Lavendar Earl Grey Pink Unicorn Macaron Carousel III

Ever since the unicorn macaron carousels gain publicity through Instagram and other media sources, I have been getting lots of request for them. Due to family commitments, I had to reject many of them as I limit myself to one major request or two simpler ones per week. I am not in favour of making the same thing over and over again too frequently because I prefer variety. Nonetheless, these unicorns along with the carousel structure they are set in never fail to exude an air of magical quality about them :). I suppose that's why this carousel is so popular.

Earl grey filling was requested but the brown hue of the filling does not match the sweet pink colour theme of the carousel. I took the liberty of including a layer of lavender filling encasing the Earl grey filling in order to have a filling that is visible but matches the colour of the carousel and requested flavour of filling.

You may find my other unicorn carousels over here and here.

I used the reduced-sugar macaron shell recipe. Both regular and reduced sugar recipes can be found here. You may refer to my Creative Baking: Macarons book for a systematic presentation of the basics and complex shaped macarons. You may refer to my video tutorials for macaron basics and piping of complex shapes on the blog too. You may refer to this post for the dimensions of the shells required to make the carousel and the respective baking times. I piped a scalloped roof like the one similar to the sheep macaron carousel as I think it's really pretty and it is very helpful for positioning the paper straws during the assembly. Checkout the sheep carousel post for detailed steps of assembly.

Here's the scalloped roof piped...

I pipe extra shells just in case some fail

Piping the unicorns...

Freshly baked shells...

In order to make lavendar flavoured white chocolate filling, I toasted about a tablespoon worth of dried lavendar flowers at 100°C for 10 minutes before using mortar and pestle to grind them. I sifted the powder to get it really fine, and discard whatever didn't pass through the fine meshed sieve.

Recipe for Lavendar/ Earl grey white chocolate filling
Ingredients:
80g white chocolate, chopped
20g vegetable shortening
1/8 tsp fine sea salt
1 tsp finely ground dried lavendar flowers
OR
2 and 1/4 tsp instant Earl grey tea powder

Steps:
1. Place white chocolate and shortening in a microwave-safe bowl. Heat at medium power for 20 seconds and mix well with spatula. Repeat until mixture is smooth. Alternatively you may use the double-boiling method to melt the white chocolate and shortening.

2. Add lavendar or Earl Grey. Mix well. Add salt and mix well.

Transfer the two types of flavoured white chocolate into piping bags. Pipe onto the macaron shells.

Day 1 of assembly...

Pipe a ring of lavendar white chocolate and fill the middle with Earl Grey white chocolate

Filling the unicorns with lavendar white chocolate

Done with Day 1 assembly!

I used royal icing to create the name. The piped letters were dried thoroughly in the oven with the fan on at 60°C for a couple of hours. Carefully peel the baking paper away from the letters.

Day 2 of assembly involves assembling the central pillar structure, attaching the unicorns onto the frame and adding the letters for the name of the birthday girl. Stiff royal icing was used for attaching the former two. Stiff royal icing can be made by adding more icing sugar to the royal icing mix that I prepared earlier, until the icing is able to hold a stiff peak.

Finally all done!

Store the carousel at cool room temperature in a dry place away from sunlight.

With love,
Phay Shing