Definition of a fool: 4. an ardent enthusiast who cannot resist an opportunity to indulge an enthusiasm (usually prec. by a present participle)

Definition of obsessed: adjective of verb obsessed. 1. to dominate or preoccupy the thoughts, feelings, or desires of (a person); beset, trouble, or haunt persistently or abnormally: Suspicion obsessed him.

It was clear, I was a fool and I was obsessed with macarons. The proof was in the pudding or the baking as it was. My obsession with baking macarons was getting out of hand. It was the idea of taming these temperamental sweet little French creatures had me making lot after lot of these. Sure they tasted fantastic, but they were missing the foot. Why oh why, or where oh where were the feet, my tortured mind asked? My very first batch making them with this oven worked just fine. But for the last few batches I had literally lost my footing, the prized frill at the bottom of the macaron that bakers seek. I tried a few recipes that I found on various blogs and none of them worked and neither did the Nigella recipe that had always worked for me.

Then It came to me when I was thinking about it (and remember that I was obsessed so I was thinking about it a lot). I kept my almond meal in the fridge. Was this the culprit? I tried having all my ingredients at room temperature and a new recipe from the blog A La Cuisine which seemed to produce some great frilly feet and lo and behold, after much nervousness and pacing back and forth in front of the oven, my feet came back! I was no longer footless! There were some things, some may call them superstitions, that I feel helped.

• Use good quality baking trays, double them up if you need to
• Draw circles in pencil on parchment but flip it over, don’t pipe directly onto the pencil
• Separate and age your egg whites. That is, separate the eggs the day before and allow them to thicken at room temperature. I covered them with a sieve so that bugs couldn’t get in. It is also Winter here so it doesn’t get very warm.
• Use everything at room temperature.
• Be sure not to over or under mix. OK that could be a stupid thing to say but I suspect I was undermixing, stopping when they were just combined and I think I should have kept mixing a bit more.

The reason why I wanted to make these was to practice this technique of paintbrushing a pattern on top. It’s always best to try this out on a piece of paper before embarking on painting your precious macarons. I found it easiest to dip the tip of the paintbrush into the colouring, then blot it on the side of the bowl and then place it on the left side of the macaron holding it for a second or two before whipping it lightly across. It’s all trial and error though and no doubt you’ll end up with your own beautifully artistic version of a sweep. And with that I’ll book myself back into macaron rehab. I thought I had kicked the habit but it appears the urge is as strong as ever.

Tell me Dear Reader, what obsessions or foolishness have you had? And are you cured? Or are you happy not being cured?

Click here to read the full story

I have to confess something, I cheated on this Valentines Day. Not in any matrimonial sense, but in a cooking sense. I used the same macaron batter mix for these Strawberry and Red peppercorn macarons as I did for another macaron recipe. Given the high temperatures I couldn’t bear to do much baking and I thought that killing two birds (or in this case dishes) with the one mix would do.

We don’t do anything particularly huge for Valentines Day as our wedding anniversary is only a couple of weeks afterwards. This year we’re celebrating by going to New Zealand’s South Island (if anyone has any tips on the South Island I’d love to hear them). Still we felt the need to celebrate it in some way so what better way than with food. Sure, Valentines Day is, like weddings, pretty much for the girl in the relationship. I had a debate with my husband about Valentines Day – he asked what we were doing and I reeled off a list of girly themed things including movies, food and perhaps a picnic, weather permitting. He asked why there weren’t any guy things scheduled and, exasperated I reiterated that Valentines Day is really a female thing. That’s why things are shaped like hearts, not power tools.

However Men, at the very least, if you whipped these up, you would score some major points with the woman in your life and for many men, that’s about as romantic a notion as you would get. I have to say though that for all of his bloke-isms, my husband is a romantic where it counts. My engagement ring was one thing that I was thrilled and surprised by. We were never the couple that people would have pictured together, yet somehow it works. And another unlikely pair that is said to go well together is strawberries and peppercorns and for this occasion what better shade of pepper to use than pink peppercorns.

