Acorn Macaron Ferris Wheel

It's been almost a year since I made a macaron ferris wheel. This is my third Ferris Wheel but the first one that is mounted on top of a giant macaron!

Don't the squirrels look like they wish they had the bigger acorns? 😆

Here is a view of the Ferris Wheel in action!

This Ferris Wheel is also smaller than my first two. My first two were mounted on an 8" cakeboard. This one could fit on a 6" cakeboard.

You may use your favourite macaron recipe or any recipe in our blog. You may refer to my macaron books Creative Baking: Macarons and Creative Baking: Macaron Basics for a more systematic review of the basics and piping techniques, as well as the macaron shell recipes I used here. I baked the shells for two other requests concurrently with this one so I used the Italian method to cope with the many colours involved.

I decorated the shells with royal icing and black edible marker.

Works in progress

As macaron structures with moving parts need to be structurally stable, I filled the macarons with filling that does not contain milk, dairy cream or butter but the flavours are "safe" flavours that will be tasty even without those ingredients. Choose good quality chocolate for best taste.


Cookies n cream filling
Ingredients:
90g white chocolate
20g vegetable shortening
25g Oreo cookies (without cream and crushed)
1/4 tsp vanilla bean paste
1/8 tsp salt

Dark chocolate filling
Ingredients:
80g dark chocolate couverture chips
20g shortening
1/8 tsp salt
1/4 tsp vanilla bean paste

Steps:
1. Place all ingredients (except Oreo cookies) in microwave safe bowl. Heat on medium power for 20 seconds and mix well with a spatula. Repeat heating and stirring until all ingredients are melted.

2. For the cookies n cream filling, stir in crushed cookies. Let the melted mixture stand at room temperature until it firms up until toothpaste consistency.

3. Transfer to piping bag and pipe on the shells.

I piped a ring of cookies n cream on the outside and filled the middle with dark chocolate for the giant macaron base shell.

Here's a peek at the Ferris Wheel frame being filled.

I can't reveal what I did to make a fragile confectionery item like macarons to support the weight of a Ferris wheel frame yet but I can reveal that I did add reinforcements to bear the load.

Ferris wheels can be fairly tall so I made my own customized cakebox that is more than double the height of one box.

I used two regular cakeboxes, four long and thick wooden skewers, flexible plastic cake ring and sticky tape to assemble this.

To remove the baked item from the box, simply lift the lid, open up the flaps of the base box and slide the bake out.

Thank God that the Ferris Wheel was delivered safely by a very conscientious courier! I had to lock the Ferris Wheel to prevent it from turning during transport. The recipient was very happy to receive this 😊

Update: the recipient sent me a photo of the Ferris Wheel on top of the cake she bought and allowed me to share it here. She fedback that the Ferris Wheel tasted yummy too!

You can tell that the birthday girl was really happy 😀

With love,
Phay Shing