Solar System Macaron Ferris Wheel II

My friend requested for a solar system ferris wheel back in 2017 for her boss's birthday. You can see it in this post. More than four years later, her boss has since gotten married, has two young kids, and is about to leave the company. He is still an astronomy enthusiast. That's the backstory to this second solar system ferris wheel 😊. And yes his wife is a ballerina.

I made this second ferris wheel smaller than the first for more stability (lower center of gravity), and I mounted it on a giant macaron base. I chose a firmer filling too to help with structural stability in tropical Singapore: dark chocolate buttercream with freeze dried raspberry powder and crushed oreo cookies, and lemon white chocolate buttercream. Macaron structures like this one needs careful planning, execution and suitable choice of filling to prevent misalignment and/or collapse. I will be sharing the recipe for the fillings I used and the assembly process in this post.

I used my default swiss meringue method recipe for making the macaron shells.

Decoration is done using a little royal icing but the bulk of it is done using edible marker and vodka wash, or white paint made with white gel colouring, white powder colouring and vodka.

I make duplicates in case of butter fingers or accidental uglification.

The filling recipes here are more suited for macaron structures. For regular macarons, feel free to replace butter with whipping cream to make a ganache, and reduce the proportion of chocolate for a softer filling that will mature the macarons faster.

Dark chocolate raspberry oreo filling

Ingredients:

150g Dark chocolate couverture (you may choose your percentage of cocoa according to preference)

30g Unsalted butter

1/8 tsp salt

30g crushed oreo cookie crumbs, sieved

10g freeze-dried raspberry powder

Steps:

1. Melt dark chocolate with butter and salt either by double-boiling or microwaving at low power.

2. Add freeze-dried raspberry powder and sifted crushed oreo cookie crumbs and mix well.

3. Let it sit for half an hour at room temperature to firm up a little to toothpaste consistency before using. Refrigerate briefly if room temperature is too warm to firm up the filling.

Lemon white chocolate filling

Ingredients:

70g white chocolate, finely chopped or use chips

15g unsalted butter

A pinch of salt

Zest of one lemon

10g lemon juice

1/2 tsp lemon extract (optional)

Steps:

1. Melt white chocolate, butter and salt by double-boiling or microwaving at low power. Be careful not to overheat. stir between 10 second bursts of heating if using microwave.

2. Add lemon zest and extract (if using) and mix well. Gradually add lemon juice and mix well.

3. Set aside to firm up to toothpaste consistency at room temperature.

Filling the macarons with two types of filling.

Here's a short video of how I assemble the ferris wheel, originally posted in my Instagram reels.

Do have a look at the reel along with the caption as I provide more tips there.

with love,

Phay Shing