Conversation Heart macarons for Valentines

The MacTweets challenge #16 for February 2011 was dedicated to Valentines Day. In their words 'Nothing says I Love You like a sweet little something, the size of a kiss, the flavor of your wildest desire, the macaron'.

I'm nothing if not literal, so I baked up a batch of macarons and using an edible writing pen in red I drew on some conversation hearts.

Yes my sweet kiss size macarons actually say 'I love you'.... and 'kiss me' and my all time favourite 'True Love'.


I think they would look great in different pastel colours, and if you wanted really neat looking uniform decorations you could cut out a fondant heart, stick it onto the macaron and write or stamp the words on the fondant.


My macarons were made using my regular recipe and filled with white chocolate ganache and for the pink raspberry Italian Meringue Buttercream blended with white chocolate ganache (ratio 3 cups buttercream to 1 cup ganache).


Macaron recipe - click here
Italian Meringue Buttercream from the Whimsical Bakehouse cookbook which is one of my all time favourite cook books for baking.


Whimsical Bakehouse: Fun-to-make Cakes That Taste as Good as They Look

Due to the super humid and hot weather here in Brisbane at the moment the white chocolate ganache is a 4:1 ratio of white chocolate to cream. Eg 200g white chocolate to 50g cream melted together carefully and allowed to set in the fridge to a piping consistency.



I'm sure all the wonderful Mac Tweeters will be coming up with some lovely macarons for the February Challenge check back at the end of the month to see all the mac-yumminess.

How ADOREable is this high tea shoot

So this story starts with a message from Sharnel Dollar asking me if I would like to help her out on a shoot she was doing for Adore magazine.

Come on you guys know what my answer was even without seeing all the gorgeous pictures on this page. Sharnel Dollar Designs Styling + Naomi V Photography + a host of other amazing providers is always going to = a gorgeous result.

Yup I jumped at the chance.

Now I can only take credit here for making the macarons, scones and melting moments, and the recipes for the scones and melting moments are courtesy of Sharnel Dollar. But I am very proud and excited to have helped out at all.

Oh and any of you readers from the US who might want to try out the scone (biscuit) recipe - lemonade is what we call clear soda...7 up would be a suitable replacement, and it is a super easy recipe. Really, really easy fast scones.

Check out the whole high tea fit for a Queen (starting page 96)  including the recipes by clicking on this link.

In fact check out the whole magazine - it's online and free and has some gorgeous stuff in it.

High Tea fit for a Queen credits

Sharnel Dollar - Styling and making of all treats except the couple made by me
Naomi V - Photography
Green and Bloom Wedding Flowers - flowers
Pen & Paperflowers - Silhouette design
Macaron Recipe 

Coconut and Strawberry Macaroon Hearts for Valentine

A macaroon instead of a macaron for a change.

I have always loved macaroons, even before I knew about those pretty little temperamental french almond things I was a fan of the dense coconut confection that is a macaroon.

I used to love the chocolate dipped ones from The Shingle Inn, a bakery in Brisbane nearby where I used to work.

I have tried a few recipes over the years with less than fabulous results. Anyway I spied a recipe in Better Homes and Gardens basics magazine that I though had promise. So I made the recipe a bit smaller and added some finely chopped strawberries and the result was pretty delicious.

and of course then I shaped them into a heart for Valentines day.


Which is really only an excuse because if you have followed this blog for any length of time you would have noticed that I frequently shape or decorate things into hearts, just because they are so darn cute.

Then I made half of them into the traditional little pyramid shape which is pretty cute as well. They are the perfect bite sized treat and not overly sweet so you can have a quite a few if you are so inclined.

I was - inclined to have a few that is, in fact a few too many so sadly my plan of dipping some of the heart shaped macaroons into pink chocolate did not eventuate.

Oh well next time ;) 

Recipe after jump.