Click here to read the full story

Macaron. A single word to strike fear and lust into the hearts of baking enthusiasts, myself included. These small desirous goodies are temperamental and prone to inducing obsessive like behaviour in otherwise normal people. I’ve made these a couple of times, based on a Martha Stewart recipe but they were never brilliant and were ridiculously hard to remove from the parchment. So like an abused baking enthusiast, I would curl into a foetal position whenever someone suggested I make them again.

I did find this recipe, one of the many, many post it noted, in How to be a Domestic Goddess and with a bounty of beauteous green and pink hued pistachios set about breaking the curse. I did experience some bad luck while making these. Indeed there was a pistachio shell amongst the shelled pistachios which found its way to the bottom of the piping bag rendering it stuck. And can I tell you something you probably already knew, reaching your hand into the rough, stickily sweet raw macaron mixture is not at all pleasuresome. I think sticking my hand in it ruined the beautiful lightness of the mix too and the best looking ones were the ones that I piped before the shell blocked the pipe.

The ones that I placed on the top tray of the oven were beautiful-and joy to behold, with the frilly foot! But they were also more caramel shaded than green. I had turned down my fan forced oven to 160c. The ones in the middle oven tray were a light green but they also cracked in the middle but also with the frilly foot! Sorry to go on about the frilly foot but I was terribly happy to see them, particularly since the ones in Domestic Goddess didn’t really have any. Also the recipe was supposed to make 40 single macarons (20 welded together) but mine only produced 15 single macarons. Perhaps mine were a lot bigger at 6cms diameter which is not huge by any means but perhaps Nigella means mini macarons. In any case I halved the buttercream quantities and came out with the correct amount of buttercream for my macarons.

I also took the advice of macaron obsessive David Lebovitz who amusingly documents his macaron baking adventures here. He suggests “rapping the baking sheet hard on the countertop to flatten the batter before baking” which I did. I can only presume that it helped with the frilly foot as Nigella didn’t suggest this and her pictured ones didn’t have them. He found that leaving them to develop a shell didn’t help his cause but Nigella’s recipe only required waiting for 10 minutes so I figured I may as well do that while preheating the oven.

On the left hand side, paler green but cracked macarons baked on the middle tray, on the right hand side, the darker macrons not cracked baked on the top oven tray

So whilst the colour might be slightly off, I can say that I do consider these a success. They are incredibly sweet so I would toy with the idea of reducing the amount of sugar or changing it to a flavour like lemon for the next batch.

The next batch? Did I actually say that?

Nigella Lawson – Pistachio Macarons from How to be a Domestic Goddess

These are the world’s most elegant macaroons. The color alone, that waxy pale jade, perfectly matches the aromatic delicacy of their taste; and their nutty chewiness melts into the fragrant, soft paste with which they’re paired. Of all the recipes in this book, this is the one of which I think I’m most proud: biscuit bliss.

These are perfect at the end of dinner alongside some confectioner’s-sugar-dusted raspberries; or alone with coffee, gracefully piled on a plate or cake stand.

Ingredients
For the macaroons:

• 75 grams pistachios
• 125 grams icing sugar
• 2 large egg whites
• 15grams caster sugar

For the buttercream:

• 55 grams pistachios
• 250 grams confectioners’ sugar
• 125 grams unsalted butter, softened

Preparation

• 2 baking sheets, lined with parchment paper

1. Grind the pistachios in a food processor along with the icing sugar (this stops them turning into an oily mess), until as fine as dust (I didn’t grind them that finely as you can see). Whisk the egg whites until fairly stiff, but not dry, sprinkle the sugar over and whisk until very stiff. Fold the whites into the pistachio-sugar dust, and combine gently.

2. Pipe small rounds onto your lined baking sheet, using a plain 1 cm nozzle. Let them sit for about 10 minutes to form a skin. Preheat the oven to 180°C/Gas mark 4

3. Rap the baking sheet hard on the countertop to flatten the batter before baking, then put in the oven and cook for 10-12 minutes: they should be set, but not dried out.

4. Remove from the oven and let cool, still on their sheets, while you get on with the filling. This is simple work: grind the nuts and confectioners’ sugar in the processor as before; then cream the butter and continue creaming as you add the nut dust. Make sure you have a well-combined soft buttercream. Then simply sandwich the macaroons together.

From How To Be A Domestic Goddess by Nigella Lawson