The Macaron Chronicles... Part 1

So the macaron scene is blowing up. Cupcakes are so yesterday.

Whatever, I always like a challenge. Apparently they are really hard to make. Challenge accepted.

Yvonne told me that she attempted it 16 times and failed 16 times. That kinda scared me from making it and I resisted for a bit. But then I promised to make Miss Anna Banana a farewell cake and it was a cake for her and Josh. And therefore, it had to be (well, should be unisex). Her words to me were "If all fails, make a pink cake".

I came across this cake, from make-fabulous-cakes.com and I thought that it was amazing! While it was pink and girly, I thought that it was elegant and fabulous enough to get me over the line. Unfortunately, that meant that I had to attempt macarons. No time like the present though!

Photo credit

So first, as with most things, I did my research. I watched some "How to make macarons" videos on youtube, and went looking for a recipe. I finally found some for some chocolate macarons (I decided to make a pink cake with chocolate macarons as I didn't have any pink food colouring) and I found this recipe from David Lebowitz's website. The taste of the batter was delicious! And the end taste was delicious as well. Unfortunately, the macarons failed because:

a) I could not follow a simple instruction; and
b) I adopted the Australian "She'll be right" approach.

The result was an epic fail. They were starting to show some feet though - so I must try again.

Cracks and the tiniest sign of feet - hmmmm....

So why does my macaron have this shape? It was because I only had the swirly nozzle, so I thought that it would be fine to use. As you can see from the photo, it was NOT.

I liked the taste though.

My second attempt was thwarted by a rogue oven, who refused to work (but if I wanted to tell the truth, I stuffed up the timer). All I got were rock hard chocolate buttons and I nearly took out a tooth tasting it!

Hard. As. Rocks.

So is third time the charm? Sort of. Once again, the stupid nozzle got the better of me. I had the tiniest nozzle and I had massive problems trying to squeeze the batter out (which could be an indication of crap batter, but this was the same recipe as the first one - and it was delicious!). So my patience got the better of me, so I ditched the piping bag and grabbed a couple of spoons ( I don't actually know why I think that my method would be better than proven tried and tested methods!!!) and plonked them on the baking tray. And behold. They failed too.

Although two of them (which I piped with great difficulty through a stupid tiny nozzle) grew feet! Looks like I have to attempt it one more time!!!

Photographic evidence:

Feet! They have feet!!!

It better work on my fourth try.

Oh, and in case you guys are wondering - this was the farewell cake I ended up making (sorry Josh, but I did put a blue ribbon for you!)