Christmas Tree Cake Macaron Tower Dessert Recipe

Instead of a simple Christmas tree cake, how about a tower of chocolate-coated macaroons in the shape of a tree! If you’re dreaming of a white christmas, this tree features macarons topped with brandy ganache, coated in white chocolate and finished with fresh raspberries and pistachio nuts. Pure indulgence.

I made this one as a thank you gift for my 11-year-old son’s teacher, who told us a few days later that it was actually the best dessert he’d ever tasted.

The recipe below makes two towers:

Macaron Shells

1 quantity of the macaron recipe for the shells, if you have not made macarons before then do watch the macaron FAQ video so that you can be sure to master them first time around.

If you pipe them in the size shown on this macaron template it will make approximately 150 shells.

Brandy Ganache Recipe:

440g (15.52 ounces) quality white chocolate
110millilitres (3.72 fluid ounces) or 1/3 cup plus 2 Tbsp cream
30millilitres (1.01 fluid ounces) or 2 Tbsp of brandy*
1 tsp vanilla extract

*If you would prefer a different flavour of ganache see the chocolate truffle recipe post for lots of flavoured ganache recipes

You will also need a piping bag and a star shaped tip 826, if you don’t have one you can use a ziplock bag to pipe instead, instructions for this are on the caramel cupcake recipe video.

Cone

The cardboard cone that I made was 30cm (11.81 inches) tall and had a diameter of 9cm (3.54 inches) at the base.  It used 57 macaron truffles to cover it.
Non stick baking paper.
400g (14.11 ounces) white chocolate to dip the truffles
1 punnet of fresh raspberries
handful pistachio nuts

Resource: howtocookthat