Mayonnaise Fail!
 

I've been making mayonnaise for 50 years, on and off, ever since my mother starting letting me be the family cook. I have never had a fail/separated mayo. I started using a blender recipe, and about 15 years ago moved on (or, maybe, back) to using a whisk. 2 reasons: i had read that olive oil, which I prefer, sometimes turns bitter with the high intensity beating in a blender (I had never had this problem, but wanted to avoid it), and a dear friend had moved back to the area after living for a long while in France, and convinced me that it wasn't that hard. I didn't make mayo often, only special occasions, until I realized the awful ingredients in even organic commercial mayo. The one product that meets my standards for quality doesn't come up to my standards for taste (or price). So I don't use mayo often, but when I do it is homemade. I finally decided to try the ubiquitous you tube recipe with a stick blender, and avocado oil (see olive oil caveat above). 10 times faster. Maybe 20, as it takes me about 20 minutes to whisk everything together. But from the outset I could see that it wouldn't hold together. Today I went back to my Luddite ways, and whisked together another egg yolk, a bit of Dijon mustard, and dribbled the failed mayo in, whisking madly all the way. Success! But I'll save the stick blender for soups in future.

I'm with you Verbena, I have not been able to make mayo with a stick blender. I've tried a few times and it just don't work for me. Obviously I'm doing something wrong but the old whisk method never fails me and I get a workout ;)

Exactly! A good workout! Now, if only I could become ambidextrous enough to equalize the workout ... oh well, I doubt that my on again/off again mayo making will build up my muscles too much on the one side.

I force myself to use my left hand. It gets better with practice. It seems that holding the bowl is as important as the whisking hand, who would have tunk ;)

Wow, I never had any success with mayo until I got a stick blender, but with the stick blender I got perfect mayo every time. However, lately, I've just been going with the avocado oil mayo from Costco. ;)

I've always made my homemade mayo in my food processor. I drizzle the oil in with my left hand in a steady, thin stream and intermittently pulse the machine with my right hand. I've only had mayo "break" two times in some 20+ years of doing it this way. Those batches became a lovely salad dressing instead. :)

Mayo is hit or miss for me in the cuisinart machine. aka food processor. Consistency is hit or miss for me. But always tastes homemade.