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Easter Macarons… too hopping cute!

Easter Bunny Macarons

These Easter Macarons were inspired by the colourful packs of speckled eggs that hop onto our sweet shelves every Easter. I made them as an Easter gift in clear display boxes so they needed a decoration to match the occasion. Thanks to Fondant Solutions and their unique designs to match every occasion, I had this cute bunny face mould & miniature roses to create tiny sugar paste toppers for each macaron.

Easter Macaron Bunny Toppers

I made these bunnylicious macarons in perky pink, lime green and sunny yellow, filled them with Flavour Nation Cotton Candy, Apple & Passion Fruit buttercream & lightly speckled with edible gold paint. Each macaron hopped into the gift boxes with a few friends and then went out beautifully wrapped as an extra sweet gift for Easter.

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Macarons2Delite – Christmas Pudding Macarons

These macarons captured the sweet spirit of Christmas 2019 in a whimsical way. I made Christmas Pudding macarons by adding chocolate chips into a warm brown macaron mixture. The filling is a smooth buttercream flavoured with @flavournation mixed berry. No Christmas pudding is complete without a sprig of holly so I added a sugar paste holly from @kadies_bakery_supplies to a tiny piece of white sugar paste ‘ icing ‘.

Tiny reindeer faces from @kadies_bakery_supplies and miniature white beads completed the Christmas red macarons for my Christmas gift boxes.

The boxes wrapped with a sugar cane and Christmas ribbon made the perfect …. naughty …. but oh so nice Christmas present!

Christmas Macarons

Christmas Wreath Cake

Christmas Wreath Cake with Candied Oranges

Inspired by everything beautiful about Christmas, oranges, nuts, chocolates, candy canes & something sparkly, this Christmas Wreath Cake was a perfect addition to our Christmas Scrapbooking party.

Christmas Wreath Cake with Candied Oranges

I made an orange sponge cake in a ring mould, turned it out and sliced it in half. Puffs of Flavour Nation Passion Fruit butter cream reunite the two halves and provide a soft cushion for all the goodies on top. The roses were a perfect marriage of the orange flavour theme as well as the rich Christmas red for the occasion, so they went onto the cake first with two candy canes resting in front of them. A red and gold covered chocolate Christmas bauble balanced the red on the plate alongside the cake.

Christmas Wreath Cake with Candied Oranges

Orange candied slices stand glistening in the buttercream puffs and the final addition of flaked chocolate logs, almonds, pieces of goji berry and beetroot granola and rose gold dusted Chuckles rounded off (excuse the pun) the Christmas wreath look for this cake. All that was left was for the girls to enjoy every slice amidst happy Christmas cheer.

Christmas Wreath Cake with Candied OrangesChristmas Wreath Cake with Candied OrangesChristmas Wreath Cake with Candied Oranges

Andre Sonnekus Photography …………Blair & Duncan’s Wedding Cake

Blair & Duncan Wedding - Andre Sonnekus Photo

Photograph – Courtesy of Andre Sonnekus Photography

The inspiration for Blair & Duncan’s Macaron Tower Wedding Cake was an Autumn Sunset Colour Palette. The story behind this cake is captured in my previous blog post. This post is to pay tribute to the magicians behind this wedding. We know that Blair magically captured Duncan’s heart before they began to plan a wonderful August wedding in Johannesburg. They chose as their wedding venue, the picturesque Memoire Wedding Venue.

Blair & Duncan Wedding - Andre Sonnekus Photo

Photo Courtesy of Andre Sonnekus Photography 

Truly the most exquisite wedding bouquet I have ever seen created by Carol Anne Frey and then so perfectly photographed by Andre here.  These colours were the inspiration for Blair and Duncan’s Wedding Cake and Macaron Tower. I could not have asked for a more exciting colour combination. Carol Anne, your passion and love for flowers is captured so beautifully in this bouquet you so lovingly created for Blair and your  talent shows in your attention to every detail in the planning and decor for this wedding.

Blair & Duncan Wedding - Andre Sonnekus Photo

Photograph – Courtesy of Andre Sonnekus Photography

Blair & Duncan Wedding - Andre Sonnekus Photo

Photograph – Courtesy of Andre Sonnekus Photography

A huge thank you to Rebecca from The Crazy Lemon for this perfectly cut perspex cake topper. You were able to replicate the B & D initials exactly as they were printed on the wedding invitation. I gave them a quick coat of paint on the back and voila we had the matching colour.

