Citrus pOp has been restocked with lots more earrings. They are popular little things and I am glad you guys love wearing them 🙂 I’m thinking that my ears may be pierced by the end of the year, when I eventually pluck up the courage to do it!!
Browsing Category
Make It Perfect
The number of “have to read” blogs out there is getting a little overwhelming! Every now and then I have to go through and cull my blogroll so that I only include blogs I love to read or else I spend all of my time reading blog after blog and it all gets a bit addictive and ridiculous.
I have, however, recently found Kind Over Matter, a lovely blog full of kind acts, great links and inspirational projects.
Recently, Leanne’s Art Prints were included in their Positive Printables round up. How lovely is that? Thankyou Kind Over Matter 🙂
P.S. We are off to Sydney today (minus the children) for a few days. I’ve got a few posts scheduled for while we are away but if I don’t end the giveaways on the days I was supposed to, you now know why 🙂
I think I have a thing for coconut at the moment…summer is calling me 🙂 This slice is tasty but very sweet so only cut small pieces!
Coconut Rough Slice
1/3 cup self-raising flour
1/3 cup plain flour
2 Tbs cocoa
2/3 cup coconut
3/4 cup brown sugar
90g butter, melted
250g milk chocolate, melted
Filling
1 1/2 cups icing sugar
1 1/2 cups coconut
2 Tbs cocoa
2/3 cup condensed milk
75g butter, melted
1 tsp vanilla
Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius. Grease and line a slice tray with baking paper.
Combine flours, cocoa, coconut, sugar and butter. Press mixture evenly over the base of the pan. Bake about 20 minutes. Cool 15 minutes.
Combine all filling ingredients in a bowl.
Spread filling evenly over warm base. Top with melted chocolate. Cut into slices when chocolate is just about set to prevent chocolate cracking.
Refrigerate 2 hours or until firm.
They worked!!! My macaron quest was successful. Not perfect, but it wasn’t a total disaster either and they tasted SO good!
When I went to the Lindt Chocolate Cafe, the coconut flavour was my favourite so I thought I would try coconut first. I have to admit that I did a LOT of reading and research when I was preparing myself to make them and it did get a bit confusing. There are many awesome pro-cooking blogs out there that give tedious step-by-step instructions and dozens of warnings that these are going to be super difficult to make. After reading a few different approaches, I kind of amalgamated what I thought to be the most important points and ended up following Tartlettes basic recipe for the base.
The taste and texture was awesome. If you haven’t tried one, try one ASAP…a good macaron is crunchy on the outside and really chewy on the inside, definitely not the texture I was expecting when I first bit into one. The thing I like about macarons, is that they are a really sweet treat so you can’t eat a lot at one time (trust me, been there…felt really sick afterwards!) A few in a little box make a great gift for a friend and they look really cool sitting together on a plate for morning or afternoon tea.
Next up, I want to try some coloured versions..maybe some green pistachio ones?
Apparently mastering the “feet” on the bottom edges of the macaron can be a little difficult. Mine aren’t perfect and maybe it was just beginners luck, but I got feet! I need to work out why the tops of my macarons didn’t end up as flat and smooth as they are supposed to be…mine had little pointed tops that didn’t flatten out. I think I read somewhere that may be due to slight undermixing the mixture?
I want to make a couple more batches and try and iron out the kinks, and then I’ll share my “how to” with you. My aim is to try and come up with a base recipe that you can add your own colours/flavours to that is easy to follow and (hopefully) fool proof. Wish me luck again!
