir... then it collapsed into liquid. Ugh. We thought we were on the brink of discovery so we tried one last time with the stick blender and got an oily, chunky goo that was not at all appetizing. This was when we abandoned the homemade mayonnaise ship and reached for the jar in our fridge to make our aioli. Clearly, homemade mayonnaise was not meant to be for us.

Well, I am stubborn. I don't give up easily, and I was not going to let mayonnaise defeat me. I got home the day after our epic failure and did a ton of research on everything mayo. I decided that after using the same ratio of oil to egg yolk (about 1 cup to 1 yolk) and keeping other variables similar with no success, the issue had to either be the ratio I was using, or the cook. I changed the only thing I had control over and changed the ratios. I added an extra 1/4 cup of oil and an extra egg yolk to aid in the emulsion process and gave it another whir, pun intended. It worked! I made mayonnaise! From scratch!! I definitely need to play around with the flavoring to suit my own taste, but to me the texture and consistency was absolutely perfect. I am a Cains mayonnaise girl through-and-through, and this was very close to that texture. 

Yes, this is homemade!

Here is the recipe that finally created mayonnaise!

Mayonnaise - Version 5.0

Ingredients - all at room temperature

2 egg yolks

1 tbsp. lemon juice

1 tbsp. white wine vinegar

1/2 tsp. salt

1/2 tsp. sugar

1 tbsp. Dijon mustard

1 1/4 c. canola oil

Let the egg yolks settle at the bottom

Add all ingredients to the beaker of the stick blender - a mason jar would also work. Allow egg yolks to settle completely at the bottom. Submerge the stick blender covering the yolks and hold it against the bottom of the jar. Pulse 5-6 times pausing for 3 seconds between each pulse. Once a white emulsion forms in the bottom of the jar, turn on the blender and blend for 10 seconds. Slowly pull up the blender allowing the mayonnaise emulsion to follow the blender up the container. It took me about 10-15 seconds to get to the top, but it felt like a lot longer. Don't go too fast or else the oil will stay separate from the emulsion. Presto... mayo!! 

For my taste, Version 5.0 was a little too sweet and a little too vinegary.* I will add a touch more salt, play around with the sugar, and reduce the vinegar for Version 6.0. At least the consistency is right! I defeated mayonnaise... finally. :o)

*Update: I let the mayonnaise sit at room temperature for an hour or two while waiting for Andy to come home and see it (yay!) and when I tasted it again it had mellowed out quite a bit. I am tempted to simply reduce the vinegar by a small amount next time and leave everything the same. In a blind taste test with Cains Mayo, they were very hard to tell apart! Such exciting news :o)