Winnie the Pooh and Friends Macarons

It's been another very busy week, what with Christmas just around the corner. Surprisingly, this year, I don't have many Christmas bakes, just lots of December babies celebrating their birthdays! But I'm definitely in the Christmas mood now that we've managed to put the tree up in our home, and I've sent out all the Christmas cards and finally finished my Christmas shopping! Woohoo!

baby Winnie the Pooh & Friends Macarons

Anyway, for a little girl's first birthday, I was asked to make Winnie the Pooh and friends macarons! I've never really done character macarons before, so I had to experiment first. If you noticed in the photo at Connor's 1st Month celebration last week, there were a few party crashers on the dessert table, mainly baby Pooh, Eeyore, Piglet and Tigger!

baby Pooh & friends macarons, round 1

Making these characters is the same process as making a regular round macaron, except they have a longer "drying" time because they have to sit twice. It really helps to have all your batter dyed in the colours that you need so it's faster when you pipe them out. 

For the first round of drying, just pipe the round circles as you would a regular macaron. Let them sit in an airconditioned room for 20 mins until the surface of the macarons are dry and don't stick to your finger when you lightly touch it. Then you can come back and pipe on their paws, ears, and snouts with a round piping tip, and then let those dry for another 20 mins again before popping them in the oven. This is important so that you get distinct divisions of the layers on their faces. If you pipe everything at one go, you will lose the 3D effect because the batter will flatten into itself.

baby Tigger & Winnie the Pooh macarons

Baby Pooh, Tigger and Piglet came out ok, but I had a little bit of a hard time with baby Eeyore because the macaron feet were forming in the middle of his face, even though they were made from the same batch as Pooh and Piglet! 

baby Eeyore & piglet macarons

But as with everything, try and try again right? So this weekend, I made baby Pooh and friends again. Still had some problems with baby Eeyore though. Again, weird macaron feet were forming where his ears connected to his head. And not on both ears either. No idea why yet. Must experiment again! Please excuse the poor lighting in the pic.

baby Pooh & Friends macarons, round 2

Here are babies Piglet, Eeyore, Pooh and Tigger side by side. The macarons look shiny in the photo because I had just taken them out of the fridge. I didn't have time to wait a half hour for the condensation to evaporate off before taking the pics. 

Here are the baby Winnie the Pooh and friends macarons, featured on a fabulous dessert table done up by Sugarena, to celebrate baby Rebekah's first birthday! The macarons are filled with delicious dark chocolate ganache. I hope Rebekah and her guests had a great time celebrating with Pooh and his friends! 

baby Winnie the Pooh & Friends Macarons*

Happy 1st Birthday, Rebekah!*

*photos courtesy of Sugarena