Macaron tower for a circus themed first birthday

Some of you will remember the last time I made a macaron tower was for a baby shower...well, said baby is now a year old so it was time to get the macaron tower out again!

This macaron tower didn't have a flavour theme like last time (lolly bag) but rather a colour theme to match with the circus theme of the party.

They're basically as colourful as I could make them, with one layer of "swirly" red and white macarons which I'll show you separately. The flavours were varying (and nothing I haven't already posted about on this blog) - redskin, snickers, strawberry, Turkish delight and passionfruit.

Now about those swirly macarons... I've never attempted this before but essentially I coloured half the batter red and placed two piping bags into one large one with the nozzle. 

It didn't go completely to plan with some of the red leaking out before I started piping but after a few squirts they were coming out like this:

I can't finish this post without showing you the amazing circus cake that my sister made (chocolate mud all the way through):

Lime macarons

I'm always being asked by people whether I can make macarons that aren't so sweet. Unfortunately it's a fact that a good proportion of the macaron shell itself is made of sugar, and playing around too much with the proportions there is likely to lead to disaster.

One way to make them seem less sweet is to use a really tangy or sour filling. Although citrus curds make delicious macaron fillings, they don't keep very well.

Christening bomboniere macarons

My sister and I made these today for christening bomboniere - the pale blue is to match the 5 blue sugared almonds that are traditionally given to guests.

The recipe we used was my marshmallow macaron recipe which you can find here.

The faces are made with some white icing and a black edible pen.

On another note, I'm now on Instagram (cocoamademoiselle) so check out more of my macaron photos there!

Chinese New Year Macarons

My favourite part of Chinese New Year as a kid were those hard, chewy-centered strawberry flavoured lollies that looked like red packets.

I used to eat them by the bucket full but these days I can barely get through one!

These macarons are inspired by those lollies - the flavour is strawberry and the gold Chinese characters painted on the red shells represent the shiny red and gold packaging.

After I finished writing the characters on, my mother messaged me to tell me that I used the wrong character for prosperity...but I hope no one will mind once they take a bite!

For the recipe, I used the strawberry macaron recipe here but used red food colouring instead of pink. The gold writing is done using edible gold lacquer.

Happy New Year of the horse, everyone. 

Christmas Macarons in a Thermomix....the verdict

My husband bought me a Thermomix a couple of months ago as a present. I love using it for making custards, ice creams, sauces and even choux pastry, and I know others have published recipes for Thermomix macarons but I wasn't convinced it would work or would be worth the effort...

I made spiced sticky date and toffee macarons and choc mint macarons.

Mince Pie Macarons

These are quick and easy to whip up...all you need is a star template and you're good to go!

Chocolate Passionfruit Macarons

These are my must have flavour when visiting Pierre Herme or Laduree overseas for macarons, so I was surprised to hear Kerry Vincent declare on the Great Australian Bake Off that the two flavours don't 'go' well together! You do need to be careful to use the right chocolate though - too dark and you'll overpower the passionfruit, and if its not dark enough it will be too sweet.

Baileys Irish Cream Macarons - on the official Baileys Facebook Page

The official Baileys Facebook page were kind enough to feature my Baileys Irish Cream macarons on their page yesterday at  https://www.facebook.com/Baileys.

I thought I'd take the opportunity to revisit the recipe since there was so much interest for the recipe from their post. For the recipe, see here.

Lolly Bag Tower - Macaron Recipes

Before I start this post, for those who are wondering, the very cool backdrop to this "photo shoot" and the venue for the baby shower was Alice Nivens Cafe in the Melbourne CBD - check it out for great coffee and amazing cakes!

As promised, here are the recipes for the macarons on the tower. To make the individual flavours of the "Lolly Bag" macaron tower, use the generic macaron shell recipe and then the corresponding ganache (I've listed them all below):

Lolly Bag Macaron Tower for a Baby Shower

I think there will have to be several posts to cover all the macaron flavours on this tower, but think of this post as a sneak peak of what is to come...

