Sunday, May 18, 2014

Macaron Tower

Like the croquembouche, I believe that every baker has got to try make a macaron tower at least once in their life! So I decided it was time I made one for my BFF’s baby shower yesterday. 
Never have I had to make so many macarons at the one time! Okay, if truth be told, these weren’t exactly made at the “one time”.  Time dictated that I make these in separate batches over two days, which actually worked out quite well for my sanity’s sake.  All up, there were 115 macarons.  ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTEEN MACARONS!  That’s a lot of macarons!
This pic shows only half the number of macarons there were!

It seems like recently, all I ever seem to bake is macarons, so you’d think I’d be an old hand at this by now.  Even so, to this day, I still find baking macarons nerve rattling.  I just never know if they’re going to come out well or not.  Thankfully, I was happy with each and every one of my 115 maccas!  It was such a pity that I was going to have to pierce them with a toothpick. 

Assembling these macarons was no easy feat, not for a first timer! I started off assembling the tower with alternating colours except that by the third row, the alternating colour theme didn’t quite have the desired effect of each colour spiralling neatly up the tower.  I might as well have randomly tacked the macarons that’s how it looked.  So I delicately untoothed (untoothpicked?) each macarons and decided to alternate the colours in rings.  Even then, it still looked a little bit too messy for my liking.  By this time, the macarons had come to room temperature which meant they were way too soft and delicate to be handled and I had to pop the maccas back into the fridge to harden again.  I had also crushed a couple of macarons in the making so I couldn’t afford to experiment any further! Otherwise I would have definitely attempted to perfectly position each macaron.

 And so you have it, the end product! Voila!

And lesson learnt, the bottom layer should not actually touch the surface it will be resting on.  Mine were way too close to the surface which meant that they got crushed! Particularly in the 40 minute car ride to their destination! Luckily I had a few spare macarons and did a quick swap!
So I couldn't be more happier for my friend as she now begins the wait to meet her little bubba any day now! Congratulations NKSC! xx