Baby Pooh Bear Macarons All Dressed Up For Halloween
What will you be for Halloween this year? Everyone says that it's the one day of the year when you can be whatever you want... so I'm not sure why in prior years I decided to be a panther, a bumble bee or even a Playboy bunny along with other questionable costume choices LOL. If you were to ask me now if there was one thing I'd like to be, I'd say something that didn't involve cheesy costumes. Perhaps being invisible for a day would be nice so I could see for myself how interesting (or uninteresting) the secret lives of other people are. Well, since that's probably not going to happen anytime soon, I thought I'd leave the cheesy costume wearing to my little baby pooh bears here.
2 Different Methods to Dress Them Up
There are two different ways to dress these bear macarons up. One is the more complicated method of piping the bear body and wings completely from macaron batter. In this case, you'd want to wait for each section of the body to develop a thin skin before you start piping another section so that they don't run into each other. Start with the head, then ears, legs, wings and snout. Watch the video I provided below to see the order in which I pipe each section and here's a separate tutorial for macaron art: Piping Bear Macarons.
The second method would be to pipe the bear heads only and then create the wings from gum paste that's been colored black. Once it's dried, use black royal icing to outline the wing to give it some more depth and dimension. I decided to use gum paste instead of fondant since it dries much harder and doesn't droop once it's assembled. You'll have to remind your guests to discard the wings and head piece before eating since it's very hard. Once the wings have dried, put a dollop of filling on the bottom shell and then place the wings gently on top. Pipe a little more filling on top of the wings so it acts as an adhesive when the top shell is assembled.
Thank You! & Silpat Giveaway
I'm doing another Silpat giveaway to thank you all for being such wonderful and loyal readers. I'm very humbled each time to receive such nice comments from you and I also wanted to give a special shoutout to all my newsletter subscribers too. Since this giveaway is just for you, all you have to do is let me know you want to be included on my recent Instagram post and that's it! The winner will be chosen by random on November 6th. You must also be a resident of Canada or the USA.
Take a look at the video before you start the project and I hope you have a safe and happy Halloween!
XOXO,
Mimi
Mimi's Best Macaron Recipe
OPTION #1 - bear body only + gumpaste wings
Makes 15 bears
Use templates provided at the bottom of this post.
- 98 grams almond flour
- 98 grams icing sugar
- 75 grams egg whites
- 68 grams
- a small drop of yellow food gel colour (Americolor's Gold was used here)
- ready to use gum paste (product link below)
- black royal icing to outline the wings
- pink shimmer dust for cheeks
OPTION #2 - bear body + macaron batter wings
Makes 12 bears
Use templates provided at the bottom of this post.
- 130 grams almond flour
- 130 grams icing sugar
- 100 grams egg whites
- 90 grams castor sugar/granulated sugar
- a small drop of yellow food gel colour (Americolor's Gold was used here)
- pink shimmer dust for cheeks
Use the quantities above and follow the method below to make the macaron batter:
Pumpkin Spice Cheesecake Macaron Filling Recipe
Here's a Fall-inspired macaron filling you might want to try to use for your filling:
Free macaron templates for this project:
Available for download for Newsletter Subscribers. Just sign up for the newsletter and wait for the double opt-in confirmation email. Confirm your subscription and you’ll be sent the password to the member’s only area.
There are two ways to make this character. You can either pipe out the whole character with batter or pipe the bear heads only. If piping only the heads with batter, cut out the single bat wing template and trace it onto the gumpaste.
BONUS PIGGY UNICORN MACARON TEMPLATE
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Vanessa N says
Amazing. How do you learn to keep track of the ratios. Do you have a specific ratio. I have looked at about 15 different recipes today on your website of the most amazing looking and beautiful macarons. I want to be able to create individual things but how do I figure out the ratios between almond flour, the sugars and eggwhites?
Thank you,
Mimi says
hmm... if i understand your question correctly... I guess it all comes down to recipe development. Each recipe has been tested and re-tested every time I make adjustments to it. All new ingredients added requires some adjustments to the base recipe but it really depends on what those ingredients are... like are they drier, more sweet, moist etc...
XOXO,
Mimi
Naomi says
Does the amount of castor sugar you put into the egg whites matter? Can you make the shells less sweet?
Mimi says
yes, you need the castor sugar to stabilize the meringue. you can play with the ratio a bit but I find most recipes that reduces one type of sugar (castor and powder) make up for by increasing the other. Most readers have said my recipe is less sweet than most that they've tried. XOXO, Mimi
www.whiterosesandcoffee.com says
Hi Mimi, these macarons are tooooo cute! Where do you get your ideas? Have a great week.
xo Jo
http://www.whiterosesandcoffee.com/
Mimi says
Thank you so much Jo!
Usually just from thinking about my favorite characters (and oh boy, there are so many) and incorporating them into relevant themes for the season.
XOXO,
Mimi