Shortbread Oddity

Today we're traveling from France to England to make some shortbread.

I love shortbread, I especially love Lorna Doone which is a brand of especially scrumptious shortbread but I don't really hold out hopes that mine will turn out in any way close to that buttery goodness.

So first things first, cornstarch and flour
INTO THE BOWL
 
Apologies for this sideways picture but you get the general idea.

Now after this was where I was supposed to cream together softened butter with granulate sugar.

My butter being cold I decided to soften it in the microwave at about 20 second intervals. Just to be safe.
Well I went 20 too many because I partially melted my butter. Yikes

Still though, I balanced it out by adding in a bit more sugar to cream it all together and get a mostly okay consistency to add to the dry mix.

I also added chocolate chips because the recipe called for that and also it seemed like a really tasty idea.

After this was all done I was instructed to divide the dough and let it chill for about 25 minutes.

You guys wanna watch a show or something? Holler if you need anything

With nothing to do until this was done I wandered away to watch Arrested Development.

And then it was time to roll it out

and cut out the rounds with a drinking glass

and throw some more chips on top for good measure

and let it allllllllllllllllllllllllllllll cook up.

It smelled awesome of course

and then they came out and well...
well
weeeeeeeeeeeellllll




The shape and consistency is a bit off as you can see. The bottoms spread out a bit and browned up a bit more due to the melted butter but they still taste mostly how they should.

 
mmmmmmmmmmmmm chocolate

My mom once told me that when she used to practice tarot on her friends, shortbread would always help her regain her energy. I'll have to try it. What a tasty cure for spiritual fatigue.

Making a Macaron

So why not start this baking-venture with an extremely difficult and temperamental confection eh?

Over the holidays I decided that it would be a grand idea to make French Macarons as a gift for my grandfather.

For those who are unsure, macarons are those tiny sandwich looking cookies while macaroons are made of egg white, sugar, and coconut.

I used to work at an adorable patisserie called "Melita Fiore." My old boss, who is the pastry chef and owner, makes the best macarons I've ever had. I used to help filling macarons a lot so I got a pretty good idea of how to handle them in assembly, but I'd always wanted to make some of my own.

First of all I've never attempted to make these partially due to the cost. Almond flour, which is an absolute necessity in this recipe can be a bitch to find and is sooooooo not cheap.

Luckily my mother is very kind.

My first attempt was um...well

Mistake #1
     looked at the part of the recipe that said to process the confectioner's sugar with the almond flour and then sift it and said "PSSSSSSHHHH WHAT DO THEY KNOW? I'VE ALREADY GOT THE ALMOND FLOUR NOT GROUND ALMONDS. THEREFORE I DON'T NEED TO SIFT ANYTHING."

Yes.

Yes I did.


Fools rush in.

Mistake #2
      "LET'S JUST BUILD UP A GRADUAL SPEED WHILE TRYING TO WHIP EGG WHITES AND YOU KNOW WHAT ELSE? LET'S DO IT IN A PLASTIC BOWL"



That was my result after literally...tens of minutes of beating those eggs. I was ready to cry in frustration.



After a bit it finally started getting somewhere and I thought "eh, good enough right?"

Not right.


Once upon a time I was not so good at following directions while I baked. Many recipes will tell you certain steps and stages to add ingredients. I tended to go "You are food. Time to blend together. Stop arguing."

While I've since learned, mostly, another part of that is making sure that each ingredient is more or less at the state that the recipe tells you to get it to.

For example, if the recipe says your egg whites should be shiny and holding soft peaks...they damn well better be shiny and holding soft peaks before you decide to ruin your almond flour concoction.


This isn't a good look. 0/10. Would not recommend.

I realized this was fucking terrible. BUT I held a hope that I could still do...something with it.

I didn't take pictures because it wasn't pretty. Suffice to say I just had a mess of a batter that was desperately trying to be macaron shells on my cookie sheet.

Not wishing to admit defeat (and having no back up plans for a present) I pressed on the next day, endeavoring to fix the mistakes I had already made.

 
Into the bladed death machine you go almond flour



It's still not perfect but hey, this is way better than that monstrosity of almond flecks I made before.

This time I whipped my egg whites up in a glass bowl as recommended and they immediately puffed up to size. I think I felt my heart expand with them.


And they say the Grinch's heart grew 3 sizes that day.


Ooh baby, look at those soft peaks.

And then I folded it all in together and added some yellow dye as my ORIGINAL plan was lemon flavored macarons.


It's just...it's just so smooth. So pretty. Like a ribbon.

Then it was messily into the pastry bag (still haven't gotten the hang of even semi-neatly filling those up) to be piped into tiny circles and left to "rest"


Have a nice nap babies.

Then they came out.

I almost cried.


LOOK AT THEM
LOOK AT HOW NICE THEY CAME OUT

I mean obviously there are a few imperfect ones. They've got cracks from bubbles in the crust but for a first attempt I do have to say daaaaamn.


Flawless. Who is she?

I had to snapchat about it, like ya do.

Also shout out to my phone for taking such a good close up.

So the shells didn't turn out as yellow as I had hoped they might, and I realized we did not, in fact, have lemon juice like I assumed that we did.

TIME FOR SOME PROBLEM SOLVING

I KNOW

COFFEE.

So that was the flavor I settled on. Using a cup of black coffee I made a really nicely flavored coffee buttercream. The sugar and butter really cut the strength of the flavor, giving it a nice very light coffee and cream taste.


Tastes better than it looks?


Yaaaaas


YAAAAAAAAAAASSSS

Only a few actually came out perfect, perfect. I was pretty smug and pleased with myself though.

I had a tester and it actually tasted quite good.

Some things to work on though would be that some of them were a bit larger than I would've liked. They were also a bit softer and more delicate than they should've been. Macarons are already delicate, these however were a touch more fragile.

All things that can be worked on when I make them again. At some point. In the distant future.



Eventually.



P.S.
times I wrote "macaron" or "macarons" : 7 (LEARN TO USE PRONOUNS ELEANORA)

Welcome

Hello, hello and welcome to my baking blog.

What makes my baking blog stand out from all the other baking blogs you might ask? Nothing. Go away, I'm not interviewing for a job here.
Anyway, this right here is where I will share my funtime baking adventures yay.

It's not really going to be just willy-nilly recipes you see, I have... A BOOK.

A BOOK ELEANORA?!? WHY YES READERS A BOOK

 It's a big freakin book lemme tell ya. I got it on sale at a craft store and it's got all the recipes sectioned off by country and region. So it's pretty grand.

Then I thought
"self, why don't you try to work your way through this big book 'o' recipes on a blog?"

"Why self, that's a lovely idea, I think I'll do that."

It's a bit "Julie&Julia" I realize, however I am giving myself no time limit because that's A LOT of baking and I can't expect my family to eat this entire book in like a year.

Also I welcome reader suggestions on recipes. You see, the book has one flaw in that there isn't room for every recipe from every country or region of the world and subsequently some sections only get about 3 recipes whereas other areas that I'm sure have a history of baking are not included at all.

So if you'd like to tell me about a recipe or explain to me some baking customs and history from different areas I'd love to learn them.

Also, as a disclaimer before I end this intro post I need to let everyone who reads this know that I don't promise to use family friendly language at all times. And well...that's all really.

See ya