Obsession

It's incredibly frustrating not to remember the email address to this blog, and of course, the password. Hence the incredibly long hiatus. Welcome to 2012! Ho hum. The above is my nephew's SECOND birthday cake. It's the Ninky Nonk from In The Night Garden. Kind of sans a few details, namely because I discovered that     despite a good range of browns, golds and apricot - I somehow did not have any RED food colouring. Primary colour and I don't have it. The red in the above came from those multi-pack of coloured sugar pastes. Also the purple food colouring turned the icing grey-black so I couldn't use it and I ran out of icing sugar! Therefore for me there was a distinct kind of let down. Sigh. The harsh and critical eye of the cake maker. The sponge (just the green ones - the rest are propped up biscuits) was vanilla, filled with some calafate jam. I went to Argentina and we bought some jam - guaranteed to get you back to Patagonia... or so the legend has it....

There's a long running feud of macarons, which apparently is between Laduree and Hermes. Since Hermes recently crashlanded in Selfridges, I finally got round to trying them. In a nutshell, don't do it!! Haa... Opinions do differ though and I have a friend who believes Hermes has the crown, but to me? They are overstuffed nuggets. The name of the flavour is more interesting than the taste, and the ultimate test - the salted caramel for me, just doesn't live up to Laduree's delicate and pleasing nibble. Packaging wise, the bag was a bit trashy (unpictured because I was that offended :P ) a white bag with leaf cut outs. Too primary school for me compared to Laduree's "Marie Antoinette shops here" style bag. The box, well I had to ask specifically for a box than a plastic bag, was nicer than the Laduree one because it was good and solid, but I can probably find the solid ones at Laduree too. And so, the little overstuffed little suckers sit. Costing well over ...