Ariadne's Very Hungry Caterpillar

Excuse my absence - my house burnt down so I've been a little pre-occupied and haven't been in the mood to make macarons or had an oven to use to make them! I've come out of hiding, however, for my goddaughter's first birthday today. I was a little worried about making macarons for the first time in a new oven (especially a fully automatic brand new one), but thankfully it all went ok.

My goddaughter, Ariadne, turned one today. For her birthday party, I decided to make a Very Hungry Caterpillar out of macarons (for those of you who don't know who the Very Hungry Caterpillar is, see here). I initially got the idea from the Project Denneler blog - theirs was made from macarons laid out flat on a plate. For mine, I decided to skewer them like a macaron tower onto some polystyrene instead.

For the macaron shells, use the generic macaron recipe here. To make different colours of macarons from the same batch, you have to mix the batter first and add the colouring at the last minute (this can be tricky and you can end up over beating the mixture). Mix the batter until just combined and then remove a large spoonful for the head. I used green colouring for the body and red colouring for the head.

For the filling, I used the mint macaron recipe here. To assemble, I used a large flat piece of polystyrene and covered it with brown paper. I then used half toothpicks to make the shape of the caterpillar and secured the macarons onto the polystyrene with the toothpick going through the ganache (rather than the macaron itself).

To make the little legs, I used fondant icing with brown food colouring and moulded them around a half toothpick (easiest way to get them to sit in the ganache of the macaron without breaking).

My sister is the fondant icing queen of our family and made the apple, strawberry, cheese and lollipop for me. You can see some of her other works of art below.