Snickers Macarons

Ah, at last, a ray of sunshine to burn through the gray denseness and chilling winds. There is simply nothing that can raise your spirits and inject energy into your body like dazzling sunshine; pure love I say.

Whilst my morning involved Chai and biscuits during a catch up with my Mama, my early afternoon was spent curled up on the couch, hood over my head and sleeves pulled down past my fingers, watching Masterchef, followed by Celebrity Masterchef. And then it happened, it was as if the room had been lit by a million fairy lights. Glorious sunshine streamed through my window; so off came the hooded sweatshirt, and on came my pale pink apron.

I opened my fridge and found 3 eggwhites left over from a previous recipe. Perfecto! What a great excuse to try my hand at some more macarons. Immediately I searched Tartlette's website for a macaron recipe and decided on the devilishly delicious Snickers macarons.

Although I had all the ingredients on hand, I still have not bought a proper piping kit - so once again I will have to try my best to make even circles by hand - here's hoping.

ease: 1.5/5. Once again these are not easy, and this recipe has a lot of extra cooking for the filling. There is also a lot of washing involved.
prep time: 1hour 20mins. It takes around 20mins to make and pipe the macarons onto the baking paper. Whilst they are hardening for an 1 hour you make the chocolate ganache, salted caramel sauce and peanut butter marshmallow fudge.
cooking time: 24mins - I cooked three trays for 8mins each.
total: 1hour 44mins.

taste: 3/5. I like the caramel sauce and nougat but I had problems with everything- my chocolate seemed to seize up so maybe the cream was too hot. My caramel sauce turned gluggy upon cooling and was not very sauce-like. I also found I had to reheat the nougat as it became much too sticky to even use, like viral chewing gum. My macarons on the otherhand, came out gorgeously! Yes, they have tiny frilly feet, and I forgot to push down the little bumps on top before letting them dry, but apart from that I am fairly happy. Will make them a little bigger next time (hopefully with my piping bag).

would I make it again: No. Not this recipe as the filling was too time consuming, but will definitely make some macarons again if I have left over eggwhites.

recipe: http://tartelette.blogspot.com/2008/06/snickers-macarons.html

Cracked Pepper, Mint And Strawberry Macaron

Itsy bitsy spider climbed up the water spout, down came the rain and washed the spider out....

Even with the numerous sprinkles of rain, the 25 cobwebs along the railings on our patio are still there, very much intact. I wonder if they are all the work of one ambitious spider trying to be a property developer, or whether we have a village complex outside full of spiders of all shapes and sizes? Spiders are definitely the insect of this property. I have noticed during all of my house there would be a majority of one insect over others at each house. So far I do prefer spiders to ants or cockroaches or silverfish...just not when they go creeping into our bedroom or clothes.

Today my partner and I spent some time looking up the true origins of nursery rhymes, Three Blind Mice was one of the most interesting, as was Ring a Rosie, which I already knew the origin of. After we satiated our curiosity I went to check on my ripening strawberries; I have never grown strawberries before and had heard they are difficult to grow. Seeing my little ruby jewels grow plumper makes me all the more happy.


So in honor of my soon-to-be-plucked strawberries, I scrolled through one of my favourite blogs, Tartlette, and found a recipe that would use up my few store bought small strawberries. I have never made macarons before, so I am not expecting them to turn out well. It doesn't help that I noticed, after making a batch, that I do not have one piping tip that is just an open hole, if I get one circular shape I shall be happy :). Special thanks go out to my gorgeous fiance Ryan, who helped to shape the macarons on the baking paper.

ease: 1.5/5. So many ways to screw up and have not-so-perfect macarons.
prep time: 1 hour 10mins. 10mins to make mixture, then you have to let it sit for 1hour.
cooking time: 10mins per tray. I had three trays worth so it took 30mins to make 30sides.
total: 1hour 20mins. Additional 10mins per tray. I set up everything I needed to make the filling while they were resting, then made it while they were cooking.

taste: 3/5. My macarons were not a great success, as I was expecting. Maybe if I had a piping bag they would have come out a little neater. There were some decent frilly feet and they weren't grainy as I sifted my almond meal and sugar twice. I was dissappointed in the filling though as mine turned out quite runny. I forgot to add the pepper and mint to the shell so I added it to the filling instead. Didn't really like the taste combo that much, but hard to tell becuase it didn't turn out perfectly.

would I make it again: Yes/No. I will definitely try macarons again once I get a proper tip, but I will try a different flavour next time.

recipe: http://tartelette.blogspot.com/2008/07/cracked-pepper-mint-and-strawberry.html