Madness Free Macaroons

Here is the very simple and easy to follow recipe for the very successful macaroons me and rachel made a few weeks back. In the next post below is a bit more detail and tips about colors and flavors and lots more pictures!

Makes 16

75g ground almonds

115g icing sugar

2 large egg whites- left to sit for a few hours at room temp. V important.

50g caster sugar

1.2tsp vanilla extract

food colouring

Filling:

115g soft cheese

1tbsp icing sugar

flavours/colours of your choice

• Place the ground almonds and icing sugar in a food processor and process for 15 seconds.
• Sift mixture into a bowl.
• Line two baking sheets with baking paper.
• Place egg whites in a bowl and whisk until soft peaks are formed.
• Gradually whisk in the caster sugar to make a firm and glossy meringue.
• Whisk in vanilla extract and your chosen food colouring.

If the food colour makes the mixture slightly runny continue to whisk until you have a very thick and stiff meringue mixture- this is so important to make the macaroons thick and fluffy and not leak all over the baking sheet!!

• Using a spatula carefully fold in the blitzed almond mixture one third at a time.

Fold the mixture until its a shiny and thick ribbon like batter then pour mixture into a piping bag. Use a sandwich bag and cut off the corner if you don't have a piping bag. Insert a small nozzle. Our mixture was luckily so thick we didn't need a nozzle fitted and the bag just helped control the amount we put onto the baking paper.

• Pipe the small rounds onto the baking sheets spacing well. You want them to be thick with little peaks.
• Tap the baking sheets firmly onto the counter to get rid of any bubbles and the peaks.

This action helps create the 'frilly foot'- which is the airy chewy level beneath the hard shell of the top!

• NOW LEAVE AT ROOM TEMP FOR 30 MINUTES. This is so important as this is when the macaroons form the hard shell/skin on the top! Check this after 30 minutes very carefully by pressing the top. If its slightly firm and shiny and doesn't stick then they are ready to go in the oven.
• Place in pre heated oven at 160c with NO FAN.
• Bake for about 10-15 minutes.

If after this time the bottoms are still soft and sticking leave for a few more mins with the oven door open!
Cool for 10 minutes or until they are cool and formed enough to peel of the baking paper.
If they are sticking place in the freezer for 5 minutes and they should come away easily.
Leave to cool on a wire rack completely.
Fill with your desired filling and enjoy!

Taken from the easy to follow recipe book Macaroons
Macaroons: 30 perfect bite sized treats

Macaroon Madness Continued

I am going to admit, hands down, i have no idea how to correctly spell Macaroon/Macaron?! My spell check just tried to make it macaroni. No almonds in that pasta based dish.

Anyway if you want to confuse yourself and question the spelling even more then try making the damn things. After successfully creating these pesky little treats you can call them maccas for all i bloody care. Im just so happy it worked!

Here are the pics from our successful baking session- as you can see you don't have to follow the colors exactly as the recipes suggest- its a great opportunity to experiment- for the below we used violet grape, tangerine and mulberry food colouring paste, which is stronger and less runny than cheap liquid ones so much safer for mixing into delicate mixtures such as this!

You can also experiment with fillings as much as you like also, for example the chocolate rum ganache for the pink ones didn't set right in the fridge so we used a chocolate cream cheese filling instead! Or you could always use whipped cream or a plain buttercream/frosting and add flavours such as peppermint or lavender and dye your macaroons accordingly!
You can also see from the pics the importance of how thick the mixture is (the purple is thicker therefore made much smaller, puffier macaroons) and the spacing you should allow for them to cook!

We made ginger, blueberry cheescake and chocolate rum flavours-

Pesky Purple Piping Bags

Many, many of you will be sitting here laughing at this when i say that at 23 years old, with many many years of baking and cake eating experience under my belt, i have only just learnt how to use a piping bag.
You, laughing person over there, are either:
a) an incredibly experienced baker who has taken baking up as either a full time career or hobby therefore could pipe a cake with your eyes shut because you have the time, patience and practice!
or
b) have never, ever attempted it in your life and think the people on the telly on great british bake off make it look soooo bloody easy surely YOU can do it too! Its just squeezing icing out a bag in a circle right?
RIGHT?!

So my mothers day baking treats this year came in the form of vanilla cupcakes from the magnolia bakery book- another chance to practice this pretty much flawless recipe, adding dry ingredients in 3rds i think has such clear advantages when making cupcake batter, much better than, and it pains me to say this, nigellas 'blitz it all in the processor' approach which i find can end up very runny. This mixture was so thick i almost panicked, but it was easy to put in the cases and baked in about 15 minutes!
I used mini cases and therefore opted for a small nozzle to pipe the icing which when comparing with the mini cupcakes in Lolas bakery a few days later i realised it wasn't essential, a normal/medium sized one works just as well and leaves less lines on the icing, however i twisted and held the bag properly this time, took my time and the icing was a good consistency (cream cheese icing- it holds so well) I also used raspberry flavoring and my absolute first choice for food coloring a lovely violet/lilac one i use on everything!
Not bad for my second attempt. My first attempt we forgot to put the nozzle into the bag before adding the icing. So ya know, baby steps and all that.

