Salted Caramel Macarons

The macaron madness continues! And shows no signs of abating. Since moving to using silicone mats I’ve started to run into macaron errors. I guess it’s better experiencing it now then during my first try of them, but it can be frustrating. It happens most when I tweak the base recipe, so that’s gonna be a given.

But making mistakes is an important part of the learning curve. Through making errors and working to correct them, I’m learning. And hey, an ugly macaron doesn’t mean a bad-tasting macaron. Just an unbloggable macaron. I can deal with more excuses to bake.

Perfectly formed or not, these babies seem to disappear just as quickly as I can make them. So while they’re still desired, I’ll keep on baking!

Time for some salted caramel…

Domo Cookies

Early this week was one of my good friends’ birthday. We have the misfortune of living on opposite sides of the country, so catchups are non-existent. She spent a long time encouraging me to join deviantART and has always been such a huge supporter of my work there since. She’s always telling me how much she wants to eat the stuff I post and I keep promising her ‘one day’. So for her birthday, I decided it was time I made good on my promise and attempted something I haven’t before: shipping baked goods across the country.

I sent her a gift box of various baked goods, which I’ll show you in upcoming blog posts, but these cookies were the main feature. Domo has always been this thing between us. I don’t remember how it started. It might have been some dancing domo emoticon we always used on chat. We’re so random and hyper when conversing it could have come from anywhere. But it developed into one of those ‘our thing’ things you have with friends. In-jokes you will cry with laughter over while everyone else stares at you like you’re insane. We’ve sent each other various domo paraphernalia and merch over the years, and receiving it has always made me cackle wildly.

I don’t remember when the idea of domo cookies popped into my head, but once it did the idea was just so obvious and perfect it began to feel like it had always been my intention.

Then I just had to hope they survived the trip…

Mille Feuille Gateau

On Sunday Cameron and I spent Mother's Day with his mum and immediate family. We started the day early, catching breakfast at a gorgeous cafe called Earthly Pleasures. It's situated in a stunning, heritage listed stone manor. The beautiful gardens, medieval architecture and the manor's removal from the surrounding roads and buildings lent to a relaxing atmosphere for the morning. Coupled with the lovely food and pleasant company, it made for a wonderful morning.

We went back to their place after breakfast and spent the afternoon chatting and munching on goodies. The time of gathering had me searching for lighter options for the cake. I wanted to avoid anything too rich or too sweet. The last thing you feel like after breakfast is a dessert that's going to make you feel like slumping on the couch for the rest of the day. So I looked to flavours that would feel a little lighter on the palatte.

Cherry and Coconut seemed like a night place to start…

Spicy Rose Cupcakes

With Mother's Day just around the corner it's a time for making all things pretty and elegant. The first thing that comes to mind for this occasion is roses. The rose has been used as a symbol in most societies throughout human history. And it's little wonder. It's a beautiful, and varied, flower. Qualities that make them a lovely way to say thanks this Mother's Day.

The fragrance always stays in the hand that gives the rose…

Cook Book Challenge: Week 38

One thing that's delightful about this challenge is that I'm starting to run out of books. And when I say run out, I mean I've used all my regulars. I'm starting to delve into books I've shelved and have never picked up after that first flick through. This weeks book, "Cadbury Chocolate Cookbook," is one I have little memory of. Perhaps that's because there's very few pictures in the book. I'm drawn too books with mouth-watering pictures. I'm also what's called a VAKs learner: visual, auditory, kinaesthetic. It's great because I have no weaknesses, but then no strengths either. I need to hear or read the instructions, I need to see how it's done, but I don't truly learn anything until I dive in and try it myself. When a recipe lacks a photo, when I can't see what the end product is supposed to look like, I feel like I'm flying blind. Or at least one third blind.

