Canada Day Macarons

Happy 151st Birthday, Canada! To celebrate the event, I whipped up some red and white macarons, decorated with fondant maple leaves. I found the mini maple leaf cutter a couple years back in a local supermarket. It came in a set with other randomly shaped plastic mini cookie cutters and was like $2 for everything. 

Canada Day Macarons

Of course, I had to incorporate maple syrup in there somehow, so the macarons are filled with maple Italian buttercream. The buttercream recipe is a pretty cool one, since it uses maple syrup, heated to 118C, instead of the usual sugar syrup that traditional Italian buttercream calls for, and there are no raw egg whites used! I love how the buttercream is nice and firm too. 

100% Canadian maple syrup Italian meringue buttercream

mmm... so good you can eat it by the spoonful!

For white macarons, I always add white powdered food colouring to the batter to keep the macarons nice and white after baking. If you omit the white food colouring, they tend to come out with a very light brown/off-white tan, since almonds aren't naturally bright white in the first place. 

freshly piped 

I dried the macaron shells in the oven for 20 mins at 50C, before baking them for another 23 minutes at 140C (no fan). Saves me having to wait an hour or two for the shells to dry in an air-conditioned room prior to baking (it's really humid here in the tropics)! 

after 20mins of drying at 50C in an oven

freshly baked white macaron shells

The red shells were coloured with a couple of healthy squirts of Americolor food gel colouring. I really love Indulge with Mimi's macaron recipe (French method) cuz I don't get hollow macarons with it! 

filling with maple syrup Italian buttercream

finishing them off with fondant maple leaves

fluffy, full macarons! #nohollows

Of course, I had to bust out all my Canadian paraphanelia to get a photo of these babies with. Alas, I couldn't find my Canadian flag! I wish I had an adult-sized version of my daughter's "Canada Eh!" apron. It's just too cute!

lots of maple leaves here!

Canada Eh?

I packaged the macarons individually, and tied them off with a red ribbon bow to give as gifts. 

Canada Day macarons

Canada Day macaron gift favours

We totally (& unintentionally) missed the Canada Day celebration put on by CanCham this year. We had such a blast at the Canada 150 event last year and we were looking forward to the party again this year.

at the 2017 Canada Day party

I had thought that the event was on July 1st (Canada Day proper), but the party was held the day before! I wasn't looking forward to telling my kids that there would be no bouncy castle today... so we had to rethink how we were gonna spend Canada Day! I felt like we still had to do Canada proud and at the very least, we had to wear T-shirts to commemorate the occasion. 

Canada Day brunch at Rider's Café

Well, we one-upped that and actually brought our own bottle of 100% Canadian maple syrup to brunch at Rider's Café. That's right, BYOMS. The youngest monster totally smothered her crêpes in it (cuz the restaurant didn't serve pancakes!)

want some pancakes with the maple syrup??

In the afternoon, we had fun feeding the animals at The Animal Resort in Seletar. The girls really enjoyed feeding the bunnies and the peacocks!

decked out in red and white and maple leaves

one of two fish ponds

got nipped by the peacock, but it didn't hurt

bunnies love carrots!

this bird chased her everywhere!

My fave was feeding the Cassowary! And as usual, the boy was grossed out and refused to let any of the animals eat from the palm of his hand, preferring to feed the fish and scatter pellets on the floor instead. 

such a tall horse!

feeding the Cassowary!

We headed over to Buzz by Myra's for dinner. That is where yesterday's Canada Day event was held, and the decorations and stage were still up! I called ahead and the bouncy castle was still up too! (apparently it's up every Saturday and Sunday!) Whoo, so my kids would get to play in a bouncy castle after all :)

at the party venue...

just one day late! oh wells...

whoo there's the Canadian flag

the main stage was still up :)

here's what the party looked like the day before!
*pic from CanCham

Buzz by Myra's is an interesting restaurant, cuz it's Indi-Mex, serving both authentic Indian food and Mexican fare! There are some Italian items on the menu too like pizza and pasta. It's a nice family-friendly place, with warm and attentive staff and great food. The outdoor playground (& bouncy castle on the weekends) and box of toys inside make it a great place to have meal with the kiddos! 

bouncy castle fun

He a'int Uncle T, but this Mountee will hafta do!

We had the non-veg Mexican platter, as well as butter chicken, palak paneer and butter & garlic naan. The food was really tasty, but the kids found everything too spicy. The manager was kind and understanding, and he got the kitchen to whip up a complimentary non-spicy chicken dish for the kids to have with their naan. Really great service. 

dinner at Buzz by Myra's

So we didn't get to go to the CanCham Canada Day party, but I'd say that we still had a pretty awesome day celebrating! Happy Canada D-Eh! to all our Canuck friends all over the world, especially in Vancouver, BC in the True North, strong and free!! 

Happy 151st Birthday, Canada!