Adventures in Baking..MACARONS! With the Great Ethan Allen

So this weekend Cheryl and I attempted to make some Macarons.   Not to be confused with macaroons,   (Even the BOOK spelled it wrong!) 

Macarons are a delicate French concoction that costs a fortune in the store,  provided you have a store in your STATE that sells them.  ( Iowa lacks these little gems, BTW)

So,  the recipe is quite simple, calling for crushed almonds and meringue with sugar.   Then add the flavor of your choice.   The first few did not turn out as well as we had liked.  The paper curled up and messed up the tops.  Also,  It took me two attempts to get the meringue to turn out correctly.   There is additionally this little trick to allow the domes to form by leaving them out for almost an hour before baking them.  

In the end,  they looked bad, but tasted great!   Our second attempt was much more successful, but we forgot to take pictures of those. 

Anyway,  we also made some BLT's with fish bread.   Similar to a pita bread,  the goldfish bread was quite yummy!  Even the cats thought so!

 

 I'm not sure what our plans are for this weekend,  as sales have begun to trickle in, but Cheryl wants to bring Macaron happiness to the people at ACT on the last day of the MCAT.  I'm sure we will be perfecting out baking skills on Sunday...and perhaps we will post better pics of them then.   We shall see.

Preparing for Thanksgiving!

It has been raining most of the day today, so I didn't get into carving, but I really didn't have much time for that anyway. Tonight is getting ready for Thanksgiving with the In laws. So I was put in charge of cookies, dishes, and free origami for Cheryl's Stockings/wristlet orders. While I was working at the table, folding and stamping, the opossum came to visit us outside the glass door. This one was pretty small and cute. We gave him some chicken bones to nibble on. So cute! Well, Tomorrow will most likely be lost in the carving department. But visiting family is not all that bad. Usually....