All in the Name of Research

So, I was looking at things in the baking section of the supermarket the other day, and what do you suppose i saw...

Anyway, out I curiosity I bought them...well, the packet. And I just made some...straight after my dud chocolate ones. I wanted to see the difference. You know what, there is not a huge difference to the ones I made with the packet mix and my own. In fact, these ones are a bit too sweet. Some of them still cracked too...hmmm..

Mine (the baked from scratch ones) are the dark ones and the Donna Hay ones are paler. Obviously, this photo was taken before filling...I just wanted you to see. I think I'll keep baking from scratch...what do you think.

All Aboard the Mac Train

I have been meaning to write this post for so long now...finally I have got myself into gear to actually do it!!

I've started to dabble in the art of macaron baking! I love these, and I hate them all at the same time. The are so temperamental to make it's not funny. It all seems so easy, they don't look that hard to make, but yeah...looks can be deceiving!

My first attempt I consider a success.

Chocolate macarons. They had a nice crust on the outside and were nice and soft on the inside. They developed the all important macaron feet on baking and did not crack. Most importantly, they were yum!

Attempt number two was ok. I upped the anti on these and decided to make a pistachio macaron. I made a batch of pistachio meal and went from there.

These didn't rise as much as the chocolate ones. I put that down to the different nut meal used, given that everything else I did was the same as before.

Attempt number three had mixed results. This time I tried making coconut macarons. Some of the batch were good, and the rest cracked and were flat.

The macarons shown here are the successes out of attempt 3.

Attempt 4. Why not try chocolate again, they worked before. Blah...not photo worthy at all. Even though they had small feet, they cracked and didn't rise all that much...nonetheless, I will not let the Mac beat me!!!