Happy Easter

I love Easter because it's usually sunny and it marks the beginning of spring and the countdown until summer.

Tomorrow I go back to school for my very last quarter before graduation. Next year I will be celebrating Easter in Paris.

Lemon and strawberry macarons for the Easter family party.

My favorite colors. Skirt and sweater from J. Crew.

A manicure to match my outfit. 

Pink Easter eggs!

PEEPS.

Lois and me at the Easter Sunday service. 

Hope everyone has a lovely Easter!

XOLily

Five Things

1. Doing the Big Climb for the third year in a row with Em.

2. Going on motorcycle rides with my dad.

3. Home-made chocolate peanut butter cups. They were delicious!

4. My new motorcycle helmet: a reward for getting my motorcycle permit.

5. Doctor Who Season 7 Part 2!!! (I already love the Clara Oswin Oswald, she's FAB)

XOLily

Haiku Wednesday: Supernatural Edition

An ode to my newest favorite TV series:

Today was well spent
watching Supernatural,
eating macarons.

This show is so fab.
I'm only on Season Three.
There are eight seasons...

I cannot decide
which Winchester I like best:
sweet Sam or brave Dean?

They are both lovely
and you can probably see
that I am obsessed.

(Well, maybe not obsessed, more just fangirl status)

XOLily

PS: I still haven't finished Season 5 of Merlin, I have watched every episode except for the last two becuase I don't want Arthur to die! :(

Macaron Madness Day Two

My second try at making macarons was a huge improvement. Learning from the mistakes I made yesterday, I quickly perfected my technique and the macarons turned out lovely.

I changed the quantities I used on ingredients based on this recipe from Pop Sugar and I bought some plastic pastry bags from JoAnn's to help make the macarons into more perfect circles.

The crucial step: add the flour mixture a little bit at a time and fold to incorporate. 

The batter was a lot more smooth this time because I used less almond meal and I sifted it twice after putting it through the food processor. This helped to create the shiny texture of the batter.

Much better looking than yesterday!

I'm not very skilled at using pastry bags: next time I'll
remember that all of the batter does not fit into one bag!

Now that I've tried, I realized that making macarons really isn't that difficult, it just takes a little practise.

Maybe later this week I will try a different flavor. (The pistachio macarons I had in Paris were wonderful!)

The little ruffle around the bottom is called
the "pied" which is "foot" in French.

A little strawberry buttercream in the middle and voila!
The perfect macaron.

Not only did I make perfect macarons today, I also
made my own peanut butter cups! YUM.

 






















All in all, today's baking experience was a success. And now I have some delicious snacks for the Supernatural Marathon I am having tomorrow with my friend Liz!


XOLily

Macaron Madness

Well I haven't blogged in ages which goes to show that new year's resolutions are useless. BUT: It is now spring break which means I have all the time in the world and I have taken on a challenge.

At first, I was going to do a different craft each day and blog about it, but like usual I set my bar way too high and am now bringing it down.

Today's craft was to make French macarons...

What they're supposed to look like...

I first experienced these lovely little desserts last summer in Paris, when my friends and I went crazy over them in a little shop in Montmartre and ever since then I have been wanting to try to make some of my own.

After a little internet purusing, I found a pretty good recipe here and ignored all of the warnings about how incredibly difficult it is to make macarons.

Don't be fooled, I took a picture of the most mess-free area of the kitchen.
The rest looked like a war-zone. 

It was going pretty well until I added the almond flour/ powdered sugar mixture which made the batter incredibly lumpy because I hadn't put the dry ingredients through the food processor.

It got worse when I realized that one needs a pastry bag to put the macarons on the baking sheet. Using a spoon worked, but it was not nearly as neat.


After they came out of the oven, I had some hope that they might have turned out alright. I made strawberry buttercream (they didn't have any rose syrup at the store so I went with strawbery flavoring instead).

Until I bit into one with a loud crunch. (For those of you who have not had macarons before, they are NOT supposed to be cruchy!)

I had overbaked them.

Final product: Not so good. 

Not only had I overbaked them but they looked absolutely ridiculous because of my lack of pastry bags.

They didn't have the little ruffle on the bottom and many of the tops had cracks, as well as the lumps from my lumpy flour mixture.

I think I can only improve from here.


After today's macaron disaster I have decided to spend all of my time this week perfecting my macarons making skills. Starting tomorrow I will:

1. Figure out how to work the food processor.
2. Buy pastry bags with the right type of nozzle. (Maybe they have them at a craft supply store like JoAnn's?)
3. Sift the flower properly.
4. Watch the baking time!

Will keep you updated

XXXX Lily