Rainbow Macarons

To go with the Up cake, I made rainbow macarons, in the same colours as the balloons on the cake! I just love the bright, happy colours!

Up-inspired Rainbow Macarons

I always use the French method when making macarons, because I can't be bothered with the hot sugar syrup required by the Italian method. The Italian method produces a more stable, "fail-proof" meringue, but I prefer the French method. I find that macarons made with the Italian method have a sweeter, candy-like taste. Anyway, Once you've have a lot of practice and have learned to recognise when to stop mixing once you get "lava-like" batter in the macronage process, the French method yields macarons which are just as successful as the Italian method. 

dark chocolate ganache, lemon meringue & smoked salted caramel

I use food dye gel instead of food colouring because the colours are more vibrant. I not really a pastel sort of person! I used Wilton, Americolor and SugarFlair food gels for these macarons. Haaa I don't know why I have so many different brands in my cupboard! 

filling up these babies

Macarons tend to fade a little in colour after they're baked, so it's always a good idea to colour them slightly darker when mixing the batter. But these guys stayed nice and bright, even after baking! My secret is to bake them at a higher temperature until the feet come out, and then turn the oven down 20C and let them finish baking at a lower temperature. That way, the colour doesn't fade too much! 

ROY. G. BIV

The macarons are filled with "lemon meringue" (aka lemon curd & vanilla Swiss meringue buttercream), smoked salted caramel and dark chocolate ganache. The "smoked" part in the salted caramel comes from the use of Oak-smoked South African sea salt! Caramel filling is pretty simple to make. Melt white sugar in a pot until it reaches an amber colour, then add heavy cream and a little butter and salt, and boom, you've got salted caramel! Let it cool until it reaches a piping consistency before filling the macarons with it.

up close with the feet

Dark chocolate ganache for macarons is made is a 2:1 ratio of dark chocolate to heavy cream by weight. This way, the ganache is stiffer and doesn't ooze out the sides of the macarons. Ganache used for cake filling is a 1:1 ratio. 

Happy Rainbow Macaron Platter

These macarons turned out great! They'll go really nicely with the vibrant Up birthday cake at a lucky little boy's 1st birthday celebration!