Not posh enough for Macaroons...

Left with an empty house and a cupboard full of ingredients, yesterday morning, once again turned into a bake-fest. Ive been meaning to try to make macaroons for a while now, I've never tasted them so if they turn out badly who's to know? :p 

For my first time making these little sweet treats I stuck to a simple recipe...

• 125g/4.5oz icing sugar
• 125g/4.5oz ground almonds
• 90g/3.5oz egg whites
• 2 tbsp water
• 110g/4oz caster sugar
• food colouring (optional)
• Nutella/double or whipped cream for filling

1. Preheat the oven to 170C/325F/Gas 5 and line a baking tray with greaseproof paper.
2. Put the icing sugar, ground almonds and 40g/1.5oz of egg whites together in a large bowl and mix to a paste. (This takes a lot of elbow grease!)
3. Put the water and the caster sugar in a small pan and heat gently to melt the sugar, then turn up the heat and let it boil until the mixture starts to go syrupy and thickens.
4. Whisk the remaining 50g/2oz of egg whites until stiff peaks begin to form when the whisk is taken out and then add the syrup mixture and whisk again until "peaky". This is when you should add a few drops of food colouring if you where going to. Tip this mixture into the almond paste from earlier and stir gently until it becomes stiff and shiny again.
5. Spoon the mixture into a piping bag and pipe a little mixture on the corner s of the baking sheet to stop it curling. Pipe 24, 4cm flat circles onto the paper about 2cm apart. The piping with leave a small tip on each one so with a wet finger gently push this flat again to stop burning.
6. Leave the tray to stand for 30 mins, allowing them to form skins and then bake in the oven for 12-15 mins until firm. Leave the paper with the macaroons on to cool.
7. When ready, sandwich the two halves of the macaroon together with the Nutella or cream. They last for a few days after being made, if they haven't been eaten by then! :D

Enjoy making these posh little treats! :)

x

A healthy snack you ask? Well, it has fruit on it...

Sure enough this half term my baking cravings have kicked in :D So in honour of "being healthy" I tried to find a recipe that is fruity. I could only find raspberry muffin recipes but I just wasn't feeling it so i substituted in blueberries just for a colourful change :)

To make these delicious blueberry muffins you will need:

(Muffins)

• 180g/6oz butter
• 180g/6oz caster sugar
• 180g/6oz plain flour
• 1 heaped tsp baking powder
• 3-4 tsp milk
• 2 large eggs
• 150g blueberries

(Icing)

• 125g/4oz softened butter
• 250g/8oz icing sugar
• 1 tbsp milk
• 12 blueberries
• 1 drop of blue food colouring

1. Start by pre-heating the oven to 180C/350F/Gas4 and line a 12 hole baking tray with paper muffin cases.
2. Place all of the cupcake ingredients into a food processor and mix well until even. Add more milk if necessary to get the mixture to a soft drop consistency.
3.  Put 1 spoonful of the mixture into each of the muffin cases and then add 2/3 blueberries. then add another spoonful of the cake mixture.
4. Bake the muffins for 15-20 minutes until they have risen and are golden brown in colour. remove the tray from the oven and leave on a tray for 10 minutes until cool.
5. Meanwhile, beat the butter in a bowl until light and fluffy, carefully stirring in the icing sugar. Beat in the milk and the food colouring.
6. Then the muffins are ready to decorate with the icing and the remaining blueberries.

Hope you enjoy making these:) I got a piping bag set for christmas from my boyfriend so i recommended that using one would improve the outcome:p I just haven't mastered using it yet. Let me know in the comments section how your attempts went :)

x

The wonderful thing about tiggers...

For all you readers out there I'm giving you some pre-warning: I have a lotttt of animals! So expect to see a lot of mischeivious kitty, lunatic doggie, noisy birdie and frankly boring tortoise pictures as well as hearing a lot of there escapades :D

The most recent addition to our overly large family is Simba the now 12 week old tabby kitten. Yes, fittingly felinely named after the character from "The Lion King"after consideration of TC, (Top Cat), or Bobby.

Oh no! don't be deceived by those tiny features. In the few weeks he's been with us it looks like anyone who is seen leaving the house has been attacked by a wild big cat. those little needle like teeth and claws can do some damage. 

I guess if I'm introducing members of the animal family I should start with the largest characters first.

Benjy is our black and tan short haired German Shepherd who is nearly 2 years old, although by the way he scrabbles around he doesn't realise it! He's fully grown and has the mental abilities of a 6 month old puppy and he can really throw his weight around the house :D

When we first got him, we didn't know what we were letting ourselves in for but now i suspect that his older adoptive brother is wondering "what the hell happened!". He is the most loyal, well behaved pooch I've had the pleasure of living with and he cheers me up to no end!

Casper (the friendly ghost) is Benjy's supposed mentor as he himself is a long haired white german Shepherd. 

At nearly 11 years old his temper wears thin with his little bro as well as anyone who enjoys laughing at him or pulling his tail. Don't mess with him! :p

Finally there's Boozie, the most satanic cat I have ever seen, in his spare time teasing the dogs and eating up Simba. 

I admit, he has his moments like when there's the prospect of getting fed tidbits or when he wants to go outside but apart from that, not a people person :P

Well, those are the main guys. the cocktails aren't too photogenic when the constantly spit at the camera lens and Loulou our male tortoise (after an unfortunate gender incident) is in hibernation. Not much point in showing you a picture of a box. Now you know about a group of animals with some real personality.

x

Hmmm... Is this a wise decision?

Hello world, yes well so I've decided to start writing a blog and as you can probably guess, I have no clue what I am doing! This is one of my many attempts to amuse myself by trying new things and from previous experience, none of them last very long but hopefully this is a pattern breaker. I've been totally inspired by some of the other blogs out there that grip me with their weekly posts, I doubt I'll ever be that good or lead such an interesting life but, hey, it worth a try right? 

So, here it goes, wish me luck and I hope you enjoy your experience! :)

x