Holly x

Welsh Cakes From Yorkshire (and gin)

Last weekend me and Rach had plans to bake some cupcakes and drink some cocktails at my house for a chilled friday night in (chocolate cupcakes with choc orange icing and gin, cucumber and elderflower cocktails, if you were wondering).

I used the Hummingbird book recipe for chocolate cupcakes and for the buttercream- i swear i had used this before- but they were very dry and just. blah. I always find this with chocolate cupcakes, is it from the extra dryness from the cocoa powder? Its def a weak point of mine! The "buttercream" icing was even worse! milk in icing?! are you crazy!! The only good bit was the orange flavoring which of course was from a supermarket and nothing to do with the hummingbird book. What a shame!
I should have stuck with good old nigella or the flawless magnolia bakery cupcake recipe. Shame on me! I will not even put you off your dinner with pictures because they looked very rude. Have you ever tried to use piping bags and chocolate icing for the first time after a few gin cocktails and a long day?

It was as very immature (hilarious).

It was also St.Davids day and rachel suggested we make welsh cakes, these were easy peasy and very tasty and very gin cocktail and gossip proof! We also cooked them in lard. This is very appealing after a  few drinks. I wanted to add bacon. I also insisted we use my teapot cookie cutter. This was an excellent decision.

We used James Martin's recipe from his book My Kitchen. Im not 100% i even like welsh cakes. Im not even 100% sure they were cooked all the way through. Im 100% it was way past bedtime at this point. But he is northern and strangely handsome. If he says make the welsh cakes. We make the welsh cakes.

225g plain flour

85g caster sugar

1/2tsp mixed spice

1/2tsp baking powder

50g butter cut into small pieces

50g lard small pieces and some for frying

50g currents

1 egg beaten

By hand mix the butter and dry ingredients til combined and crumbly. 

Add the currents. Mix in the egg and by hand mix until you have a dough. Add a bit of milk if needed.

Roll out on floured surface and cut with cutters. Making sure they're not too thin!

Heat a griddle and use some of the lard to grease. 

Cook the cakes a few minutes each side until golden brown.

Sprinkle with icing sugar and serve with jam and butter or enjoy on their own! (or with bacon and maple syrup... or ketchup... mmm)

Holly x

Macaroons at the Market

SO me and Rachel have been uber lazy with this AGAIN. Many aplogies to anyone who bothers reading us waffling on about er, waffles! As usual, since my last post, i have probably eaten 1000000 cakes and stuffed my face at a million brunch places, sadly i have not been able to blog about them straight away as i've had to save them for my next regional special feature for Grazia Magazine! Basically at Grazia magazine we ask the locals of a certain area to recommend thier fave places to eat, drink, shop etc on twitter and facebook, myself, or whoever is writing the feature, collates the recommendations and goes off to visit them and take photos, sample the places, write up the review etc. Its then featured in a roundup of the top 10 places of that area. So far i've worked on the Newcastle and Exeter ones and jumped at the chance to do the London one, especially the North London one! I could never live anywhere else in London but the north. Tis where my london roots lie! Obviously i could rant on and on about how much character and gems it has compared to the rest of London although i shall save that for another time...

Anyway. Now the issue of Grazia is out in the shops i can post up my pictures from a few of the places i visited that are related to this blog! First up is a small but tasty stall in Harringay market called Makaroon. Serving up classic macaroons with a modern twist with flavours such as peppermint, banoffee and chocolate orange. Its run by duo ellie and chris and i hunted them down in Harringay market one freeeezing sunday afternoon to take some photos and sample the treats! They're sooo soo moreish. We bought a box of 5 and scoffed it in 5 seconds. No. Lie.
Im so glad i featured this stall in the feature, one of the things i love most about doing the regional specials is really finding the gems or small businesses of an area and giving them exposure through the magazine, or just seeking these places out in general and been able to photograph them!
I try to avoid chains as much as i can in the regional specials and really feel i found a proper little gem here!
You have 4 days left to buy this issue of Grazia where you can see Makaroon featured and read about the rest of my roundup of North Londons best gems voted for by the locals! (30 words max pretty much per place. Torrrture for a waffler like me. And sadly only a vague review of each place) theres also an interview in the right hand side column with fashion blogger Lily Pebbles from What I Heart Today .
Oh and it won best overall market stall in London as voted for by thier fans and followers on the online poll on Grazia daily! Need i say more!

Forget Laduree and go local!!

Holly x

Makaroon's twitter
Harringay Market

My Kind of Coffee in Crouch End

So merry christmas and a happy new year! Myself and Rachel have been very lazy with this blog over christmas, its not because we haven't been baking and brunching our faces off festive style, which of course we have, but it is always a busy time! Over christmas i made mince pies but sadly didn't have time for much else! However a week before Christmas (and before tree buying and present wrapping panic set in) me and Chris visited this little place in crouch end for a late sunday brunch.

