I have an interesting request and challenge for a monkey themed macaron ferris wheel bake. This was what I made!
It's my first attempt at changing the ferris wheel design while retaining the working mechanism. I also made use a stiffer macaron batter to create textures for the tree foliage and trunk. I used my default Swiss Meringue method recipe but in two ways for this bake. I used all the egg whites for the Swiss meringue for the ferris wheel frame, small parts and base to create sturdier shells as well as create the textures by underfolding the batter. I used part of the egg whites to mix with sifted dry ingredients to form an almond paste, and used the rest for the Swiss meringue to make the bananas and monkeys as I wanted the macaron shells to have a smoother finishing.
I used royal icing and edible marker for the details. Have a look at the decorated macaron shells! I made them concurrently with the Charizard carousel bake!
I always make extras in case of accidental uglification or butter fingers
Mango flavour was requested. As this creation consist of some load-bearing parts and parts that do not need to bear load, I filled them differently. I used a firm and fairly low water content mango white chocolate buttercream as the base, but include homemade mango jam for pieces that can afford to be softer.
Mango jam
Ingredients:
250g mango flesh, cubed
25g sugar (or to taste)
pinches of salt
1-2 tsp lemon juice
Steps:
1. Place all ingredients in saucepan and cook until 50% of original weight. For a drier jam if you want to reduce water content further, which I did for jam in the ferris wheel base and wheel itself, I reduced it further to 30% of original weight but left the portion for monkeys and bananas at 50% of original weight. You may puree the mango but it's optional. Cool completely before using. You may prepare in advance and store in the fridge or freezer.
Mango white chocolate buttercream Ingredients:
300g White chocolate, finely chopped or use chips
60g unsalted butter or vegetable shortening
1/8 tsp salt
45g Freeze dried mango powder (you may add more but I didn't want to soften the structure too much)
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
Steps:
1. Place everything in microwave-safe bowl and melt the chocolate. Mix well. You may use double boiling method too if you wish.
2. Place bowl in a cold water bath and use electric mixer to beat until light and fluffy. Remove from cold water bath once the buttercream starts to firm up, continue beating until desired fluffiness. You may also choose to let the mixture firm up slowly at room temperature for half an hour before transferring into piping bag.
Here's the reel of the assembly and the ferris wheel in spinning action!
If you would like to learn how to create macaron ferris wheels that is as sturdy as what I made and spins as smoothly, do join me for my Penguin family Christmas Carnival masterclass. I have both online and studio versions. Studio participants get to have access to online class material free of charge! Online class is ready for viewing anytime and there's no expiry date.
Occassionally I get unusual requests. This is one of them. Not only was the request unusual, it was meant as a surprise on board a fairly long flight out of Singapore. Presenting my first macaron Ferris Wheel used as part of a marriage proposal!
This is actually the second time the requestor ordered a macaron structure for me for his fiancee. I didn't post the first one as there are so many unicorn macaron carousel posts on the blog already :p. He ordered a chocolate hazelnut flavoured mini unicorn carousel for her and she loved it. So he requested for the same flavour the second time that he ordered.
I baked the macaron shells for this along with Winnie the Pooh and friends and my acorn Ferris Wheel. All rather challenging designs due around the same time. Thank God all of these three bakes were very well received and the Ferris wheels survived transport and still tasted yummy! *Phew* I was a little nervous about how a delicate macaron structure with moveable parts would survive a plane trip. Like I mentioned in my first macaron Ferris Wheel post, I have to lock the rotating wheel for transport purposes as any movement of the wheel can add stresses to parts of the structure and cause it to break prematurely. The lock is 100% edible and easy to remove but works perfectly in preventing the wheel from rotating.
I used the Italian method for making the macaron shells. You may use your favourite macaron recipe or any recipe in our blog. You may refer to my macaron books Creative Baking: Macarons and Creative Baking: Macaron Basics for a more systematic review of the basics and piping techniques, as well as the macaron shell recipe I used here.
