French macarons

I had a wonderful friend offer to make chocolate macarons with me last Thursday. The weather really sucked and so they weren't wonderful, but luckily the company was. I even froze the finished product and then ate them the next day. Just gooey and sweet. Good but not a macaron. I WILL somehow create the perfect macarons before the end of the year. It is one of my new years resolutions after all.

Lemonade Scones

From www.recipes4us.co.uk

There's nothing like a scone with jam and cream, think devonshire tea. Very English and very delicious. We've made them twice in the last week and a bit. The lemonade scone must be the easiest scone in the world to make. Even I managed to not mess them up. The last lot I made I even had to leave the house to pick up Isabella from school before they had finished cooking. I had to leave the house, so what would you do? I turned the oven way down and left the scones in the oven for another 40 minutes. AND they still turned out okay. Yum!

I used 1 cup lemonade, 1 cup cream and 3 cups of self-raising flour. I mixed it with a knife until barely mixed together and then tipped it out onto a floured surface. The oven was preheated to 200C and I baked the scones for 20 minutes or so. I cut the scones into circles and put them close enough together so that they would be joined together when they cooked. I brushed them with milk. Super easy and super yummy.

I saw this Aussie site on food called ChocolateSuze.com and she mentioned the lovely lemonade scones. So I had to link to her! Plus she has great photos of the scones.
Here is that page.

Bake bake bake

Today I used my favorite biscuit recipe from the Simple Saving site to bake some biscuits. I also used my new Diptic app to put the photos together. The favorites of the day were the nutella and choc-chip ones.
The Recipe

Ingredients:
500g butter
1 cup sugar
1 can sweetened condensed milk
5 cups self-raising flour

Method:
1. Cream butter and sugar.
2. Add milk and flour.
3. Divide into 4 bowls.
5. Add whatever you want to each bowl.
6. Bake in preheated moderate oven for 10 minutes.
I added half a cup of nutella and choc-chips to one batch, half a cup of peanut butter to another, a teaspoon of vanilla and a pecan on top of each rolled biscuit to another, I wrapped the rest in glad wrap in logs and stuck them in the fridge for later.

Nutella and choc-chips biscuits

Peanut butter biscuits

Vanilla and pecan nut biscuits

Macarons by Magaret Fulton

Piped and ready to go in the oven. Mixture too firm.

After actually making the mixture I re-read the heading only to find out that I was making 'macaroons' or Italian Ameretti which is NOT what I wanted at all. No wonder they don't look quite right. Oh well. We'll eat them anyway! : ) Here's the recipe:
Ingredients:

2 egg whites; 1 1/3 cups freshly ground almonnds, 1 cup caster sugar, 2 tbsp icing sugar, sifted, extra icing sugar for dusting. 

Method:

Beat egg whites to a firm snow and fold in almonds and sugars. Pipe mixture on to squares of greaseproof paper in small round or oval shapes. Dust with icing sugar and leave about 4 hours. Bake macaroonss in a preheated moderately slow oven (160 C/ 325 F) for 15 minutes or until delicately browned. Cool before removing from paper squares. Store in airtight container. Makes 14 - 16.

Not like macarons at all. : (

Well I thought that this was a different way of making macarons and I really just thought that Magaret Fulton had mispelt 'macarons' as 'macaroons' in the recipe. It was only later that I read the part under the title in small type which said 'Amaretti'. Bummer!! I'll taste them tomorrow and let you know how they taste.
So my first new year's resolution to be attempted is an utter failure. Luckily I thrive on getting things right. lol

Baking for Christmas

Choc-chip biscuits made by Sammy.

Pretzel, rolo and pecans. Delicious. Recipe from Michelle. Thank you Michelle!

Macarons

I'm going to visit a friend tomorrow and wanted to take something along that I could eat too. I love making biscuits and cakes, but since I can't eat them because of a gluten intolerance I wanted to bake something that I can eat. I LOVE macarons! I've put off making them because everyone keeps going on about how difficult they are to make. So instead of seeing what exactly is difficult about them I put them in the too hard basket. I decided last week that sometime soon I was going to make them and so when I went grocery shopping last week I made sure to pick up some almond meal. It was supposed to be fine, white almond meal, but they only had the one sort and so I picked that up. Why exactly is it so expensive?

