The Choux pastry version can be seen in an older post over here. I made them for her daughter's birthday and she loved them so much she wanted me to make them again for her birthday!
What I want to share with you is the filling recipe for the macarons and a little tip about filling macarons with fillings that have high liquid content like pieces of fresh or canned fruit, jams and curds without turning the macaron shells soggy too fast. But before that, here are a few photos of works in progress items...
Decorating brown sugar cookie with royal icing. You may find the recipe for cookie and royal icing over here.
Piped macaron batter. I used a French method recipe over here due to the small quantity requested.
Decorated macaron shells using black edible marker and peach coloured lustre dust
Lychee whipped ganache with diced lychee (fills 6 macarons)
Ingredients:
40g white chocolate, chopped or use chips
10g whipping cream
10g unsalted butter
10g vegetable shortening (may replace with butter)
1/8 tsp salt
2 tsp freeze-dried lychee powder*
Canned lychees, woody part removed, diced and pat dry with paper towels
*If you are unable to get freeze-dried lychee, gradually fold in 20g finely chopped lychee or lychee puree into the whipped ganache.
Steps:
1. Place white chocolate, whipping cream, butter and shortening in a microwave safe bowl. Heat at medium power for 10 seconds. Mix thoroughly. Repeat heating and mixing until fully melted. Be careful not to overheat.
2. Add salt and mix well. Chill in freezer for 2 minutes. Whip or stir with spatula until smooth again. Repeat freezing and whipping as necessary until you get a light, smooth and fluffy buttercream-like mixture.
3. Add freeze-dried lychee powder a teaspoon at a time and mix well. If you are using puree, gently fold in a teaspoon at a time. Do note that freeze-dried powder version will produce a more intense flavour than using puree. Transfer into piping bag fitted with an open star tip.
Canned lychees have high water content so make sure you pat dry with paper towels before using as filling. Even then, I recommend adding a barrier between the chopped pieces of fruit and macaron shell. Effective barriers include high fat content fillings such as buttercreams and ganache.
To do this, pipe a small dollop of whipped ganache (or buttercream) in the middle of the macaron shell. Use a teaspoon or small spatula to smear it, coating the surface of the macaron shell. Pipe a ring of whipped ganache along the outline of the shell.
Remember to apply a smear of ganache on the upper shell too!
Fill the middle of the ring with pieces of fruit (or jam or curd).
A closer look at the juicy filling!
Refrigerate overnight to a few days before consuming. Always let the macarons rest at room temperature for 15 minutes before consuming when taken out of the fridge.
I hope you find this helpful!
With love,
Phay Shing
I love these unicorn macarons. Can you tell me how you got the twisted shape for the unicorn horn please. Thank you
ReplyDeleteHi, I pipe the three segments of the horn at separate times ๐. If you see the picture in the blog post for piped macaron shells, you will see that I pipe the middle segment first, let it dry partially before piping the top and bottom segments.
ReplyDeleteHi can I check if you have a template for this unicorn macarons? Thanks in advance
ReplyDelete