Totoro and Friends Matcha Dark Chocolate Macaron Tree

My friend wanted to give a special gift for a Japanese girl's birthday. Anime themed macaron carousel was suggested but I thought why not put a fun twist to my macaron carousel and change it into something livelier 😉.

Totoro and friends around a tree!

Of all the animes, I chose Totoro because although I watched the movie years ago, I remember it being magical and full of charming Japanese folklore. Quite a timeless classic from Studio Ghibli. We decided on Matcha and dark chocolate flavours, something Japanese. Immediately, I thought the tree has to be the centerpiece of the "carousel" and got pretty much excited and carried away by my imagination 😆.

I couldn't resist adding an element of fun behind the main characters as well 😆. I have to thank hubby for this whimsical and brilliant suggestion

I used the Swiss meringue method to make these macarons. I made them concurrently with unicorn Pusheen macarons (will post in the near future). I am so comfortable with this Swiss method that I am honestly a little reluctant to go back to Italian method, which was my default method when I first started macaron making 😅. Just to share some photos...

Piping the macaron shells. 

You may refer to my macaron books, Macarons and Macaron Basics for more details on the techniques involved in piping and baking macaron shells such as these. I also have various video tutorials on the blog that you may refer to.

I decorated the shells with royal icing and edible paint (gel food colouring mixed with a little vodka).

I dissolved some gel food colouring in vodka to paint the shells for tree foliage to create a slight ombre green effect.

Filling the shells

I used a combination of dark chocolate ganache and matcha white chocolate ganache, both are whipped for a lighter texture. I used less cream than the original recipe to create a firmer ganache for a structure such as the tree. 

I was really charmed by how the assembled base and tree look!

You may wonder how I assembled this in warm Singapore without a heart attack from fear that things would collapse. I used wooden skewers to support the trunk of the tree as well as the larger characters on the display. Although the idea of this macaron tree is a simple one, I must stress that the macaron shells have to be well made for you to pull this off as it's a top heavy structure, so from an engineering point of view, it is unstable.

I hope this creation charmed you as much as it did for those who saw it :).

With love,
Phay Shing