'Kirby and Super Mario at the Beach' Strawberry and Dark Chocolate Macarons

I had fun creating this scene for a fan of Nintendo games 😊.

Kirby and Mario at the beach with some sea creatures! The rocks, sand and sea are all edible and not made out of fondant! 

I used the Swiss meringue method to make this batch of macarons along with another request. It was a whooping 12 colours from one batch of macaron batter! I worked till past midnight for this one, which isn't usual for me. You may refer to this post for the macaron shell recipe. Just to share some pictures of the process... 

Piping the coconut trees. It was a foolish move to make the trunk so long and thin 😅. But I found a way around working with such fragile structure. Not thinking straight when I was designing this 

Piping Super Mario. This was actually piped last so I was pretty tired by then 😴

Piping the sea creatures and Kirby in a float! 

Freshly baked shells along with the other set! 

Decorated macaron shells! I used black edible marker, some royal icing and white sprinkles with black royal icing in tbe middle (for some of the eyes). 

The macarons were filled with firm strawberry ganache or dark chocolate ganache. You may refer to this post for the dark chocolate ganache recipe. I was hard pressed for time so I didn't make the strawberry ganache by using homemade compote. I used freeze-dried strawberry powder instead, which still tastes great! But more costly. Using freeze-dried strawberry isnt what I usually do so I will share the recipe in this post. You may refer to the version using homemade jam/compote in this post.

Firm strawberry ganache (using freeze-dried strawberry powder) 

Ingredients:

66g White chocolate, chopped or chips or courveture

12g Unsalted butter 

18g Heavy cream

1/8 tsp Salt

8g Freeze-dried strawberry powder 

1/8 tsp Strawberry paste (optional) 

Steps:

1. Place white chocolate, butter, cream and salt into a microwave-safe or heatproof bowl, depending on how you are melting the mix. Use medium-low power at 10 sec bursts to melt or set heatproof bowl over pot of freshly boiled water without water touching the base of the bowl. Be careful not to overheat white chocolate. 

2. Add freeze-dried strawberry powder and mix well. Add strawberry paste and mix well. 

3. Chill in freezer for 1 to 2min and use spatula to mix well. Repeat freezing and whipping until buttercream-like. Transfer to piping bag to fill the macaron shells. 

Strawberry and dark chocolate ganache

Filling the macaron shells! 

If you google for how to make edible rocks, you probably come across recipes that call for white chocolate/candy melts, condensed milk and crushed oreo cookies. My version uses either 2 or 3 ingredients, depending on whether you are doing the conventional way or my short-cut method. 

I made some rocks by kneading in crushed oreo crumbs into white modelling chocolate but realised that you can do a shortcut of simply kneading white compound chocolate chips together using heat from your fingers, and then kneading in the crushed oreo. If you are interested in the firm white modelling chocolate recipe, you may refer to this post. I reduced the amount of corn syrup by 1 gram as I wanted it firm and easy enough to work with. Always use cling wrap as a barrier between your fingers and the chocolate, to make it easier to work with. 

Ta-dah! It looks so real but you can make this in less than a minute!
I made the pearl in a similar way. Just roll 2 white chocolate chips together to form a ball then brush on some silvery lustre dust.
I used lighly toasted ground almond for the sand and stiff royal icing for the sea.
I hope this creation brought a smile on your face as it did mine 😊.

With love,
Phay Shing