Just to share a photo of the "carriages" on the Ferris Wheel.
I am not ready to release all the details of making the Ferris Wheel yet but I can share this yummy filling that is firm enough in hot Singapore weather for macaron structures.
Recipe for hazelnut chocolate filling
Ingredients:
35g Hazelnut ganache (from Phoon Huat)*
30g dark chocolate chips or couverture
30g white chocolate, chopped or chips (I use compound white chocolate)
35g ground hazelnut
10g vegetable shortening
1/4 tsp salt
* You may just use any chocolate hazelnut spread or hazelnut spread. If you are able to get hold of pure hazelnut butter, that would be the best. But I wasn't able to get it and didn't intend to make my own.
Hazelnut ganache from Phoon Huat
Steps:
1. Place all ingredients except ground hazelnuts into a microwave safe bowl. Heat on medium power for 10 seconds and mix well. Repeat heating and mixing until all the ingredients are melted.
2. Add ground hazelnut and mix until combined.
Transfer into piping bag and pipe onto shells. If the mixture is too runny, let it firm up for a while before piping.
Please excuse me for the lack of photos for this bake as I was really focused on making it and forgot to take photos of the process 😆.
Thank God the surprise went very well!
The requester sent me this photo of the Ferris Wheel in a romantic setting on the plane which was on a night flight. The couple decided to share it with the cabin crew who fedback that it tasted great and not too sweet. Some of the crew asked the requester for my contact details too.
It's been almost a year since I made a macaron ferris wheel. This is my third Ferris Wheel but the first one that is mounted on top of a giant macaron!
Don't the squirrels look like they wish they had the bigger acorns? 😆
Here is a view of the Ferris Wheel in action!
This Ferris Wheel is also smaller than my first two. My first two were mounted on an 8" cakeboard. This one could fit on a 6" cakeboard.
You may use your favourite macaron recipe or any recipe in our blog. You may refer to my macaron books Creative Baking: Macarons and Creative Baking: Macaron Basics for a more systematic review of the basics and piping techniques, as well as the macaron shell recipes I used here. I baked the shells for two other requests concurrently with this one so I used the Italian method to cope with the many colours involved.
I decorated the shells with royal icing and black edible marker.
Works in progress
As macaron structures with moving parts need to be structurally stable, I filled the macarons with filling that does not contain milk, dairy cream or butter but the flavours are "safe" flavours that will be tasty even without those ingredients. Choose good quality chocolate for best taste.
Cookies n cream filling
Ingredients:
90g white chocolate
20g vegetable shortening
25g Oreo cookies (without cream and crushed)
1/4 tsp vanilla bean paste
1/8 tsp salt
Dark chocolate filling
Ingredients:
80g dark chocolate couverture chips
20g shortening
1/8 tsp salt
1/4 tsp vanilla bean paste
Steps:
1. Place all ingredients (except Oreo cookies) in microwave safe bowl. Heat on medium power for 20 seconds and mix well with a spatula. Repeat heating and stirring until all ingredients are melted.
2. For the cookies n cream filling, stir in crushed cookies. Let the melted mixture stand at room temperature until it firms up until toothpaste consistency.
3. Transfer to piping bag and pipe on the shells.
I piped a ring of cookies n cream on the outside and filled the middle with dark chocolate for the giant macaron base shell.
Here's a peek at the Ferris Wheel frame being filled.
I can't reveal what I did to make a fragile confectionery item like macarons to support the weight of a Ferris wheel frame yet but I can reveal that I did add reinforcements to bear the load.
Ferris wheels can be fairly tall so I made my own customized cakebox that is more than double the height of one box.
I used two regular cakeboxes, four long and thick wooden skewers, flexible plastic cake ring and sticky tape to assemble this.
To remove the baked item from the box, simply lift the lid, open up the flaps of the base box and slide the bake out.
