Macaron tower or macaron croquembouche looks magnificent at weddings, anniversaries and special occasions. It can make your event even more memorable and special.
To create your own macaron tower you will need a good recipe for macarons, a Styrofoam cone, and some inspiration.
There are plenty of free macaron recipes out there but if you want to create bakery-quality macarons that look as close to perfect as possible then I recommend The Macaron Master. Next, you will need the Styrofoam cone and below I provide a handful of links and places where you can get them.
In this post I also show you some amazing macaron tower photos that I have collected - they are a great source of inspiration!
This is my personal macaron tower collection - I call it the ‘ultimate collection’ since it’s probably the biggest one that you’ll ever come across…at least it’s big!
So you’ll need to make lots of macarons for this exercise. Yes, your hands will hurt from all the piping! As to how many macs you need… Basically, the bigger the macaron tower the more macarons you will need! Now, I am sure that you have figured that out already.
I’m assuming that you have a reliable recipe. A good recipe for macarons will show you how to create those vibrant, smooth, melt-in-your mouth macarons that look delicious. Just let your imagination dictate how colourful you want your macaron tower to be. You can use one colour, two or, as you will see, as many colours as you like!
With your macarons be sure not to overfill them otherwise they will get really heavy and possibly slide down - ruining your macaron tower project! My preferred filling for this fun exercise is chocolate ganache filling. Somehow dark chocolate works best, you can also try using more chocolate and less cream when making the ganache to make the filling a bit harder. Also, you need to make your macarons all the same size - the gaps don’t look good. You can try The Macaron Template - it makes piping round shells so much easier!
Now you will need the Styrofoam cone, and you can do a quick Google search for those or get it from the following online shops:
Amazon.com is a good place to start. It’s probably best if you visit the site and use their search functionality to see what Styrofoam brands and sizes they have available. I did a quick search and here’s what I was served:
Amazon’s Styrofoam cone + Styrofoam ball on Amazon. There is more!
Keep in mind that if you’re outside of the U.S. then it may take some time before Amazon stuff arrives on your front porch, while a great service they need to work on their delivery times a little. Then again, your experience may be different!
Here’s another one The Styrofoam cone - it’s a HUGE cone (30″ tall x 15″ bottom diameter!)
You can also get it from Walmart.
Michaels.com also stocks them but I prefer them in white, not green.
So, at this stage you need to have your macarons and the Styrofoam cone ready. You’re probably wondering how to attach them to the cone and you can use melted chocolate or royal icing, however I recommend using toothpicks to attach the macarons. You can also try wooden skewers (thicker than toothpicks). First, pin the skewers to the cone and then attach the macarons to the skewers. Give it a go!
A word of caution, be careful so that you don’t handle the macarons too much! It’s a delicate cookie 
Now, simply start at the bottom and work your way up. Once you get to the top, you can drizzle the macaron tower with melted white chocolate. Sprinkle it with sparkling sugar or cake sparkles. Now the biggest issue comes with storing your macaron tower… you need to put it into a refrigerator so that it sets. Is your fridge big enough - you may have to take out some of the shelves to makes some room!
OK, you’ll probably need to start couple of days before the macaron tower needs to be ready - don’t leave this exercise to the last minute!
That’s it. Now you will probably need some inspi-macaron-ation. I have collected some great images and I am sure they will give you both guidance and inspiration…
Here’s a great macaron tower on Oprah.com - who says one-colour towers don’t work!
Macaron tower by Snowfern…
The following few images come from the bronzebudgetbride.com website - beautiful!
Simple and elegant…
This though not a macaron tower is still a work of art…
Lots of colours here!
Here’s a Lemon Cake and French Macaron Tower made by someone who says is not a Pastry Chef - he just likes fancy desserts!
I think here they offer to make a macaron tower for you. Looks beautiful, I’d probably have the toothpicks hidden.
This is interesting…
This one certainly looks different. Are those macarons all packaged individually?
Here’s a macaron tower created by Adriano Zumbo…
Here’s a simple small macaron tower that still looks gorgeous!
I found this on FlickRiver.com…
Here’s on from Pistachio Laura’s Photostream…
I found this massive macaron tower on this blog - my fridge wouldn’t house this one!
And here’s an idea for Styrofoam balls - from Love My Foods And Sugar
So much with inspiration - now it’s time for you to make your own macaron tower - have lots of fun!! 