Macaron Candle Making at Soigne Atelier in East Vancouver

Girl’s Day Out

My Vancouver BFF arranged for us to do something fun together yesterday with just the two of us, which I really appreciated since life for her as a new mom is always hectic. For those of us who don’t have children, it means so much to be remembered by our friends who are parents as still an important part of their lives, even though meeting up sometimes can be a challenge (and rightly so).

Macaron Candle Making Class at Soigne Atelier

We spent a few hours in the afternoon taking a private macaron candle making lesson in Soigne Atelier in the heart of East Vancouver. It was a lot of fun and I could hardly believe the results we were able to achieve in such a short amount of time (2 hours). BFF, who doesn’t usually make crafts felt so proud of her work, proclaimed that we were probably “the best students ever”. Once I saw the results, even I started to feel like we were macaron candle making rock stars 😛

To Burn or Display?

Although these macaron candles can be burnt (they last 1 hour), they are going straight onto my mantle with my permanent macaron tower displays. One thing that makes them stand out from my other display macarons is that they smell delicious in my chosen fragrances of Vanilla, Chocolate and Chamomile & Bergamot.

Take a look at the whole process below. Until our next outing.

XOXO,

Mimi

The atelier is located on 393 Powell Street. In the heart of East Vancouver. Try to find metered parking right outside of the atelier.

You have to get past the gate before reaching the front door.

First, we scoop out 46 grams of soy wax chips and put it into a tall pot with a handle. Then we choose the desired fragrance. There are so many to choose from! I chose Vanilla, Chocolate and Bergamot Chamomile. The last one smells so delicate and heavenly.

Picking out the desired colour. It turns out only a very small amount is required so we have to cut up the dye chips into small pieces. We have to be careful not to use too much since it can change the composition of the finished candle.

We melt the soy chips along with the dye chip together in the tall pot immersed in a pan of hot water, mixing occasionally.

Once it’s all melted, we add 3-5 drops of fragrance oils into the mixture and then we pour it into the macaron molds. For each pair of “shells”, one is filled with a wick. Here, we can’t be too greedy. You’d think to add more fragrance for a more strong smelling candle but adding too much fragrance can affect the results of the finished candle.

The wax will begin to look opaque once it starts to set. We carefully move them to a cooler room by laying a hand underneath the tray to prevent the un-set wax from bending.

Once the wax dries completely, it will turn opaque. This takes about 40 minutes. We carefully pop them out from the mold. This is nerve racking since they might break if they are not fully set. Next we drill a hole into the top shell so it can accommodate the wick when we assemble it later.

An ivory white wax is melted and allowed to cool to a thick consistency which is then poured onto the bottom shell with the wick as the filling. This is the hardest part as you need to quickly assemble the shells together before the “filling” starts drying up. The teacher helped us with the pouring during this step.

After the filling sets, we use a big pair of sharp scissors to cut the wick down.

VOILA! Now we’re done!

I’m happy I finally had a chance to use the macaron plate I painted last February. I wasn’t able to find a good way to style it until now. Just loving both of these projects! Click to see my experience painting my own macaron plate.

I was trying to be oh so very careful when I was assembling the two shells together. I thought i was actually making a macaron in my kitchen (LOL!) but my instructor likes the spill out look so she helped me create this effect by adding more filling and pushing down more on the top shell.