Reindeer and Christmas Bear Cherry Dark Chocolate Macarons (Swiss method)

I have been focusing on book writing and classes during the month of December and just remembered that the logcake I am making for my extended family may need some decorations. The reindeers came about as an impromptu bake because what I planned to do for logcake deco only required one large macaron and I had leftover batter to play with. The Christmas bears came about because I had leftover batter from making some bear macarons in November. Back then, I baked the bears and froze the extra macaron shells. Despite the last minute-ness of it all, I had my dose of cute overload 😊.

As mentioned in my previous macaron post, raving about how good the Swiss method recipe was, I decided to try the experiment as promised. I used all the egg whites to make the Swiss meringue, instead of keeping a portion of it to mix with almond and icing sugar to form a paste. What's the verdict? It takes many more folds to get to the correct batter consistency. The piped batter dries a lot faster. The batter is not as silky smooth although that could be due to my macaronage. But you are still able to get nice and full shells too. Having tried both with and without splitting the egg white portion, I think I personally prefer splitting the egg white portion for the smoother batter and ease of making many colours from one batter portion.

You may refer to my earlier Swiss method post for the detailed recipe and steps. Just use all the 77g (75ml) of egg whites to make the Swiss meringue. Add the sifted almond and icing sugar to the meringue in two batches and fold until batter is at the right consistency. Just to share some photos...

Piped shells for reindeer. I added 1 tsp of cocoa powder to the dry ingredients and one generous dollop of orange and one generous dollop of yellow food colouring to the meringue after its been beaten to firm peak. I portioned out a little of the underfolded batter to add a little more cocoa powder for the antlers and folded both light and dark brown batters until they reach lava consistency.  

See how full the interior is! 

I used royal icing and edible marker to add in the details on the baked shells.

I made cherry jam in preparation for the logcake so I thought of using some for filling the macarons. Instead of Choya, I used red wine. You may refer to this post for the dark chocolate ganache and cherry jam recipe.

Homemade cherry jam!

I have no idea how to take a photo of the filling on the macaron shell that will do it justice...Rich dark chocolate ganache with juicy cherry bits cooked in red wine. Yums!

I hope these cutesies put a smile on your face as they did to mine 😊

With love,
Phay Shing