Veggietales Earl Grey Lavender Macarons

I got in touch with a friend on Facebook whom I have not met in more than 20 years! She's really excited about getting some some bakes from me and this was what she requested for :)

Laura, Bob, Larry, Junior and the French peas! 

My kids love listening to songs from Veggietales so as I worked on these macarons, I have the Veggietales theme song ringing in my head :p.

This batch was made along with two more requests and one accidental bake that resulted in more 3D macarons. I was pretty much exhausted by the end of the day but these cute and cheerful characters never fail to put a smile on my face :).

I used the reduced sugar recipe for the macaron shells here. 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.

Just to share some pictures of the process...

Piping Larry

Piping Laura

Piping Bob and French peas. The bottom shells of the peas are not shown in this picture

Piping Junior

Freshly baked shells!

I decorated the shells with royal icing and edible marker. Laura's ribbon was piped on baking sheet and dried thoroughly before sticking onto the macaron shell.

I filled one set with Earl grey lavendar white chocolate ganache. I used the recipe in the link for Earl grey ganache but added 1/2 tsp of dried powder lavender flowers for every 1 tbs of Earl grey powder used.

With love,
Phay Shing