Colorful Macarons For An Anniversary Celebration

A box of macarons just for Steve and Gerrie. The flavors are clockwise from top left: Lemon, Lime Coconut, Toasted Coconut, Blackberry, Vanilla Almond and Raspberry.

I could stare at this pretty box of colorful macarons all day. I'm so pleased with how they turned out and can't wait to show them to my friends Steve and Gerrie who asked me to make them for their 50th Anniversary.

The box of macarons is just for the happy couple and the rest of the 300 are for their celebration. It took me fourteen hours of straight baking to make all of them but now they are chilling in the fridge and I can relax. Because macarons taste best a few days after making them, they are a good choice for entertaining. Not to mention the fact that because they are so striking they can do double duty as a  centerpiece.

I'm going to serve these on my homemade macaron tower that I made by stacking different sized cake stands and securing them into place with "UHU tac" and covering the levels with paper doilies to give the stand a uniform look.

My homemade macaron stand. The levels are secured with "UHU tac" which is non-toxic and easy to remove. I don't want to damage my cake stands. For the base I used my revolving cake decorating stand and topped it with a 14-inch round of plywood. I covered the plywood with paper and doilies and trimmed the edge with satin ribbon. I should be able to fit a lot of macarons on the base layer. I made the decorative tag with cardstock and satin ribbon.

Adding the "UHU tac" to the base of a cake stand.

Here are some pictures from my long day of macaron making:

Raspberry was first.

Adding the Raspberry Buttercream.

One down, more to go!

Vanilla Almond was next. Here's a side by side comparison of the baked and unbaked macarons. Look at that color change! You always have to color macaron batter darker than you want them to turn out.

Two down!

Unbaked and baked Blackberry Macarons.

I didn't add coloring to the blackberry filling. That beautiful hue is just from the blackberries.

Now it's dark and the lighting is bad but here are my Toasted Coconut Macarons.

I also added a sprinkle of toasted coconut to the filling.

Piped Lime Macarons.

Finished Lime and Coconut Macarons.

Piped Lemon Macarons and I'm almost done!

The lighting was so bad last night that I waited until this morning to photograph the finished Lemon Macarons. I especially love the look of these. The filling is Swiss Meringue Buttercream flavored with a fresh lemon juice and zest reduction.