White chocolate and Cherry Macarons

Macarons have always been "That adorable little dessert I will never have the guts to try"... well until the tea party!

There is something about that crunchy chewy combination that is so addictive!

Since this was my first time let me go on and tell you about the funny, frustrating and finally worthwhile experience I had making these little rascals. Obviously I'm no expert at making these so I'm not entirely sure if what I did was right or wrong, and if it goes completely against what an orthodox French macaron should be ... errrr I'm terribly sorry!

So I tried very hard to be as precise as possible with my measuring. It wasn't very easy because I generally am an estimate/look and assume kind of girl. I was super determined to make it work!

The thing is after a lot of reading I wasn't so sure if I should go with egg whites aged for a day at room temperature or egg whites aged in the refrigerator for three days. Since I was short on time I went with the 1 day recipe. Have you made macarons? Which method do you use?

I followed the simple steps:
For approximately 30 macarons

• 100g ground almonds
• 200g icing sugar
• 3 egg whites (covered with cling film and aged at room temperature for a day)
• 4 tbsp granulated sugar

Sift the almond

Mix the icing sugar with the almonds

Whip the egg whites with an electric beater. When peaks start forming add the granulated sugar a tablespoon at a time till stiff peaks form. At this point you should be able to hold the bowl upside down without the eggs slipping out

Fold the beated eggs with the almond mixture

Fill a pastry bag and pipe 1" circles on parchment paper

Allow to sit for about an hour for the skin to form

Bake at 150 degrees Celsius for 10-15 mins

Once the macarons are cooled fill them with your filling of choice

Check this guide out. It has very simple and well explained steps to guide you along the way if this is your first time. Or you could check out Tartlette's amazingly very very detailed how to here.

I bought store ground almonds because I wasn't very sure how fine my grinder at home would grind whole almonds. I would say they worked fine.I should however mention that you would probably want to get your hands on some really good quality parchment paper. I used wax paper which I normally use for cookies etc and I had a horrible time because the macaroons got stuck to the paper. Fortunately I was able to save some of them.

I was so ecstatic that I was able to produce something decent at the end of the day. Extremely exhausted by the time I was done I really didn't feel up to making icing for the filling, so I just melted some white chocolate and use a bit of cherry pie filling I had made earlier. What a stroke of luck because it actually tasted great!

Cake Pops

Those of you on Facebook may know that for some time now I've wanted to make sweets for a baby shower. Not that I suddenly have the desire to be surrounded by all things baby, but mostly because I am intrigued by making all things miniature. Having followed Bakarella's blog for so long I finally got around to making cake pops! I probably should have made them a long time ago but other than the cake ball itself it is impossible to find the rest of the ingredients here in Oman. There is no way you'd come across candy coatings, funky sprinkles or even ready made fondant...... other than Dr Oetkers's White Regal-Ice Ready to Roll Icing! Now I came across this very recently and I solemnly hope that I continue to find it here. At least there is this and compared to reliving my horrible attempt at making pouring fondant, this is a life saver! Oh the effort and the mess.... no definitely NOT making fondant again!!

I used a white cake and mixed in classic chocolate icing. Now that I think of it, I probably should have used velvet cake, as it would have looked much nicer to bite into. However when I was making the cake I had no idea what the outside was going to look like so chocolate cake it was!

see! cute little baby girl pops :D

Making these cake pops have completely been based on me using what ever I could find. Didn't have Styrofoam so I used a white pizza box :D.... Didn't have any molds so I used a cookie cutter for the flower and cut the bows out with a knife. To add the tiny details I used..... pottery tools!! Im not saying that having the right tools is unnecessary, but if you are going for something super simple like these you wont need a lot.

What I initially wanted to do was make white and pink polka dotted pops, but that was almost impossible without the right cutters. So there you go. If you can find them buy the right tools and surely you'd be able to come up with really creative and neat my father keeps pointing out that my pops are irregularly shaped x) cake pops!

I told the sister-in-law that I needed her to hold the cake pops so I could get some pictures. She got super excited as you can see, got all dressed up :D earrings and all 

I've got some marzipan left from a pound cake I made sometime back so I think I'm going to try and make more cake pops before I leave.  I want a duck mold to make duck pops.. Has anyone seen one around?

 

Happy cake popping!