Thank God that the Ferris Wheel was delivered safely by a very conscientious courier! I had to lock the Ferris Wheel to prevent it from turning during transport. The recipient was very happy to receive this 😊
Update: the recipient sent me a photo of the Ferris Wheel on top of the cake she bought and allowed me to share it here. She fedback that the Ferris Wheel tasted yummy too!
You can tell that the birthday girl was really happy 😀
When I received this request a couple of months ago, I was really thrilled as it really allows the macaron Ferris Wheel concept to shine with this theme. Presenting my version of solar system displayed in the form of macaron Ferris Wheel!
This beautiful photo was taken by my friend at the birthday celebration. I am ashamed to say that my photography skills are terrible!
I took this photo at home, trying to make use of fading sunlight after a long day's work of assembly. Needless to say it pales in comparison to the one my friend took!
Checkout the wheel in motion!
Again, my friend took a much clearer video of it although it didn't show the full range of motion...
Here's my version showing how smooth the wheel turns.
Pandan Gula Melaka flavour was requested. I personally would have gone all the way to include coconut as well to make this Ondeh-Ondeh flavoured but someone in the party is allergic to coconut so I have to leave it out. After trying out brown sugar replacement in the Italian meringue for salted caramel macarons, which was a hit, I did not hesitate to replace half of the caster sugar in the Italian meringue with Gula Melaka this time round. Why only half and not all, you may ask. It's because I didn't want the light coloured or blue shells to need too much white gel colouring to mask the browning due to Gula Melaka.
Recipe for reduced-sugar Pandan Gula Melaka macaron shells
Ingredients: Mass
180g superfine almond meal
168g icing sugar (with cornflour added)
11g rice flour
1g (1/2 tsp) cornflour
1/4 tsp fine sea salt
70g egg whites
Charcoal powder
Gel food colouring
1/8 tsp caramel flavouring (optional)
1/8 tsp pandan flavouring (optional)
A few pandan leaves
Italian meringue
88g Gula Melaka (buy powder form or finely chopped from block)
88g caster sugar
65g water
70g egg whites
1/8 tsp cream of tartar (optional)
Steps:
1. Dry the almond meal, rice and cornflour together with pieces of pandan leaf in the oven at 90℃ for 30min. This is to impart some pandan aroma from natural source but optional if you don't want to go through the trouble. Discard the leaves. Cool to room temperature and sift together with icing sugar and salt.
Drying almond with Pandan leaves
2. Prepare templates on baking tray and line with parchment paper. Set oven rack to lowest position. Add egg whites to powder mixture to make a thick paste. Divide the mass according to how much of each colour you need and colour with natural source and/or gel food colouring. I used a pinch of red yeast powder for red colour.
3. Prepare Italian meringue. Place caster sugar, Gula Melaka and water in a tall saucepan. Bring to a boil to temperature of 115-118℃. In the meantime, beat egg whites with cream of tartar until soft peaks form. Reduce mixer speed to low if syrup temperature is not reached yet. Once temperature is reached, remove saucepan from heat. Turn mixer speed to high and carefully pour the syrup into the egg whites, avoiding the beaters. Continue beating on high speed for another 12-15 minutes or until meringue is cooled and stiff peaks form.
4. Use some of the meringue to stick the baking paper to the baking tray. Divide the meringue for the various colours. Use formula of weight of meringue = 0.51 x weight of mass. Fold the meringue into the mass in two batches until batter flows in a slow-moving lava-like manner. You may refer to this post for the basics.
5. Transfer batter into piping bags and pipe away! I am not ready to share the details of Ferris Wheel structure yet so I will not show in detail what the structure is like. Here's what I am comfortable to reveal..
Piping the sun!
Piping the man looking through his telescope at the planets! Note that I pipe double the number just in case one of them fail.
Piping the planets!
