Macarons and Stamps

I found this wonderful site in one of my cooking explorations the other day. It is the blog of David Lebovitz. He is an American chef living in Paris and he writes about his life and cooking adventures. Click here-  David Lebovitz  to open a link to his blog. Have a look as he writes well and I am looking forward to trying some of his recipes. I have reserved a couple of his books at the library.

Anyway one of his recipes I tried last week was for Chocolate Macarons. Much has been written about Macarons (not to be confused with maccaroons). (If you do a Google search you will get 100s of  pages of links). They are a French patisserie delicacy made of a meringue type mixture baked and then sandwiched together with different fillings. I had great success using David’s recipe found here , and I also followed some tips found here and here.  Have a look  - I did not leave the unbaked shells to rest for 2 hours, being an impatient sort I baked them straight away:

As you can see they turned out well with the ‘foot’ and uncracked shell  however they were really hard and chewy. Nevertheless I filled them with a basic ganache of cream,melted chocolate and a tiny bit of butter (David uses corn syrup in his recipe but it’s hard to find in NZ). Then came the hard part. We left them in the fridge for 3 days to soften. Then brought them to room temperature and tried them.

WOW was all the family could say! They tasted amazing  - such a treat and I can’t wait to try them again and give them to my family and friends to try.

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I have also been doing some stamp carving practice (and Daughter 2 and 4 did some too) . Here are our latest endeavours:

I am using a tutorial from Memi the Rainbow - another French link. This time an Italian living in Paris. Hence the ‘Notre Dame’ stamp bottom left. I am using her simple designs for practice while I work on figuring out some of my own designs.

Also while clearing out under the house recently I found my “Rigid Heddle Loom” which was a present from my in-laws a few years ago. I bought this book:

and have been learning how to warp up correctly and have started weaving a scarf.  The weather isn’t that great for photography today so pictures will follow in another blog post.
Here is a picture from the Ashford website of a Rigid Heddle Loom in case you don’t know what one looks like :

Back to the studio this afternoon : )
R x

Making

I haven’t been in the studio much lately but that doesn’t mean I haven’t been busy . . .

A ‘before’ shot of one of the computer chairs.
And ‘after’ . . .

And a Granny Square rug in progress:

I have another 20 or so squares to go.
R x

Kapiti Concert Orchestra

I am involved in this concert happening at the end of next week. Please come if you are in the area.

School Holiday Break

Daughters 2,3 and 4 and their cousin on holiday last weekend at Pouakai Cabin in the Pouakai  hills at the base of Mount Taranaki .

We were so lucky with the weather. Taranaki turned on a great weekend for us. First time we’ve seen the mountain without any snow on the top!

Girls back to school tomorrow – Maybe some time in the studio this week. : )

R x

Knitting…

‘In through the front door, round the back, out through the window and off jumps Jack’
Daughter 3 working on her scarf:


School Holidays – learning to knit . Daughter 4 is very proud of her new wrist warmer  - well done.

Garden produce including the zucchini that got carried away and in the blue bowl some Cape Gooseberries that I made in to some strange tasting jam with passionfruit. Might try a chutney with them next time – still another kilo or so of them ripening up.
Rx