Facing a fear: Macarons

After baking scones last weekend I was left with a lonely egg white so I flicked through my baking books to see what I could do with it. I had no intentions of baking macarons that day (or even this year to be honest!) but I went for it after spotting a recipe in The Great British Book of Baking.

My first batch didn't turn out looking very pretty (you can see them in the background of the first photo) as the mixture was too thick and in a panic not to overbake them I took them out the oven too soon and they sunk, but the second batch turned out much better once I knew what I was dealing with. Still slightly on the undercooked side, but boy was I proud of myself.

Ahhhh, pretty pink macarons.

I may have scared my mother when I shrieked "THEY HAVE FEET!!!" in excitement, with my face pressed up against the oven door. What lovely frilly feet they have.

I finally get what all the fuss is about. These little, almondy, meringue-y treats are DELICIOUS! A crisp shell (although mine could have been crisper) with a slightly chewy centre. The whipped cream and strawberry jam used to sandwich the macarons together kept the flavours fresh and light. I think I'll try lemon curd swirled through cream next, or maybe even a chocolate ganache. Yes, next time, I'm going to bake macarons again!

Yum yum yum! It was so hard to edit down my photographs. I took so many!

Louise's mini macaroons
Recipe from The Great British Book Of Baking.

makes 12 paired macaroons

I've added handy tips in brackets which I've picked up from reading multiple blog posts on macarons.

1 medium egg white at room temperature

75g caster sugar

deep pink or yellow food colouring paste (I only had food colouring. Thankfully it's a really strong colour so I didn't need to use much. Only add a tiny amount, you don't want to change the consistency of the mixture)

60g ground almonds

60g icing sugar, sieved

to assemble:

150ml double or whipping cream, well chilled

1 tablespoon lemon curd or sieved strawberry/raspberry jam

Preheat the oven to 140C/275F/Gas mark 1. Draw 12 even circles each 5cm across on the lining paper for a baking tray. (Make sure you draw on the reverse, otherwise it'll transfer onto the macarons.) Put the egg white, caster sugar and a very little colouring paste into a mixing bowl and whisk with an electric whisk/mixer until the mixture is very thick and mousse-like.

(Whizz the ground almonds and icing sugar in a food processor to make them as fine as possible.) Combine the almonds and icing sugar and gradually whisk in, then continue whisking for 1 minute after the last addition to make a shiny, smooth and thick mixture. (It should be able to fall from a spatula like a ribbon when it's ready.)

Spoon into a piping bag and pipe inside the drawn circles to make 12 small macarons (Don't pipe in a circular motion, pipe from the centre and let it spread to the edges. Mine spread a bit after I finished piping so it's best to stop just before the mixture reaches the edges of the circle. Once finished give the tray a sharp tap on the worktop, it helps give the macarons their "feet". Then leave them for around 20 minutes, until they form a skin and they''re no longer sticky to touch.)

Bake in the centre of the oven for about 25 minutes, until firm. Remove from the oven and leave to cool on the trays. (You must leave them until they're completely cool otherwise they don't peel off properly.) When ready to assemble, whip the cream until stiff then swirl the lemon curd/jam through it. (I didn't really follow the measure, I mixed to taste.) Spoon the cream into the clean piping bag and pipe a blob of cream on to the underside of half the macarons (or if you're lazy like me, use a teaspoon!) Then sandwich with the other half. Chill until ready to serve.

Strawberry and cream scones... again!

It's only been a few weeks since I last featured scones but when strawberries are in season this is one of my favourite ways to enjoy them.

Unlike last time, I actually made these scones! I had mentioned that for some reason I find it difficult to make good scones so Gem offered her favourite scone recipe for me to try out.

I am pleased to report that they were a success! They were so lovely and fluffy fresh from the oven. Thank you Gem! I'll definitely use this recipe again.

You may also notice that I've been on a labelling frenzy this week. My blog was terrible to navigate in terms of looking for recipes with particular flavours or ingredients in mind. Hopefully this will be much more organised.

