Once my macaroons were filled and rested, I took six of the small filled finished cookies and ten of the half shells, and gave them a glamorous spritz with some edible gold lustre. Since using this on another celebration cake, it has become one of my favourite effects.
Gilded macaroons
I left these to dry and removed the three sponges for the cake from the fridge. The bottom layer was filled with a seville orange marmalade mixed with a little Grand Marnier, and the second layer was filled with the chocolate ganache. Once it was assembled, I then crumb coated the outside and left it to set. I did want to try the poured ganache as set out in the recipe, however I am too much of a coward and too scared to waste so much of a lovely ingredient, so I decided to add another textured layer with a palette knife to achieve a nice sharp edge.
I did have a little bit of a problem of my ganache setting too hard before I could pipe lovely neat rosettes on the top to hold the macaroons, and I went through a couple of split piping bags to eventually stick the macaroons to the top, but I was really pleased with the final result. I stuck the filled macaroons into their individual ganache nests on the top, and then pressed the macaroon halves around the bottom to neaten the edges. I love the smooth and beautiful finish of the design in the book, but I also love putting my own spin on things, and I think this was a much more 'Me' birthday cake.
The inside of the cake - I love the dramatic contrast of the sponge against the ganache and the orange zest gave the sponges a beautiful deep golden colour
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