It's nearly Christmas...

Over the last 3 days I have dedicated my time to making a lot of macarons for Christmas. The first were red and green marshmallow macarons and the second was a half-half batch (salted caramel and strawberry) at special request. I am still planning on making some more closer to Christmas. Also I was very excited to use my new camera to finally take some really good quality photos of the finished macarons so I have put some photos below. 

Hey Honey...

This weekend I decided to try some new things. I had been wanting to try and make honeycomb after I saw them doing it on the Great British Bake-off and when I finally got around to trying it, I thought what better to do with it than make macarons. Chocolate honeycomb was the flavour this time and I decided I would even create a visual diary of how I make the macarons (I did miss a few steps but the majority are below and unfortunately I didn't get to capture the honeycomb in pictures so I will have to make it again some other time).

Making the Macarons

heating the sugar syrup and colouring

 egg whites forming soft peaks

 adding the finished sugar syrup straight into the egg whites

 sifting the almond meal and icing sugar together

 adding more egg whites to form an almond paste

combining the finished meringue and almond paste to create the mixture ready for piping

 

 piping the shells

 resting to form a skin before cooking

 

 rising to form 'feet'

 finished shells ready for filling

 homemade honeycomb

basic chocolate ganache

crushed honeycomb ready to be mixed through

finished honeycomb ganache

 drizzled chocolate for decoration on finished macarons

THE FINISHED PRODUCT

Snow White

Last weekend, I made some marshmallow macarons. Half to sell and half for my friends. I decided to put a twist on how I normally do them and use my new titanium dioxide powder at the same time.

Usually I make pink shells with a pink filling but this time they were white shells and pink filling. The titanium dioxide powder works as a white pigment in cooking. Along the way I was hesitant about wether it would work or not but it did and I was left with what I was hoping for.

It's Official

Last week I was asked if I would be able to bake some chocolate orange macarons for the year 12 hospitality students as decoration for the dessert they were making for their restaurant. They only needed half a batch so I decided to sell the rest through my Aunty Sarah at her work. I was very happy with the colour I got in the shells and they have improved a lot since my first try all those many months ago.

Lemon Creations

This week I sold some of my Lemon Macarons to my dad and his work as a gift to their clients. I was really happy with how they turned out and I was most glad to share them with others. This is the beginning of what some might call a business of my own. I'm really happy with what I achieved and hopefully I can continue on in the future.

Milo, Macarons and More Milo

My recent obsession with Milo has left me thinking of anyway that i can put Milo into my food when it occurred to me that I could make a Milo ganache to use as a filling for macarons.

I happy with how the flavour in the ganache worked out but I must admit I was a little bit disappointed with the colour of the shells. I was hoping for the colour to be a vibrant green such as the colour used on the tins of Milo. Anyhow it doesn't really matter because I have time to try them again and improve on the colour.

Weekend Wonders

This weekend was my first weekend at home without assessments for quite a few weeks now. While I have done a little bit of baking (creative religion assignment and cupcakes caused by procrastination) I have been longing to get back into the kitchen. I started off with a trip to Woolworths and the markets to gather all that I would need for a hopefully successful weekend of cooking. For the Saturday i decided to treat my family to an Italian dinner of Chorizo Pasta and Ricotta Filled Cannoli. The pasta recipe i acquired from my Food Technology class at school and the Cannoli I came upon browsing a magazine. This was what gave me the idea of an 'Italian Feast'.

I was really happy with how the Cannoli turned out but unfortunately due to many hungry bellies in my house I didn't have time to get a photo of the pasta.

My past few attempts at Macarons have been disasters unfortunately and after sitting down with my dad and doing some troubleshooting, we thought we had found the culprit. This time after following the recipe closer than ever, they finally worked out. I'm really happy with how they turned out and I even sprinkled a few with some shimmer powder (I think I really was over the moon....). This time I chose I nice simple flavour that has worked for me before - Marshmallow. 

Macarons

My first ever attempt at Macarons was a disaster. But i kept on trying with different recipes until i found this book which had the recipe i needed for sucess.

My first sucessful ones were strawberry but then as my dad is a huge lemon fan I made some and they turned out like this

 Over the past year I have had alot of fun trying many different flavours including...

Redskin

 Snickers

 Fererro Rocher

 Marshmallow

 

Chocolate Orange