It is also interesting to see what I bake most. True to my blog title, cake is what I bake most and I appear to be a big fan of buttercream! I was also genuinely surprised by how often I bake with chocolate as I honestly didn't think I used it that often. Unsurprisingly, lemon was the next most popular.

Scones

Recipe from Gem, with permission to blog.

450g self-raising flour

100g butter, slightly soft

50g caster sugar

2 teaspoons baking powder

About 250ml milk

Preheat the oven to 220C and grease a baking tray. In a large bowl rub together the flour, butter, sugar and baking powder using your fingers until the butter is all mixed in. Add milk gradually and stir together using a knife to cut through and bring together to avoid overworking it. Plonk onto a floured surface and cut out your scones. Don't twist the cutter! Brush with a beaten egg yolk and bake for about 12 minutes depending on the size of your scones. 

Tablet and button earrings

One of my best friends, Alice, loves tablet. She also loves pink, earrings and buttons. Therefore I knew she would appreciate these homemade gifts for her birthday last week.

My family go through a lot of Douwe Egbert coffee jars (not me though, I'm a tea girl) and I find they're the perfect size for storing tablet. One batch of tablet fits two large jars, with a few "tester" pieces left over.

I've been dying to make button jewellery for ages so this was the perfect opportunity to make something. I've got so many buttons I could make all kinds of cute and crazy earrings. I also made the little origami box which I got ridiculously excited about. It's so pretty and the paper matches the earrings.

I'm also pleased to say I made this batch of tablet all by myself! Usually I get Mum to help as I'm never sure when the mixture is ready to set but I did this all on my own. It set with a lovely glossy top and had that perfect crumbly, melt-in-the-mouth texture. Delighted!

I would type out the recipe but it's a vague hand me down one which very much relies on observing changes in colour and consistency rather than timing and thermometers. However the next time I make it I could try step by step photographs to accompany the recipe if others fancy having a go.

Banana, pecan and chocolate loaf

Who loves baking with bananas? I do! After baking the banana yoghurt cake last month I decided to try another banana bake from Ros' archives. This recipe appealed to me as soon as I saw it. In fact, I was the first person to comment on the post! You can find the recipe here.

It's a pretty loaf and slices really well. My only niggle was that I found the 70% cocoa chocolate I used slightly too bitter for my taste, but my Mum and Dad disagreed and really enjoyed it.

I made this cake again when I visited my brother in Glasgow last week (the cake travels well!) but used Cadbury Bourneville chocolate instead and a mixture of walnuts and pecans. The bananas were also much riper so it was a sweeter cake. It's all down to personal preference really. I'm a sweet tooth so I preferred the second cake.

On a separate note, I'm thinking about going through all my old posts (slowly) and reorganising/adding labels as I don't like my current system. If I did this would it completely republish the whole post on everybody's newsfeed? I don't want to clog up all your newsfeeds/google readers so I may not bother if it does.

Raspberry and almond cake

After seeing this on Lucy's blog last month I knew it had to jump straight to the front of the to-bake queue. It's very much a fling-everything-in-the-bowl-and-mix recipe which suits me perfectly. I'm a gloriously lazy baker. The less faffing about and washing up to do the better!

For some reason I had problems photographing this cake. The lighting was terrible when I tried to take a photograph of the whole cake (I don't know why, but I just wasn't happy with any of the photographs) so I thought I'd wait until the next day even though the cake would be cut open. This is always a dangerous move to make, as there was only one slice left the following day!

I liked the sharp hits of raspberry running through the centre of this cake. It would also taste delicious served as a pudding with custard (mmmm, custard). If you're a Bakewell Tart fan then you'll love this cake.

The recipe comes from BBC Good Food if you fancy giving it a go. The only thing I would change is to substitute the vanilla extract for almond essence because I'd like an extra oomph (technical term) of almond next time, but it's up to yourself.