Onesie shaped macarons with a marshmallow fluff filling

These were purely an experiment to see how they'd turn out (I had a search on the internet and couldn't find any). They're a little fiddly but great for a baby shower!

I just printed a "onesie" template from the internet and went from there. They're pretty hard to pipe so I ended up piping a "T" shape and using a toothpick to push the mixture to the edges - you need to make sure you get a thick enough layer of batter or you won't get "legs" around the whole onesie.

Silicone macaron mats

My cousin Fiona bought me some silicone macaron mats in China and I thought I'd try them out. I was a little sceptical as I've previously tried the Masterclass mini macaron/whoopie pie pan and it was a disaster - the holes are too deep and the macarons can't be removed from the solid metal tray.

Fiona and Dorwin's Wedding Macarons...

I know - this is my first post since November! Life has interfered with my macaron making...but I thought I'd share with you my macaron adventure from January this year.

Interview by Madam Meko from Meko Creations

I was lucky enough to be interviewed this week by Edwina (aka Madam Meko) from Meko Creations.

Edwina and her husband Matt have combined their talents to create Meko Creations, a business that offers customised party theming, cakes and cake tables for all occasions. Their creations really are amazing - I've seen and tasted them first hand!

You can visit their website here or their blog here. You'll find the interview on their blog.

Golden strawberry macarons for a bride-to-be...

I wanted to make some macarons for a morning tea to celebrate a workmate's last day at work before getting married.

I thought it'd be as good a time as any to try out my new Wilton gold spray and see how it worked on macarons. I wasn't sure if I should colour the shells or not, and ended up making white ones and spraying them gold, but I may colour them with some caramel colouring next time before spraying them.

Trick or Treat? Spiced pumpkin (shaped) macarons...

We don't really celebrate Halloween in Australia like the Americans do, but I was challenged by a couple of workmates to make some Halloween macarons for a bake sale this week to raise money for our work Christmas party.

Strawberries and Cream Macarons

I stumbled upon some freeze dried strawberries a couple of weeks ago and thought they could work well sprinkled on some macaron shells. I thought I'd take the opportunity to see how my oven handles white macaron shells while I was at it - it would seem I need to bake them for significantly longer and at a much lower temperature than usual.

So here they are, for my 100th post, Strawberries and Cream macarons…. Thanks to everyone from around the world who have visited and supported my blog!

Cassis Macarons

Those of you who know me will know that I've moved house again recently, which means that I have another oven to get used to!

These are the first batch of macarons that I have made in my new oven - I was happy that they turned out fine with exactly the same temperature and baking time as my old oven!

Irish Cream (Baileys) Macarons

I've finally gotten around to making Irish Cream (Baileys) macarons!

The ganache took a little experimenting - it's essentially a white chocolate ganache with irish cream in it, but I wanted to put as much irish cream in to have an intense flavour but still have the right consistency. 

Lamington Macarons

This weekend, I was looking through my pantry to see if I could be inspired to make a batch of macarons. Eventually, I found a bag of shredded coconut buried behind my cans of tomatoes and chipotle chillies and remembered why I had bought it - to make lamington macarons!

Given that half of the visitors to this blog aren't from Australia, if you're wondering what a lamington is, see here. It's essentially a lump of sponge cake sandwiched with jam, rolled in runny chocolate icing and covered with coconut.

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.

Banana, Toffee and Chocolate Macarons...

Australia's Biggest Morning Tea continues in our tearoom this week. Last week, we managed to raise over $500 for the Cancer Council, and this week my contribution was inspired by leftovers in my kitchen...

I had a small, over ripe banana in my fruit bowl - hardly enough to make a banana cake or some banana muffins, so I thought I'd see if I could use it for a ganache.

I started with a dry caramel - by heating ~100g of sugar in a pan until it liquefies and then turns a golden brown. I then added some cream, folded in my mashed banana, and then added some dark chocolate. I wish I could tell you the exact quantities, but to be honest, I didn't measure anything!