A lot of people often argue that a good cook book doesn't need pictures to be a good cook book. So I attempted to shove my picture-snobbery to one side and pick a recipe from how it sounded. There were a few recipes that sounded alright. Many I had tried before, or were just too simple for this challenge. There was a mocha bread recipe I liked, but lacked ingredients for. I'd almost given up hope of finding something I could make today when I stumbled upon on of the last recipes: the roulade. It's a thought that still intimidates me. I almost skipped that, too, when I reminded myself that that is the point of this challenge. To challenge myself. I took a deep breath and collected the necessary ingredients.

French Chocolate Roulade…

Orange and Cinnamon Macarons

I'm addicted to making macarons lately. And I have no intention of stopping until I iron out the little creases that are the imperfections in my biscuits. As if I'm going to stop when I do finally get them perfect. Ha!

They're so addictive and so appealing to make. It's becoming and\ obsession. There are so many colours and flavours and possibilities just begging to be explored.

My major challenge at the moment is getting the biscuits all the same size. No matter how carefully I drew the circles and how carefully I piped, they'd always be different. I'd spend ages trying to match up same-sized biscuits, getting grumpy about the misshapen ones. So I thought it was time to try something new.

Breaking habits…

Cook Book Challenge: Week 37

This week's challenge comes from one of my many Women's Weekly books simple titled 'Chocolate'. This is one of my books that has a lot of overlap with others, each of which people have gotten me as presents. They all offer something different, though, so I don't mind.

I bake from these books a lot, and some of my favourite cake recipes come from or have been adapted from these books. The part this book has that the others don't is a cookie section. It's all about the old and classic in these ones. I've been wanting to try Pinwheel Cookies, on Choc-Vanilla Spiral Cookies as they are called in this book, for a while. The challenge was the perfect excuse.

hit the jump for more…

Bite-size Brûlées

My favourite thing in the world is make bite-sized versions of food. I love catering parties and making everything tiny. An idea I've had swimming around my brain for years was tiny crème brûlées. I'd been on the hunt for ceramic Chinese soup spoons every time I entered a home wares store, but could never find any, let alone white ones. All I could ever find was plastic or metal spoons – not very oven friendly, or mouth friendly after having been near a blow torch.

So when my sister got me this amazing canapé set for my birthday, without even knowing how much I'd wanted to make this dessert, I know just how to break it in.

And break them in I did…

Cook Book Challenge: Week 36

Returning to the challenge this week, I turned to my Christmas present from Cameron's mum. This is the second book from 'Great Tastes' she has bought me, and I have to confess loving both of them. The recipes range from the simple to the more complex, from those involving pantry ingredients to others requiring a stop-over at a speciality grocer. I'd been meaning to cook from this book since Christmas, but have only just got around to it now. I swear I think it's still February. None the less, it was worth the wait. I've cooked from this book thrice this week.

When it comes to weeknight meals I very quickly lose my inspiration. Cooking has begun to be a chore, particularly so when cooking for my sister who likes so little different things. When it comes to deciding what to make for dinner I can never formulate answers. Particularly not answers that involve quick, easy yet interesting solutions. This is where this book comes in. I'm determined to cook out of it as often as possible.

As for the challenge, well, that had to involve something out of the ordinary. As soon as I turned to this item, I just had to make it.

Tortilla pie…

The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword — Beamos Cake

You guys might remember the Furnix Cake I made for an artist collaboration on deviantART. Well, the project was so popular it's on for a second round. When the organiser contacted me to let me know, I was only too ecstatic to be on board a second time. Any excuse to make a Zelda ckae is a very welcome one indeed.

For those of you who don't remember, the collab is called Link's Blacklist. It's a fan art project that focuses only on enemies from the video game series, The Legend of Zelda. It's that enemy-only facet that I love so much. Don't get me wrong, I love a good Link artwork as much as the next Zelda fan. But there's no shortage of them. Focusing solely on enemies generates a lot of fan art with a focus on what is often ignored. What makes this project even more special is that it's both quality-controlled and open only to a select number of artists, so every entry is one worth staring at. If you're a Zelda fan, or just love some beautiful fan art, check out the artwork so far here on Game Art HQ.

Beam me up…