Tuesday, 13 March 2012

Macaroons!

Good morning to you! Have you had a good start to the week? Glad Monday is over? Well, whichever it i hope you're having a good Tuesday and have lots of fun things planned for the week ahead.

I spent a lovely day yesterday strolling about in the sunshine, eating lovely food and making macaroons! It was a good day. Thank you to my friend Tim, who spent the day doing all these fun thing with me. It was fab.

I have never made macaroons before as i thought they looked a bit fiddly and fancy. They are a bit, but they aren't hard to make just time consuming. But it's worth it, as they're yummy!

First, you have to make sure that the ground almonds and icing sugar are really fine, so that it will go through the piping bag later on so i had to grind it down. I got to use my hand blender which is always fun (i'd never used the grinding attachment before and i am easily pleased!). Tim weighed out the caster sugar and whisked them with the egg whites till they formed stiff peaks. The vanilla paste was then added.




 Plus i got to use my new apron and my KitchenAid which always makes me happy.



We then had a play with lots of different food colourings!



So the food colouring was added and then the icing sugar and almonds. You then have to beat the mixture a bit to try and get some of the air out of it.

They were then piped into little rounds on baking paper and left for about half an hour to form a hard crust on the surface.







Then they were baked! For about 10 minutes till they were hard and smooth on the top.




We then left them for a while to cool and then made the butter cream filling. Done!





They are so tasty, all chewy and light and yummy. And they look so lovely. I will definitely be making these again in the future, even if it did take us three hours!





I think they'd make a really good present. Who wouldn't like to receive a lovely pretty box of these? Would you? Yes, i definitely would!

Saturday, 10 March 2012

How to make a granny square.

Howdy lovely people. How are you this lovely weekend? Happy? I do hope so. I am in a fantastic mood for some reason, i think it's because i've got lots of things planned for the next two weeks that i'm really looking forward to. Hee hee. Might also be because i've got three days off work after my shift today, and that's bound to put anyone in a good mood!

I was wondered this morning if you are a fan of crocheting? Do you know how to crochet? Or are you one of those people who would love to give it a go but are worried it looks very complicated?


That was me. I could just about knit but crocheting looked far to crazy and hard. But it's not. I confess i can still only crochet a granny square. But i am in the process of making a blanket, all bright and lovely, using the granny squares i have made. It's a long time work in progress though as i constantly find other projects get in the way. But one day i will finish it. I promise.

If you would like to learn how to crochet, have a look at this tutorial from Meet Me At Mikes. It really helped me master the basics. It's broken down into bit sized bits with helpful videos:

 Happy crocheting!

Thursday, 8 March 2012

Domo series 4!!!

Yup, due to be released in a matter of weeks, it's the 2" domo series 4 figures!

I am a lover of all things domo but especially the blind boxed 2" figures. Blind boxed means that you have no idea which figure you are going to get until you open it. Some figures are rarer than others. So you always want it to be a lucky box with a rare one. When it is, it's brilliant.

Series 4 looks to be a goodie. I'm especially loving the 1/60 glasses wearing pink bird jumper domo, 1/15 cassette walkman domo and the 1/30 scarf wearing domo. Can't wait to get my hands on some to add to my collection!

Wednesday, 7 March 2012