Cute Wechat Emoji Macarons (Early Father's Day present and tips included)

I have been slowing down with blogging as I have been/will be busy spending time with family and away on a much needed break! I have been making macarons for my dear hubby for Father's Day for the past three years. And this year, I have decided to make macarons out of our favourite wechat emoji icons because they have a special meaning for us :)

Bear, hamster and cat who are the best of friends!

I have included some tips on making macarons that can survive transport and room temperature storage for extended periods at the end of this post.

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 photos of the process...

Piping bear

Piping cat

Piping hamster

Freshly baked shells!

I filled the macarons with dark chocolate ganache and lemon curd

Checkout the awesome feet and cute face!

I brought these cuties along on a trip and the macarons survived after being roughed about on bumpy bus and speedboat ride. They tasted fine too even after staying out of the fridge for 2 days. Some tips to consider when you want to make macarons that can survive like mine did.

1 . Try to go for designs that are generally rounder in shape without long thin parts sticking out of the shell so that they are less fragile.

2. Place each macaron in paper cupcake cases to add some cushioning.

3. Consider ganache based fillings if you would like to transport the macarons overseas where refrigeration along the way may not be possible. They can be kept out of the fridge at warm room temperature (27℃) for three days without going bad.

4. Make the ganache firmer than you usually would by increasing the proportion of chocolate to cream. You may refer to this recipe for the dark chocolate ganache I used but add 30-40g more dark chocolate to the recipe.

5. If you have runny centers for fillings like lemon curd, jam or salted caramel, try not to add too much as it will make the shells soggy fast. Try to encase most of the runny filling with ganache such that not much runny filling comes into direct contact with the shells. Recipe for lemon curd can be found here but replace lime with lemon.


With lots of love,
Phay Shing