Anyway tonight I got the urge to make them and actually had all the ingredients. I didn't age the egg whites because to be quite honest I'm a little nervous of giving my family salmonella poisoning from leaving egg whites out on the counter in the Australian heat. So I just left the eggs on the counter until they had come to room temperature and then I started to get out some ingredients. I still didn't have a recipe at this point! I frantically googled macarons and started to scan through the recipes looking for one that matched how much icing sugar I had. Isn't that a smart way to choose a recipe. lol I found one eventually and then needed to modify it anyway because I didn't have any cocoa powder. I'm quite surprised that they actually worked! Here's the recipe I used.

I didn't have any flavourings so I just added pink food colouring at the end and the broken and slightly cracked  ones tasted delicious. I may have accidently on purpose broken a couple of extras. Whoops. But seriously tasty. I'm now waiting for my dear husband (who's out finishing off go-karts that the scouts made tonight but didn't finish) to buy some cream so that I can make some chocolate ganache to go into the macaroons. You have to leave the completed macarons in the fridge after you put them together overnight and so I don't want to wait until tomorrow to do them. So here I am blogging when I should be sleeping instead.
I think I'm going to try this recipe next time.

Sitting to dry out before being put in the oven.

Following along from the internet. Licked the bowl clean.

They have 'feet'! Yay!! I ate all the broken ones. Yummo!

Baking

Decorating with sprinkles.

She did her hair herself.

With chocolate!

With glace cherries.

Poor Isabella is still not quite herself, so to the oven we go for some baking and a cheer up. Nothing like warm biscuits straight from the oven with a nice cup of cold milk.
The easiest and cheapest recipe I know.
120 Biscuits (It makes close to this many!)
1 cup sugar
500g butter
1 tin sweetened condensed milk
5 cups self-raising flour
1. Cream butter and sugar and then add in tin of sweetened condensed milk.
2. Mix in flour.
3. Break up into four bowls and add your choice of stuff to them.
4. Roll into teaspoon sized balls and lay on baking sheet.
5. Bake in a moderate oven for 15 minutes or until just golden.
This recipe is not very sweet so I usually add sweet things to them. Some ideas are: choc chips, cut up dates and rolled oats, roll plain balls of dough into Milo or chocolate powder, cornflakes and sultanas, half a packed of jelly crystals. It's really up to your imagination. I sometimes roll out the biscuits and put them on a baking sheet like I'm going to bake them and then I stick the whole tray in the freezer and till they are hard. I then take the biscuits and put them into freezer bags. Next time I want some freshly baked biscuits I just take out as many biscuits from the freezer as I need, put them back onto a baking sheet and let defrost for a few minutes and then bake as normal. It makes me look much more organised than I am. I always have biscuits ready to bake for company!!

Two-Tone Choc-chip Cookies

 Preparation time: 15 minutes
Total cooking time: 12-15 minutes
Makes about 40

125g butter
1 1/2 C soft brown sugar
2 tsp vanilla essence
2 eggs, lightly beaten
2 1/2 C plain flour
1 tsp bicarb of soda
150 g dark choc bits
150 g white choc bits
1. Preheat oven to moderate. Line two trays with baking paper.
2. Using electric beaters, beat butter, sugar and essence in small bowl until light and creamy. Add eggs gradually, beating well after each addition. Transfer to a large bowl.
3. Using a metal spoon, fold sifted flour, soda and choc bits into creamed mixture; mix until smooth.
4. Drop level tablespoons of mixture onto prepared trays, allowing for spreading; flatten mixture slightly.
5. Bake 12-15 minutes or until lightly browned and cooked through. Transfer to wire rack to cool.

Mix well.


Put spoonfuls on a cookie sheet.


Bake.


Cool.

Repeat one handed until all baked. Try not to put the baby down or he will scream.