Tag Archives: chocolate

Chocolate button cupcakes

Posted on 23 January, 2011 | Comments Off

I actually had some time to bake! These are a gift for a friend who will be making me a roast dinner later. They are plain vanilla sponge and icing but with a giant Cadbury’s chocolate button on top.

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Posted in Cupcakes

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Macarons Part 2

Posted on 21 November, 2010 | Comments Off

I made these today with my newly found skills. They are raspberry. The basic recipe is taken from this amazing book.

Three main tricks:

  1. The egg whites need to be at room temperature before you start.
  2. Be very careful when you fold in the almonds and icing sugar. Cut the mixture in half with a spatula and then sweep underneath the mixture then turn the bowl.
  3. Draw circles on the baking paper to act as a guide to make your piping neater.

These went a little bit wrong but not as much as the ones before. Next time, the oven needs to be cooler. I reckon 140C will be about right. Still – they are a second attempt I can be proud of.

I feel a category dedicated to macrons will be in order soon.

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Macrons Part 1

Posted on 21 November, 2010 | Comments Off

I went to a macron making class yesterday. It was a 2 hour session at L’Atelier des Chefs and it was given to me by my ex-colleagues at Tangent as a leaving gift (as a happy aside I’m now at Iris).

It was the absolute perfect gift as I’ve tried so many times to make these but failed miserably. It turns out that sucess is mostly determined by the consistency of the meringue mixture. The picture below is of the compeleted chocolate and coconut macarons.

A very heartening first attempt and a massive improvement on all previous attempts. Watch this space.

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Posted in Baking

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