Unfortunately, the ganache didn't set hard enough, so I added some more dark chocolate. The result was quite surprising - the banana flavour was so strong it almost tasted like I had added banana essence into the mixture.

For the shells, follow the generic macaron recipe here.

Ferrero Rocher Macarons for Australia's Biggest Morning Tea

In case you aren't aware, Australia's Biggest Morning Tea was held last week. At work, we decided to have a cake stall in our tea room all week to raise money for the Cancer Council.

I made Ferrero Rocher Macarons as my contribution.

For the shells, use the generic macaron recipe here. I sprinkled them with feuilletine to add the wafer-like crunch. You could also sprinkle with crushed hazelnuts.

For the filling, make a ganache with 100g dark chocolate and 100g cream. Fold through 2 tablespoons of Nutella. You can also add crushed hazelnuts if desired.

Baklava Macarons...for Mother's Day

I've been meaning to make these for a while and today's rainy weather was a good excuse to stay inside and have the oven on all day.

Baklava can be made with pretty much any kind of nut, but I chose walnuts as they're probably the most traditional baklava nut.

Macaron cake for Monie and Pandan Macarons for Karen...

My friend Mona had her last day at work yesterday before moving interstate to a new job. I made this macaron cake for her farewell afternoon tea.

For the cake, any chocolate cake recipe will do - an easy one is Martha Stewart's Devil's Food Cake, and you can find the recipe here.

I sandwiched the cake with a chocolate cream (whipped cream with Dutched cocoa and some sugar), then covered it with dark chocolate ganache (equal parts dark chocolate and cream).

For the shells, I just made one batch of the generic macaron recipe and divided it into bowls with food colouring - you can be smart with colours and add blue to pink once you've piped some pink ones to make purple, and add red to yellow to make orange, etc. Arrange the macaron shells on the cake whilst the ganache is still soft.

One of my other friends, Karen, had a baby last week and has been having cravings for pandan macarons for weeks.

For the shells, stick with the Generic Macaron Recipe here. Add green colouring to the mixture. If you have some shredded coconut handy, sprinkle some onto the shells before resting (unfortunately I couldn't find any in my pantry!)

For the filling, I cheated by using pandan essence which I bought from an Asian grocery store on Victoria Street in Richmond. You could probably use real pandan leaves and infuse some cream and make ganache from that.

I added the pandan essence to white chocolate ganache, and I'm told that they definitely tasted of pandan!

Greek Easter Macarons...

These macarons were inspired by the brightly coloured red dyed eggs that my Mother-in-law dropped off last night for Greek Easter.

The big question was: what ganache flavour to fill the red macaron shells with. I decided to go with Turkish Delight.

For the shells, refer to the generic macaron recipe here. I was a little disturbed by the amount of red and pink food dye I had to add to get the colour I was after, but at least they weren't going to be consumed by any young children!

For the filling, heat 100g of cream until almost boiling. Pour over 150g of milk chocolate. Stir through 1-2 teaspoons of rosewater and 1-2 teaspoons of orange blossom water (to taste). If you add more of the fragranced waters, you may need to increase your chocolate to ensure that the ganache sets.

Happy Easter Bunny Macarons!

These have been done by others before me, but I thought I'd make some with my own twist.

To get the bunny shape, I printed some bunny templates that were simple enough to pipe out.

To make them look more like bunnies, I used a skewer and some black food dye and painted on some eyes and a nose (I attempted some whiskers on some but it was a little over the top)

Because I made them grey (this has been questioned by many who have eaten them), I added some sprinkles on the ears to add some colour.

They took the same amount of time to bake as usual (13 mins)

And I sandwiched them with banana marshmallow ganache and packaged them in cellophane bags as an alternative to easter eggs this year...

Butter Popcorn with Salted Caramel Macarons for Timmy...

These were to reward Timmy for doing a week's worth of on-call for me...well worth the effort, I think!

To make the macarons, follow the salted caramel macaron recipe here.