'Bears with a message' Lavender Earl Grey Macarons

This is the last major macaron project for the year as I finally got into full swing of writing Deco Choux Pastries and I still have a couple of family bakes and baking classes before the year ends. My friend requested for some farewell macaron gifts for her colleagues as she is leaving the company she has been working at. But I also took the chance to sneak a few macarons for hubby's birthday 😊.

I wanted to make something sweet to the heart but not too sweet on the taste buds. Filled these with peppermint dark chocolate ganache

The bears are holding up the signboard with a different message for my friend's farewell and I filled them with a fairly firm lavender Earl Grey white chocolate ganache.

I was raving about the Swiss meringue method recipe that Audrey Goh shared in my previous macaron post and wanted to try it again. I still didn't try out keeping the egg white portion as one for these bears, but still split into one portion for the Swiss meringue and another for making a paste with almond and icing sugar mix. I promise I will try this recipe again without splitting the egg white portion in my next macaron project in January. You may refer to this post for the detailed recipe for the macaron shells as it is a repeat of what I did here.

What I will share here are some pictures of the process, some tips on piping this shape. And the recipe for filling that is fragrant, tasty, not too sweet and firm enough for Singapore's warm climate to be packed as gifts to be given away.

Here's a picture of the piped shells. Look how smooth the surfaces are!

Someone asked how do I pipe such a shape without it going out of shape when we rap the tray to release trapped air bubbles. Having the right batter consistency is important. It should be smooth but not too runny. I also piped the parts in stages so that the head, ears and body don't fuse together and become one formless blob. Sorry I didn't take step by step pictures or make a video tutorial as I was rushing to finish making many shells. Here's the sequence of piping and drying that I hope you will find helpful:

1. Pipe bear head with a Wilton #7 or #8 tip. Note that the head is not round but has fuller cheeks. I pipe a horizontal line for the lower half of the face, followed by a shorter line for the forehead. Rap the tray after piping the head.

2. Use a Wilton #5 or #6 tip for the ears. Pipe little round blobs for the ears. Set the first tray aside and work on the second tray for the heads as this will give it about 10-15 min to dry and form a thin, sticky membrane. Note that this drying time varies based on humidity. I find that the recipe I used for these dry pretty fast and because I work with multiple trays, there is no idle time. I dry the shells in an air-conditioned room with about 45% relative humidity.

3. Use a Wilton #7 or #8 tip to pipe the body. Rap the tray. Be slightly more gentle rapping the tray this time as you don't want to damage the piped heads. Leave it to dry for  about 5-10 min and you can work on the third tray for the heads or the body for the second tray.

4. Use a Wilton #5 or #6 tip to pipe a rectangle or heart shape on the body. Use a toothpick to nudge the batter carefully to get the shape right but be careful not to damage the piped batter for the body. Leave it to dry for 15 min or until a thin membrane forms.

5. Use a Wilton #5 or #6 tip to pipe the arms and feet. Dry the shells until dry to touch and bake.

For the bottom shells, just follow the piping sequence mentioned but leave out the signboard and arms

Freshly baked shells! I made more than 40 of these.

I decorated the shells with a mixture of media. Black and white royal icing for the nose, black edible marker for the eyes and mouth, peach lustre dust for the cheeks, grey paint for the insides of the ears and yellow royal icing for the words. The grey paint was made from gel food colouring diluted in vodka. The font size for the words are really small so it was super tedious to get the words on as I used a combination of piping and painting.

All decorated!

I adapted the filling recipe from this post but omitted the cream cheese as these were meant to be gifts given away and needed to be able to withstand storage out of fridge for perhaps a day or two. I didn't want to risk food poisoning.

Recipe for Lavender Earl Grey ganache
Ingredients (fills about 30-35 5cm macarons):
Tea infusion
50g whipping cream
30g vegetable shortening
95g unsalted butter
3 tbs dried lavender flowers

Tea flavoured ganache
120g white chocolate
130g tea infusion mixture
2.5 tsp Earl grey tea powder*
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla extract

*If not available, use teabags or loose leaves instead and infuse together with dried lavender flowers.

Steps:
1. Make the tea infusion. Heat cream, butter and shortening until melted and bubbles just appear. Steep dried flowers for 15min. Strain. Portion out 130g.

2. Dissolve sifted tea powder and salt in tea infusion mixture. Add vanilla extract and white chocolate. Melt everything together over double boiler or in microwave oven. Be careful not to overheat.

3. Chill the mixture in fridge or freezer until slightly firm. Whip until creamy using electric mixer or by hand. I usually speed up the process by alternating between freezing for two minutes and whipping the mixture by hand until I get a buttercream consistency.

Transfer into piping bag and pipe onto shells.

Oops! I ran out of filling so I filled the centers of ten of them with dark chocolate ganache which I had on hand.

All packed and ready to go!

I hope this has been an informative post despite the lack of pictures and a video tutorial.

With lots of love,
Phay Shing