'My Favourite Toys' Chocolate Macarons & Stump Cake

My friend requested for a personalized birthday cake for her son, with all his favourite characters and plushies!

Being a chocoholic, birthday boy requested for chocolate cake with chocolate macarons

I used the Swiss meringue method to make the macarons, along with a small set of dinosaurs for another request.

Piped batter 

Freshly baked shells! 

I decorated the shells with edible marker, paint made by dissolving gel colouring in vodka, and royal icing.

Decorative work was done concurrently with the princess macarons

Filling the shells with dark chocolate ganache. Feel free to adjust the chocolate: whipping cream ratio to suit your climate 

I made several of each design to pack them individually for the birthday boy to give away. 

I baked a few extra plain round macaron shells to create a mini pyramid of the characters for the cake topper.

You may refer to this post for the detailed recipe of the ultimate chocolate cake sponge and this post for the assembly steps and respective fillings and frosting of the stump cake. I know it isn't Christmas but the boy wanted a stump cake.

Thank God all were well received! Stay tuned for my next post where I experimented with tweaking my ultimate chocolate cake recipe to make it dairy free as well as changing the preparation method of the sponge to make it lighter.

With love,
Phay Shing