Wedding Cake - Blair & Duncan

I love how Andre got close up and personal here with my macarons capturing each colour tier …..

Blair & Duncan's Macaron Tower - Andre Sonnekus Photo

Photograph – Courtesy of Andre Sonnekus Photography

Blair & Duncan's Macaron Tower - Andre Sonnekus Photo

Photograph – Courtesy of Andre Sonnekus Photography

Blair & Duncan's Macaron Tower - Andre Sonnekus Photo

Photograph – Courtesy of Andre Sonnekus Photography

As usual Flavour Nation provided the awesome flavours that went into each macaron filling.

And of course the awaited cutting of the cake ….

Photographs courtesy of Andre Sonnekus Photography 

I couldn’t have been asked to be part of a more gorgeous wedding than this and it was a pleasure to work with both Blair and her wedding planner, Carol Anne.

Thank you Blair for these kind words of thanks:

” Lisa, where do I begin! Thank you for the amazing cake and macarons. Everyone commented on how delicious they were, and they disappeared in no time. It looked so stunning, absolutely beyond our expectations.”

                                      Photographs courtesy of Andre Sonnekus Photography

Blair & Duncan’s Wedding Cake & Macarons

Wedding Cake - Blair & Duncan

Sitting in a warm coffee shop in a freezing cold London in Dec 2017 together with Blair was the first I heard of Blair’s plans for her wedding back in Johannesburg. What a contrast to the beautiful August day a few months later that Blair and Duncan shared for their wedding here in South Africa with family and friends. When Blair mentioned a cupcake tower for her wedding cake, I had only tried macarons a few times and had given a few classes and demos on how to make them. As Blair was adamant I was making her cake, I set out to perfect these tiny (often troublesome) bites of deliciousness.

Wedding Cake - Blair & Duncan

My inspiration was Blair’s choice of an Autumn Sunset colour palette and Carol Anne’s meticulous planning of every detail of this wedding & her choice of flowers that would bring to life the colour palette. The result was a colourful ombre macaron tower topped with the wedding cake with an array of sugar paste flowers. The final flourish was the B & D initial topper cut by Rebecca at The Crazy Lemon to match the initials on the wedding invitation. I painted the back of the clear cut initials to match the invite colour.

Wedding Cake - Blair & Duncan

I chose to make  a peachy coral rose, yellow and purple ranunculus and white sweet peas to top the white fondant cake.

The macarons in the matching colours were from top to bottom; blue – Flavour Nation Hazelnut, purple – Flavour Nation Grape, berry – Flavour Nation Mixed Berry, peach – Flavour Nation Naartjie and mustard – Flavour Nation Passion Fruit. Huge thanks to Andre Sonnekus who photographed the macarons so beautifully. More of the perfect moments Andre captured will be featured in my next post.

Thank you again Blair for the opportunity to be part of your wedding day in such a special and colourful way!

Blair & Duncan's Macaron Tower - Andre Sonnekus Photo

Photograph – Courtesy of Andre Sonnekus Photography

Blair & Duncan's Macaron Tower - Andre Sonnekus Photo

Photograph – Courtesy of Andre Sonnekus Photography

Blair & Duncan's Macaron Tower - Andre Sonnekus Photo

Photograph – Courtesy of Andre Sonnekus Photography

 

Meringues Kissed with Flavour Nation White Chocolate

Meringue Kisses in Blue, Pink and White

It is always fun to just play with flavour and colour and to experiment with new products. This time it was flavouring my meringue kisses in swirls of blue, pink and white with Flavour Nation White Chocolate. I then sprinkled these tiny sweet swirls with Bella Rose Sprinkles in matching pastels (thanks Auryn for your colourful bottles of sprinkles).

Meringue Kisses in Blue, Pink and White

The small puffs of meringue swirls needed something sweet & dainty to rest on so I baked these mini doughnuts flavoured with Flavour Nation Chocolate Marshmallow and then covered them with a dashing pink glaze before adding more sprinkles and the meringue kisses. Biting into these treats was heavenly with the delicious soft baked doughnut, sweet glaze and then the crunch of meringue to complete the taste symphony!

Meringue Kisses in Blue, Pink and White

Meringue Kisses in Blue, Pink and White