You may refer to this post on how to pipe complex shapes. Bang the tray on the table to release trapped air bubbles. Dry in air-con room or under the fan until dry to touch. Bake at 140℃ for the first 10 min before reducing temperature to 110℃ for the rest of the baking time. Bake until shells are dry. Duration depends on size of the shell. Cool completely before removing from baking sheet. If the shell is still stuck, bake at 110℃ for another few minutes and try again, more than once if necessary.
Freshly baked shells!
Decorate with edible paint and royal icing. I use edible markers, white gel colouring and vodka wash to create the designs on all the planets except Earth (royal icing).
All decorated!
I spray painted the Ferris Wheel frame with some white paint to create an outer space effect.
What I am really excited about for this project, other than the design, is the new non-refrigerated filling that I successfully experimented with. If you have been following my posts, you will realise that all my non refrigerated filling use white chocolate as the base (if it's not dark chocolate flavoured). White chocolate as you know, is way too sweet. I add vegetable shortening, salt, and tea flavoured fillings to compensate the sweetness level of white chocolate. This helps to a certain extent but sometimes not enough for the taste buds of some people. I was wondering what else I could use that is fairly neutral tasting but firm yet creamy in Singapore's hot and humid weather. Thank God for the inspiration when I thought about using mung bean paste! Chinese have been using mung bean paste as mooncake fillings to create a myriad of different flavours for a long time. I thought why not create a "cream" that is mung bean based then. And since the filling will be prepared from scratch, I have absolute control over how much sugar goes into the filling, which I couldn't achieve with white chocolate. I did a trial and my family gave it a thumbs up when they ate Pandan Gula Melaka flavoured shells sandwiched with the same flavour of mung bean paste cream! Imagine my excitement 😍!
I adapted the mung bean paste recipe from Christine's.
Recipe for Pandan Gula Melaka mung bean cream (suitable non-refrigerated macarons)
Ingredients: Mung bean puree
200g dried deshelled mung beans
A few pandan leaves, knotted or cut into shorter strips
Water
Mung bean paste
200 mung bean puree
36g Gula Melaka (more if you prefer sweeter)
32g milk (or coconut milk)
1 pandan leaf cut into smaller pieces
2/3 tsp salt
28g vegetable shortening (may replace with oil and/or unsalted butter for refrigerated macarons)
1/2 tsp caramel flavouring
1/4 tsp pandan paste
1/4 tsp coconut flavouring
2 tsp wheat starch
Mung bean cream
280g mung bean paste
20g vegetable shortening (replace with unsalted butter if you your final product is meant to be refrigerated)
Note: this recipe is catered for macaron filling so it tends to be less sweet but saltier, to be paired with macaron shells that already have high sugar content. Please adjust sugar and salt content accordingly if used in other pastries.
Steps:
1. Prepare mung bean puree. Wash and drain dried mung beans a few times before soaking overnight. Drain the soaking water and rinse and drain one more time. Transfer beans into a shallow steaming plate. Add pandan leaves and cover the beans with enough water toll about 1cm above the beans. Steam for 30-35 min or until beans are soft. Drain away excess water and remove pandan leaves. Press the beans through a fine sieve. I didn't use the finest sieve I have so the paste wasn't as smooth as it should be although it still tastes great. You may freeze any excess puree for future use.
2. Prepare mung bean paste. Heat milk with Pandan leaf in microwave oven or in small saucepan. Let the leaf steep for 10 min. Discard the leaf. Place all ingredients except wheat starch in a nonstick frying pan or wok. Bring to a boil while stirring with a spatula. Once it's boiling, reduce heat to simmer. Keep stirring until liquid is reduced by two-thirds. Gradually add sifted wheat starch and stir until well combined. Continue cooking the mixture and stirring/kneading with spatula until a soft dough forms and all liquid has been cooked off, about 20-30 minutes. Note that you may want to cook it until it is drier than you would for mooncake fillings if using it
For macaron structures that require stability at Singapore's room temperature. Transfer to a bowl and cool completely.
