Macaron, Thy Name is Frustration. And Yum.

I'm never one to shy away from trying out new recipes and cooking techniques even though I am by no means a culinary expert, far from it in fact.
However, I am not clueless to the difficulties of this particular little cookie recipe, I've known for some time now, through research and watching even some of my favourite online chefs having trouble with it, that it is a troublesome little biscuit.
In a way, I probably ended up hijacking myself in that I became absolutely paranoid about even trying to make French Macarons (not to be confused with Macaroons, coconutty chuncks of not-Macarons), to the point where I made any excuse under the sun to not make them, even going so far as calling them my 'Achilles heel' and 'arch nemesis of cookies', even though I'd never even attempted them. Sad? definitely.
Anyway, today I'd promised myself I'd do something creative, and what do I do when I tell myself I need to do something creative? I procrastinate, usually by cooking.
But this particularly cold, grey and rainy day I finally resolved to attempt the Chocolate Macaron.
Chocolate Macaron with chocolate cream filling to be exact.

I won't bore you with the written details except to explain that there were two attempts made; First one that was done with utmost care and a billion butterflies in my stomach that amounted to THE most epic cookie fail I have ever had the misfortune to lay (almost teary) eyes on.
And the second attempt, where upon I was so mad at myself for the first fail that I practically threw the mixture together, adjusting the original recipe to what I thought would work under my circumstances and, to my surprise and delight, the damned things worked. Irony can be sweet and rather tasty.

Anyways, on to the pictures!

The Ingredients list for the cookies:
Icing sugar, egg whites, cocoa, castor sugar, almond meal.

All set and ready to go, wide eyed and so very naive.

EPIC FAIL. My eyes, they bleed.

Batch No.2...

Yeilded much, much better results. (lookit that little 'foot'!! *geekout*)

Yay! Trayful of Macaron-y goodness!
Sure, they're not perfect, but I'm pretty damned happy with them.

Cookies paired up to be filled.

Chocolate Cream filling. Oh lawdy so goooood.

Ingredients: dark chocolate, heavy cream, glucose syrup, a tiny bit of butter.

Icing those babies.

Macarons!!

Oh yeah. :D And they taste even better.

My culinary life is now complete.
Almost.




*

Day 10 of Thing-a-Day - Viennese Mocha Cookies

Day 10 Thing-a-Day - Viennese Mocha Cookies

As the name suggest, these are Viennese Mocha Cookies.
Ingredients are confectioners sugar, flour, granulated coffee, butter, chocolate, cornstarch.
So easy even I can do it! XD lol.

Omnomnom.

Christmas cards 2008 are done!

Yay! got the rest of my handmade Christmas cards sent out today, two of which contained little pics because they were asked for and I was happy to oblige ^^.

Unfortunately, they haven't reached their destination just yet so I can only post a couple of little snippets, at least until I have confirmation that they've arrived safely at their new homes.

I've got just one more little promised Chrissy gift to do but it's taking me a little longer coz it involves my characters which for some lame reason, I always have trouble drawing these days.

Anyway, onto other things.
Tonight, I am making my famous gingerbread cookies and possibly some of those yummy chocolate truffles I made a little while ago that vanished waaaay too quickly. Of course, it all depends on how long it takes me to finish my cookies, since cooking with a single oven tray tends to lengthen overall cooking time considerably.

Well, if I don't post again till after Christmas (i'm working all day tomorrow so probably no art then Christmas then working on boxing day then on weekend too) I wish everyone who visits here (lol) a safe and wonderful Christmas and that you all get awesome presents!!