Monday, December 31, 2012

My new year's resolutions:
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Happy New Year everyone!!! Wishing you all a Happy and Prosperous start to 2013!!!!

Saturday, December 29, 2012

Bloggers Illustrated pt. 1

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Aimee Song and Charcoal of "Song of Style"



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Tosha Eason of Bambi's Armoire



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Nicole Warne of Gary Pepper Vintage

(copyright Marisa Scott for CitizenLMS)



Here are the finished Illustrations for my "Blogger's Illustrated" series!!! Happy Saturday guys! :D

Friday, December 28, 2012

M's Macarons

Hey guys!!! I hope you all are having a wonderful Holiday season with your family and friends, I got a break from traveling, working, and visiting family so I thought I would test out this macaroon recipe I came across on inspiringtheeveryday.com


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Lavender French Macaron Recipe
from http://inspiringtheeveryday.com

1 ½ cups confectioner’s sugar, sifted

1 cup plus 2 Tablespoons almond meal, sifted



3 large eggs, room temperature

¼ teaspoon cream of tartar

6 Tablespoons granular sugar

½ teaspoon vanilla extract



1/16 teaspoon purple food color paste



First off I like to have a template ready as a guide for uniform cookies. Take a piece of cardboard and trace out twenty-four circles about 1 ¾ inches in diameter. This is a good amount for a standard half sheet pan. The cardboard template should fit right inside the pan. The macarons will be piped onto parchment paper which allows the template to show through. [Preheat oven to 375ºF]

Sift the confectioner’s sugar and almond meal together. This helps remove lumps and large pieces of almonds in the meal. I prefer to sift these ingredients separately and then measure out what is needed in the recipe. Set this aside while you prepare the egg whites.

Separate the eggs, setting asides the yolks for another recipe. A good rule of thumb is to leave the eggs at room temperature overnight to cure the egg whites. The meringue behaves better this way.

Beat the egg whites until frothy, add in the cream of tartar and beat until soft peaks form.

Add sugar gradually and continue to whip the egg whites until stiff peaks form. Just before you reach this point, add the vanilla extract and colorant. You will have a little ‘whipping’ room to adjust the color before the egg white are stiff.

Fold in confectioner’s sugar and almond meal mixture into egg whites in two parts. Once all of the dry ingredients are incorporated continue to fold until the batter flows like magma when you lift the spatula. I feel that this is important, due to the fact that you want the macaron cookies to smooth out once they are piped onto the parchment.

Fill a pastry bag fitted with a quarter inch round tip with batter. To pipe a nicely shaped disk, start with the pastry bag vertical to the parchment, tip side down. The tip of the bag should be a half inch from the paper. Squeeze the batter onto the center of the circle drawing and the batter will flow towards the edge. Just as the batter reaches this point stop squeezing the bag and drag the tip in a circular motion towards the edge of the disk. This will help eliminate the peak of batter in the middle of the cookie. Repeat with the remaining circles. A word of caution, since we folded the batter to flow like magma, the batter will start flowing out of the pastry bag as soon as you turn the bag tip side down. So work quickly and with precision. It will take a few tries to be confident in this step.

To help the batter smooth out, just tap the bottom of the template. Now slide to parchment onto the sheet pan. Allow the meringue to rest for fifteen to twenty minutes. This will allow a skin to form on the macaron which will give you that signature French macaron skirt we are going for.

Reduce the temperature of the oven to 325ºF and bake the macarons for 10 minutes. Allow the macarons to cool for a few minutes on the pan before transferring them to a cooling rack. Raise the heat of the oven back to 375ºF. Once the oven is back up to temp, repeat with the reaming cookies. Remember to drop the oven temperature to 325ºF each time you bake more macarons.



Lavender Buttercream Recipe

12 Tablespoons unsalted butter, room temperature

6 Tablespoons vegetable shortening

1 ¼ cup confectioner’s sugar, sifted

1 teaspoon lavender flowers, ground

½ teaspoon vanilla extract

Beat together butter and shortening until smooth. Beat in confectioner’s sugar.

Add the remaining ingredients and place in a pastry bag with a small round tip.

Pipe a teaspoon of the buttercream on half of the macarons and gently press together with the other halves. This recipe will make two dozen macarons. Hopefully this long recipe won’t stop you from experimenting with meringue. After a few tries the process is rather enjoyable.


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I altered my recipe slightly, instead of using lavender, I flavored half of my macaroon base with almond and vanilla extract and the other half with strawberry extract.

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Hope you all enjoyed the baking post! I'm off to eat more macaroons lol ;D
xoxo
M