3. Make mung bean cream. Cream shortening with electric mixer in a bowl. Gradually add mung bean paste and continue beating until mixture lightens up.
Left: Pandan Gula Melaka mung bean paste Right: the creamed version
Transfer the cream into piping bag and fill the shells!
Creating this Ferris Wheel has been challenging but I am more confident in making these now that I have more practice :). You may check out my first macaron Ferris Wheel creation over here. I made a miscalculation for the size of the planets. That's why I had to raise the platform to allow space for the planets to rotate fully. I better do my calculations more carefully next time and not just reuse my old template 😅
Thank God the wheel survived the trip intact! I delivered it myself while taking public transport. Everyone certainly had much fun playing with it and commented that the aroma is wonderful!
This is a bake that's not requested by anyone but I had the idea since a year ago. I took my time to mull over it and finally worked out how to make it work. Presenting possibly the world's first ferris wheel made entirely out of macarons!
Pardon the poor quality of photo as I was in a hurry when I took this.
Checkout the ferris wheel in motion!
I kept the design simple as I wasn't sure it would work. Future ferris wheels could have cute animals or characters sitting in the cabins and other customizations for birthday boy/girl.
I took the chance to practice Swiss meringue method of making macarons too. You have seen both Italian and French methods on this blog but not Swiss method. Let me take the chance to share it with you here. I was a little ambitious and did a reduced sugar version which you need not follow if you prefer to keep the recipe simple. I also used some natural food colouring to reduce the use of artificial colouring.
My recipe is adapted from Broma bakery method which uses an extremely easy to remember ratio of all ingredients, which is egg whites : caster sugar : icing sugar : almond meal is 1:1:1:1 by weight.
This is my second attempt at Swiss method and I regretted attempting something that was suggested by some people sharing in a macaron group, not to whip the Swiss meringue to stiff peaks but firm peaks only. My shells took really long to dry and I was losing patience so some of them turned out with no feet (the pink cabins). My first attempt dried much faster but I was using a different recipe. Having said that, the shells have no hollows at all and the meringue is more stable than French method as it is partially cooked. The texture if the shells were delicate to bite too. Both French and Swiss method are great if you are making a smaller quantity of macarons and/or working with one, two or three colours. Italian method is still my favourite when working with multicoloured large batches.
Recipe for Swiss method macaron shells
Ingredients:
100g almond meal (preferably superfine)
90g icing sugar
2g cornflour*
8g rice flour*
100g egg whites
95g caster sugar (use 100g if following Broma bakery's recipe)
1/4 tsp fine sea salt
1/4 tsp cream of tartar (optional)
1/4 tsp white powder food colouring (optional)
1/4 tsp cherry blossom powder (optional)
1/4 tsp purple sweet potato powder (optional)
Tiny drop of pink and purple gel food colouring
* Replace with icing sugar if you wish.
Steps:
1. Sift almond, icing sugar, rice flour, corn flour and white powder together. Divide the powder mixture into ratio of 6:1:1 for white:pink:purple. Add sifted cherry blossom and purple sweet potato. Mix well and set aside.
2. Place egg whites, caster sugar, salt and cream of tartar in a metal bowl that can be placed over the mouth of a saucepan without the base of the bowl touching the water in the pan. Whisk the egg whites over simmering water in the saucepan until all the sugar has dissolved and temperature is 45-50℃. Remove from heat. Use an electric mixer to beat on medium speed until stiff peaks form. The meringue should be smooth and not lumpy but the peaks should be really stiff. Divide the meringue into ratio of 6:1:1 for white:pink:purple. Add gel colouring to the meringue and mix well gently with a spatula.
3. Scatter the dry ingredients over the meringue. Use a spatula to fold until batter flows off the spatula in an almost continuous manner and not in blobs. Please refer to this video tutorial for the consistency you should get.
