Obsession

I've been trying to do macarons for awhile, (okay I've tried like twice?) and I think this actually worked. Funnily enough though, the should-have-been-a-failure ended up better than the ones that were text-booked. The recipe I followed was as follows here . It's the one in the comments which I reproduce here. 110g icing sugar 60g ground almonds (sift these together after whizzing down to a fine powder in a food processor) Then beat up 60g egg whites (usually 2 eggs' worth) with 40g caster sugar and a LITTLE bit of food colouring (a tiny dot of the gel stuff is much better and more intense than the liquid stuff), untill you have a firm, shiny meringue. Fold this gently, a third at a time, into the almond mixture. DON'T overmix; when it's just incorporated part the mixture with your spoon - it should slowly flow back together like 'molten lava' might. (If you can picture such a thing) Then pipe circles by holding your piping bag still and squeezing it a ...

So it was the tenth anniversary of this web forum I belong to - see right for link, and we were asked if we would consider making some cakes to mark the occasion. Much stress!! There were two practice cakes where I tried to make a chocolate gateau, but finally decided that the chocolate mousse filling would make it incredibly difficult to eat on serviettes. But, here it is finally. Despite dropping my ipod on the "y" in "Anniversary when I put on my coat on the train (it landed on the clingfilm which I think saved it from being squished completely!). Despite the pouring rain and Piccadilly Circus closing most of it's exits because of the flooding. Despite me wrangling for my umbrella and mobile with cake boxes in each hand. It made it through the storm!!! The cake itself is a Vanilla Buttermilk Cake from Sky High Cakes. I've made it before but for cupcakes (the lemon jam centre ones). This time I did try to emulate cake flour to an extent by replacing two tablesp...