Makes: 50 macarons

Time required: 3 hours

Difficulty: ★★★☆☆

Challenge:

When I was asked to bake macarons for a baby shower, my first question was “boy or girl?” I was trying to figure out if I should make blue blueberry macarons or raspberry red macarons … however turns out the sex of this baby was a surprise so I had to come up with something gender neutral. This is where the brown teddy bear macarons come in!

Ingredients:

Macaron shells:

• 4 egg whites
• 180g caster sugar
• 65ml water
• 180g almond meal
• 180g pure icing sugar
• brown food colouring

Caramel buttercream:

• 300g sugar
• 300ml cream
• 260g butter
• pinch of salt

Decorating:

• 100g white chocolate, tempered
• 50 mini chocolate chips
• black candy write (or tempered dark chocolate)

Instructions:

Macaron shells:

1. Preheat the oven to 130ºC fan forced
2. place two egg whites into a stand mixer
3. heat the caster sugar and water over low heat to make a sugar syrup
4. once the sugar has all dissolved, turn on the stand mixer to medium speed to whisk the egg whites
5. when the sugar syrup reaches 120ºC remove from heat and pour in a slow steady stream down the side of the stand mixer, with the mixer still running at medium speed
6. increase the speed to high and whisk for 1 minute and then back to medium for another 5 minutes until the meringue forms stiff peaks
7. meanwhile, sift the pure icing sugar and almond meal into a clean bowl
8. pour the remaining two egg whites into the almond/sugar mixture. Add 4 drops of brown food colour gel and mix together with a spatula
9. fold in 1/3 of the meringue and mix thoroughly with the spatula
10. gently fold in the remainder of the meringue. Keep folding until the batter has the consistency of molten lava
11. place ~90% of the mixture into a piping bag fitted with a plain round tip and pipe circles around 3cm in diameter
12. place the remaining mixture into another piping bag fitted with a smaller round tip. Use this to pipe the bear ears on half the macaron shells
13. let the piped shells rest for 20 minutes until a skin forms over the macarons
14. bake one tray at a time for 13 minutes

caramel buttercream:

1. place the sugar into a saucepan and melt over low heat
2. meanwhile, place the cream in a separate saucepan over low heat
3. once the sugar has turned to a dark amber colour, remove from heat and melt 60g of butter into the sugar
4. At this stage the cream should have come to a boil. Pour the boiling cream into the sugar, stirring with a wooden spoon
5. return the saucepan to low heat and stir until it forms a smooth caramel
6. stir in a pinch of salt then set aside to cool
7. once the caramel has come to room temperature, whisk together with the remaining 200g of butter to form a buttercream

Decorating the macarons:

1. pair the macaron shells so that you can place one teddy bear shell over a plain round shell of similar size
2. on each of the teddy bear faces, spoon a small amount of tempered white chocolate to form the nose/mouth area of the bear
3. place a mini chocolate chip over the white chocolate to resemble a nose
4. draw two eyes on each teddy face with a black candy writer

 

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