Frilly floral brooch

A different type of post for you all today! I made a brooch for a birthday gift last month using a floral brooch tutorial on Gem's blog. It's simple, effective and makes a really sweet homemade gift.

I think the most fun part was choosing a button for the centre. I love buttons! So much so that I have three or fours tins/tubs full of them. They're a mixture of inherited and shop bought which makes them an interesting pile to rummage through.

There's something very satisfying about running a finger through a tub of buttons.

I finished the reverse of the brooch with another piece of felt, a brooch fastening which pierced the felt backing and clipped into place (hurray no sewing!) and some blanket stitching. Shamefully I had to google "how to blanket stitch" as I had forgotten how to do it!

I definitely want to make more of these brooches as they're fun and a great way of using up fabric scraps from previous projects. I stuck to only one fabric for this brooch as I liked the effect of the stripes, but I can't wait to try a multi fabric one. Thank you Gem for such a great design!

It looked lovely against my mustard cardigan.... and my gloriously pasty, Scottish skin. Yikes!

I used to do a fair bit of sewing, initially clothes for my barbie dolls and later cushion covers, bags, skirts and even a pair of trousers! I bought a 1970s dress pattern last year in a charity shop for 50p with the intention of doing more sewing but I have yet to find the perfect fabric. The sensible part of me wants a plain, versatile dress but my inner pattern magpie wants to buy this elephant fabric! Or perhaps this cool view finder print (any of the fabric from that site really). I also have a ridiculous urge to add ric-rac to something, especially after seeing this polka dot number on the Coletterie website.

I'm sensing the inner magpie is going to win the battle.

Strawberry cheesecake cupcakes

Now isn't that a glorious combination of words? Three very tasty things rolled into one.

I had a rather disappointing punnet of dry strawberries a few days ago so I thought I'd add them to a vanilla cupcake batter. Then I thought I'd use a cream cheese icing on top. THEN I thought I'd add crushed digestive biscuits and strawberry slices as extra decoration. The resulting cupcake was rather tasty: a golden, fluffy sponge dotted with juicy strawberry chunks and rich, creamy icing.

I wasn't sure whether using golden caster sugar instead of ordinary caster sugar would make much of a difference but it really does. Even just tasting the raw batter I could tell it was going to produce a tastier cupcake. I highly recommend using golden caster sugar, it really is lovely to use.

I used to make cream cheese icing daily for carrot cakes when I worked in a cafe, which meant I got to eat cream cheese icing every day. It was definitely a perk of the job and something I miss, along with chocolate buttercream which I also got to make and eat every day!

I'm debating making more of these but substituting the cream cheese icing for a white chocolate buttercream. Or maybe I'll just be healthy and eat the strawberries as they are!

Strawberry cheesecake cupcakes

 What I used:

Stork margarine

golden caster sugar

duck eggs

vanilla extract

self-raising flour

strawberries

Weigh two duck eggs (or two large hen eggs) and then measure out your margarine, sugar and flour separately to the same weight. The amount of strawberries you use is up to yourself, I think I used 50-75g. I probably could have put in more but I was worried that adding too much would make the cupcakes soggy, which has happened to me before.

Preheat the oven to 180C/Gas 4 and line a muffin tin with 12 cupcake cases. Beat together the margarine and sugar until light and fluffy (aim for roughly 5 minutes), add the eggs one at a time, beating well in between each addition, and a few drops of vanilla extract. Sift (if you can be bothered) the flour and carefully fold into the mixture until fully incorporated. Lastly fold in the strawberries until evenly distributed through the batter. Divide the mixture between the cases and bake on the middle shelf of the oven for roughly 20 minutes or until well risen, golden and springy to touch. Leave to cool in the tin for a few minutes before transferring to wire rack to finish cooling. For the icing I roughly followed the Hummingbird Bakery's cream cheese frosting (not making as much)and then finished the cupcakes with some digestive biscuit crumbs. Only add strawberry pieces as well if the cupcakes are going to be eaten immediately otherwise they'll go soggy and bleed colour.