4. Transfer the batter into piping bags fitted with Wilton #10 for white colour and #7 for pink and purple. Pipe on baking trays lined with baking paper and template under it. I apologise for not being able to share the templates at this point in time. Please refer to this for video tutorials on how to pipe complex shapes. You may refer to my Creative Baking: Macarons book for a more systematic description of the techniques too.
Piping the main frame of the ferris wheel. This is the most challenging part as it requires really steady hands and patience.
Piping the supporting structures
Piping small round stoppers
Piping the cabins and center circles of supports. I decided to use one unfilled macaron shell for cabins as I wasn't sure if the structure would support filled macarons which are a lot heavier. The pink and purple shells have mild flavour of their own so it's great to eat as a cookie on its own.
5. Bang the trays on the table to release trapped air bubbles. Use a toothpick to pop any stubborn bubbles. Dry the shells in aircon room or under a fan until dry to touch. Some suggest that no drying time is required but I prefer to do so. If the meringue is stiff enough, the drying time shouldn't take too long.
6. While waiting for shells to dry, you may preheat the oven to 160℃ and set the rack to lowest position. When shells are put into oven to bake, immediately turn the temperature down to 140℃. Bake for 10 min. Reduce temperature to 110℃ and bake until the feet no longer appear wet. Note that the small round stoppers are baked for only 10 minutes. Bigger pieces take anywhere from 25-30 minutes. Cool completely before carefully peeling the baking sheet away from the shells.
As the structure has to be displayed at warm Singapore room temperature, the filling has to be firm enough at 27-28℃. I have come up with a recipe for non-refrigerated cookies n cream that's yummy. It can be used for macaron carousels and macaron pops too.
Recipe for non-refrigerated cookies n cream filling
Ingredients:
120g white chocolate, chopped (I used vanilla bean white chocolate)
25g vegetable shortening
30g Oreo cookie, without cream and finely chopped
1/4 tsp vanilla bean paste
1/8 tsp fine sea salt
Steps:
1. Place shortening and chocolate in microwave safe bowl. Melt at medium power for bursts of 10 seconds, stirring in between each heating cycle until mixture is smooth. Do not overheat.
2. Add salt and vanilla and mix well.
3. Fold in chopped cookies.
4. Transfer to piping bag and carefully pipe onto the main ferris wheel frame and supporting structures.
Assembly
I have given this baby much thought so I am unable to share too much details at this point in time. Perhaps after a few ferris wheels later. What I can reveal is, just like the macaron carousels, the weight bearing structures need to be given time for the royal icing (glue for all the parts) to fully set before doing the full assembly so some patience is needed.
As macarons are delicate in nature, some reinforcements are needed. I have done so with a few concealed reinforcement supports (easily available from baking supply stores).
Perhaps the tricky or “ingenious” part about this whole thing is how the hinges are created. I used materials that can be easily found in baking supply shops so it's not as difficult as you think :).
And just when you think "Woohoo! The ferris wheel works! It spins so beautifully!" You may wonder, "How am I going to transport the whole thing without the structure collapsing when we encounter a hump on the road??" I figured out a simple edible solution to lock the ferris wheel such that it doesn't rotate until you remove the locking mechanism.
My friend said this is such a timely creation as she was about to attend a friend's baby shower. I did the simplest customization I could since it was quite last minute, by writing the baby's name on the ferris wheel with edible marker.
All ready to go to the party!
The ferris wheel survived the trip to the party without anything collapsing. The kids had fun spinning the wheel (and it didn't collapse too!) and were shocked that this toy is actually edible!
You can't imagine how excited and happy I was to hear that as this whole thing was experimental! Thank God for providing the inspiration right down to the nitty gritty mechanics! I think this experiment also opens up an avenue for different macaron structures with moving parts that work. Hopefully I will rise up to the challenge for future requests. Are you game enough to let me make a customized ferris wheel for you ;) ?
With love and lots of inspiration from God,
Phay Shing
