My baby girl is about to be 1 month – already?! Where does the time go…(rhetorical answer: feedings, changing diapers, admiring, taking photos).

Chinese tradition calls for a “full moon” celebration – basically the baby has now passed the “everything is ok” mark and everyone can come and see the baby and celebrate her birth.  I think in the olden days, they may not even name the baby until after it has pass the full moon.  This celebration can be as small or as large as you want. Some people go all out.  (note, many chinese households now also adopted the 100 days celebration instead to celebrate).

We have 40 people coming for Abigail’s full moon – a mixture of family and In laws’ friends – to be held at a chinese restaurant banquet.  Though I wasn’t exhilarated at the thought of having to “make” something so early into my new mommyhood…I also didn’t want to not contribute to the celebration.  I obliged and allow my husband to “outsource” the cake.  But I wanted to make the favours for the guests.  I decided on macarons for them.  In hindsight, it was a lot of work and time when the baby is only 3 weeks old leading up to the dinner. Definitely not recommended for anyone thinking of doing this for their baby’s party.  but everything worked out, as they often do, so here I am sharing the pictures!

I wanted to do 3-4 macarons in a gift bag of different colours and flavours.  I had to balance finding fillings that has the ability to keep frozen and stored for the week (which most macaron fillings can handle), but also it be ok once they are sitting at the restaurant and not in the fridge.  Here’s what I ended up making (approx 35 each):

• White Chocolate ganache with pink coloured shell
• Lemon filling with yellow coloured shell
• Vanilla buttercream with soft pink coloured shell
• White Chocolate ganache with purple coloured shell

I chose a multiple of colours as I’m not a fan of everything pink just cuz it’s a girl.

The new recipe I found for the lemon filling I was worried about, as I wasn’t sure if it will firm up and hold while sitting at the table.  But i so wanted something lemony. In my mind, I saw a big gooey yellow mess…thankfully, after putting it in the fridge to firm up and then freezing it, it held up fine.  At least until I handed the gift bags to the guests.  After that, who knows?!

The lemon filling recipe:

3 egg yolks
1/2 cup sugar
fresh lemon juice from 1/2 large lemon (about 2-3 tbsp)
zest from 1/2 large lemon
1/2 stick of cold unsalted butter, sliced

mix all in a pot and refrigerate overnight to firm up, then pipe.

I started making the macarons a week ahead, one batch a day, so took 4 days of baking in total.  Gone are the days where I can stay in the kitchen to make multiple batches in a carefree manner.  With a newborn in tow, I got a chance to bake in between naps and fussy periods, so I was only managing 1 batch a day and skipped a day here and there.  Just kept any made macarons in the freezer in a airtight container.

I also got to use my handy 1.5″ circle cutter to make the thank you tags. I haven’t used it since making the tags for my wedding!  see, the tool came back in use! simple design, nothing specacular.  But I also got to use some leftover good quality cardstock from making wedding invites – they are this shimmery ivory and thick.  Good thing i’m a hoarder.

And then it was the day of the Full Moon celebration…which means final assembly time!  My dad came to hold her so that I have an hour or so of free hands to complete.  The clear bags were from the dollar store, comes with a base and a ribbon (which i discarded as I wanted to use my own shiny red one).  I put 4 macarons in each gift bag, tied it up with the red ribbon and a tag, and voila!

one hour later…

I believe I shortchanged some of the guests as I ran out of some of the various flavours, so some got repeated flavours and colours, and there may be 3 guests that got 3 in their bags! oops.

I have to admit, I’m quite proud of them. Not only do they look pretty I think, but I did it with a 3 week old baby.   Good thing newborn sleeps alot.