Surprise Macaron Tower

It is very rare that I am able to surprise Mike. Usually when I have a surprise planned for him I end up not being able to contain myself or I forget to cover my tracks well enough (Actually, I’ve been like this for many years…just ask my brother and sister) But this year for his birthday I am proud to say that I was able to pull one off! When it comes to celebrating his birthday, Mike often prefers to celebrate with pie instead of cake. Pie is one of his favorite desserts (particularly peach pie or pecan pie) so for the past few years I’ve always made him a peach pie instead of cake for his birthday. This year, however, he developed a fondness for a new dessert…French macarons! Our church ended up moving last year one street away from a French bakery that specializes in French macarons. So almost every Sunday after service we stop by and treat ourselves each to a macaron.

I decided for Mike’s birthday this year that I would surprise him and make macaron tower with candles on top instead of the typical birthday pie. The kids were super excited to make a “cookie tower” for their dad. First I purchased a foam cone from Michaels, some toothpicks, and then I needed to purchase 32 macarons. I grossly underestimating how many macarons I would need to cover the foam cone, because I ended up needing to drive to the French bakery twice! Luckily, I had Flo Rider (his music) in the car to keep me upbeat from being annoyed at myself.

That afternoon when the boys and I sat down to construct covering the cone in macarons, we discovered that they were quite delicate. And let me just say that “delicate” cookies, plus boys, plus toothpicks do not go well together…. Luckily, after 3 crumbled macarons and some toothpick sword fights, the boys figured out how to gently handle the macarons to finish the tower (Caleb called it a “cookie rocket”).

When daddy came home from work later that evening, we asked him to leave the room while we turned down the lights and lit the candles on top of the marcaron tower. After Mike blew out the candles we asked if he was surprise. He smiled and said that he was surprised that not only had we actually made the macaron tower ourselves, but that Mommy had put the candles to say he was 38 again instead of 39 years old. At first I thought he was joking, because I’ve always known that we were 8 years apart and I am 30. But as the math slowly “clicked” that I hadn’t had my birthday yet (I stink at math….) I realized he was right (Man, was he smiling big at watching this dawn on me!). Feeling a bit silly, I haughtily smiled back and replied that I was planning to remain 30 forever so I had been nice enough to keep him at 38 this year, Ha! Mike of course laughed and said this was definitely one of his best birthdays and that Mommy was full of surprises that even she didn’t know about.