Dancing Princess Chocolate Macaron Carousel

My friend requested for a princess themed macaron carousel for her sister's birthday and gave me free reign on the design. Here's what I came up with :)

 In my opinion, it is the prettiest and daintiest macaron carousel I have made! Some may beg to differ and say that my unicorn carousels are probably prettier. I love the happy look on the faces of the princesses who are lost in ecstacy of their dance.

Designing such a complicated subject usually requires me to search for references. I seldom copy wholesale the designs I find from the internet and make improvisations as such...

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.

Just to share some pictures of the process...

Piping the shells! More tedious than I thought!

Freshly baked shells!

I decorated the shells with royal icing and fine tipped edible black marker. I added a dash of peach coloured lustre dust for the rosy cheeks. The royal icing crowns were piped onto baking sheet, thoroughly dried before sticking them onto the macaron shells with some royal icing.

I must qualify that the slender limbs of the princesses were very fragile and I broke one of them by accident. So do be extremely careful when handling macaron shells with thin bits sticking out. Make extra shells just in case you break some.

So dainty!

I filled the centers of the macaron shells with dark chocolate as requested but line the outer ring with white chocolate ganache as dark brown will spoil the dainty girly effect of the carousel. I filled the princess shells with white chocolate. The white and dark chocolate fillings have shortening, salt, vanilla bean paste and coffee liqueur added. Choose your favourite eating chocolate or couverture for this.

Recipe for dark and white chocolate fillings
Ingredients:
Dark Chocolate
90g dark chocolate, chopped
20g vegetable shortening
1/8 tsp fine sea salt
1/2 tsp vanilla bean paste
1/2 tsp Kahlua coffee liqueur

White chocolate
45g white chocolate, chopped
10g vegetable shortening
1/16 tsp fine sea salt
1/4 tsp vanilla bean paste
1/4 tsp Kahlua coffee liqueur

Steps:
1. Place chocolate and shortening in microwave safe bowl. Melt on medium power for 20 seconds for dark chocolate and 10 seconds for white chocolate. Stir well. Repeat until mixture is totally smooth.

2. Add salt, vanilla and coffee liqueur one at a time and mix well with a spatula.

3. Wait for mixture to thicken to toothpaste-like consistency if it is too runny. Transfer to piping bag and pipe onto shells.

I couldn't help smiling and admiring the princesses on the carousel!

Thank God the carousel was very well received in terms of looks and taste!

With love,
Phay Shing