somewhere over the rainbow . . .with a few clouds

Last year, I did a rainbow themed party for my ai daughter.  Conceptually it was a grand idea.  Realistically, much harder to do than I imagined.  ROY G BIV=A LOT OF LAYERS OF COLOR TO BAKE.  From my experience last year with making a rainbow layered cake, rainbow cake truffles, rainbow cookie pops, and rainbow swirl cupcakes I was eager to take on this month’s Mactweets Challenge–Mac Attack #29 . . . Colour My World Macarons.

After some initial ideas on how I was going to get several layers of color on a single macaron shell, I finally decided that stripe painting the piping bag would be the easiest.  I decided to keep it as simple as possible and selected four colors ROG B.  My first attempt at “stripe” painting the piping bag was a disaster.  This was because I was using a plastic disposable piping bag and the gel food coloring would not stick to the bag.  Then I thought–duh–use a regular piping bag.  I stripe painted these type of bags before without any trouble, well except for the color permanently discoloring my reusable bag–but that is what creates character in the kitchen.

Here’s what the inside of the piping bag looked like after I painted the four colored stripes:

Expect the first two or three macarons that you pipe to look awful.  But after a few, the colors start to come together.  Look how awesome and cool these came out.

Although these piped well with such vibrant colors they didn’t bake as well I would have liked.  I am a bit of a perfectionist and these macs only “grew” very tiny feet.  This was the first time I used gel food coloring.  I normally use powdered food coloring since any added moisture/liquid will upset these temperamental treats.  And sure enough it did.  However, despite the small “feet” these turned out better than I had imagined considering my “feat” of achieving four, count them four different colors on a macaron shell!  Yay!

I thought it fitting to fill these with some marshmallow cloud fluff.  I used a 1/2 c butter, 1/2 c of shortening, a jar of marshmallow creme, 1 1/2 c powdered sugar, and 1 tsp vanilla.  I mixed all of these up in my stand mixer for about 7 minutes.  I wasn’t so keen on the fluff since it was on the sweet side.  I think the next time I am going to increase the amount of marshmallow creme to 2 jars and decrease the amount of powdered sugar.  In any case, of course the ai kids loved this filling.

Here’s one last look at my Rainbow Swirl Macarons with Marshmallow Cloud Fluff.

I can’t wait to see what my fellow Mactweets fanatics come up with . . . click my mac friend below to check out some amazing creations from the Mactweets family!

Tagged: four color macarons, mac attack #29, mactweets, mactweets mac attack challenge, marshmallow cloud fluff, rainbow swirl macarons, stripe painting piping bag