I suppose i didn't rush to review this place on here because in all honesty it wasn't something to go shouting off the rooftops of north london about, but after a few weeks of constant turkey, ham, carbs, alcohol, choccies and more carbs this calm and simple place with its light eggs benedict is actually sounding quite refreshing right about now!
Me and Chris both had the same- just simple eggs benedict with ham, it came with a simple side salad and the hollandaise was nice but not the most amazing i've had.
We washed it down with good quality coffee served in small glasses (coffee always tastes better like this, non? its like the age old coke and ketchup in glass or plastic argument) i personally prefer a latte in small glass rather than a mug, especially when its good strong coffee and the milk is done just right. Again the coffee wasn't anything to shout about, although looking back i recall buying another to take away with me whilst we walked round the shops. So i guess at the time it was pretty good!
I feel slightly bad saying this as they state on their twitter that coffee is the main game for this local roasters.

The interior was pretty cool- comfy union jack chairs, simple white walls, cakes and an interesting range of flavoured teas and bags of coffee displayed in the window. Not sure why the sign outside is a very-easy-to-walk-past brown colour but theres not an inch of bunting, cupcakes or cath kitdson in sight so if those types of places give you a headache escape here.
Oh and no one ran over my foot with a pram. Get in.

Best for: brunch if your go to crouch end fave is full, good quality coffee
Best day: afternoons when its less busy

My Kind of Coffee


Holly x

Nigella's Fresh Gingerbread with Orange Cream Cheese Frosting

So Christmas has quickly sprung upon us as it always does, just as i was thinking about halloween cookies and grasshopper pie for thanksgiving, December arrived giving me no time for autumnal cooking and heading straight for the cinnamon. 

Rachel came round one Sunday afternoon to partake in a spot of christmas baking to kick start the season to be oh so jolly. and boy did this cake make us jolly. The scents of cinnamon and ginger that filled the kitchen were better than any scented Muji candle and the cake was a complete success. I've only recently decided to give cupcakes a break and try more 'grown up' cakes, starting with a successful raspberry cake i made back in summer i learnt that cake baking didn't always mean soggy sponge and cake tin- grease ratio nightmares. 

The recipe is easy, and gossip proof, we still managed to have a good catch up and pay attention to the sifting and the weighing.

Nigella's recipe suggests a regular lemon icing, made simply with icing sugar and water, however i am a massive fan of the cream cheese frosting, it gives more texture, it sets well and its quick to make rather than making regular icing which involves too much add a bit, stir a bit, oh balls i put to much water in, add more icing sugar etc etc. Rachel then stepped up the seasonal flavour a notch and suggested we add orange zest to the frosting. I always said Rachel was the brains out of the two of us. 

The end result was like christmas day and finding your boyfriend actually bought you something in the right size aka: impressive surprise! It didn't stick to the tin, it was spongy and light, yet held together in a good sticky kinda way (the treacles are to thank for this obviously). Once it cooled i spread the cream cheese icing and cut it into perfect squares. This might be a bit filling for a christmas eve/day treat on top of mince pies and christmas cake but it was a perfect winter starter to get us in the mood!

Apologies for the low qual pics, it was dark by the time we had finished at 4pm and these needed to be snapped before they were scoffed- how to fix blurry pics taken on your 5 year old SLR? Instagram them within an inch of their lives, obvs. 

Holly x

150g unsalted butter

125g dark muscovado sugar

200g golden syrup

200g black treacle

2 teaspoons fresh ginger, finely grated

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon (try not to drop the glass spice jar your mum has had since the 90's and brake the lid in the process. oops)

250ml milk

2 large eggs- beaten

1 teaspoon bicarb soda- dissolved in 2 tablespoons warm water

300g plain flour

Roasting tin- we used a shallow tin about 30 x 20 x5- this made for a perfect rectangle loaf cake that could be cut into squares however you can use the mix for cupcakes or a deeper loaf just watch your cooking times and temp.

-Preheat oven to 170/ gas mark 3

-Melt the butter, sugar, golden syrup, treacle, grated ginger and cinnamon.

-Take off the heat then add the milk, eggs and bicarb soda in its water mix.

-Measure the flour in a bowl and add the wet ingredients, beating until well mixed- it will be VERY liquid batter but don't worry.

-pour into the greased and lined tin and bake for 3/4 to 1 hour until risen and firm. Its supposed to be slightly sticky and remember it will carry on cooking as it cools- i switched the oven off after 3/4 of an hour and after doing the stick test (Im so technical i know) and let it sit in the warm oven for about 15 mins as we made the icing. And made another cuppa.

We used a cream cheese frosting recipie from my primrose bakery cook book-

175g cream cheese (we used one tub of philly)

450g icing sugar

125g butter- softened

1 orange zest grated

Beat all the ingredients together with a mixer then try not to eat it on its own with a spoon (who am i kidding)