little things: the fourth (in which macarons were almost made correctly)

I'm not a very good baker. 

I'm certainly an enthusiastic one, but certainly not a good one! I can cook (I think I cook rather well), but where cooking is an art, baking is a science - and like any science, there are rules to be adhered to. Exactly so amount of sugar, this weight of flour. My typical baking style means I will happily substitute this for that and guesstimate the weights and amounts, and sometimes if I don't have an item required, I will forge ahead anyway. As you can guess, this has rather resulted in some inedible foodstuffs. Flat cakes, sour cheesecakes, bitter brownies - the list is endless! My solution? I decided to jump into the deep end and make macarons, famed for it's finicky temperament. I followed The Pink Whisk's recipe and for a first attempt, I was pleasantly surprised to find that it did not turn out as badly as I had feared!

Voila! 1, 2 and 3 (green batch), 4 (pink batch).

Foolishly, after whisking the egg whites and sugar, I got it into my mind that I ought to make two different colours. Out came another bowl, in to it went half the meringue. Why not just start with one colour, I hear you ask, why overly complicate things? Well, otherwise it might have gone too well, and that would have been wrong(!). 

My green batch most likely did not have enough almond/icing sugar in it, whereas the pink batch probably had just the right amount, and I did not mix the green batch enough, and mixed the pink batch a little too much (see how my image four macarons are a little flatter than I would prefer?). 

I also had to wait a ridiculously long time for a 'skin' to form on the macarons before I put them in the oven. It was a very damp day when I made them - skin did not form for about three hours! Once the mixture finally stopped sticking to my fingers, I popped them in. I waited anxiously for the frilly foot to appear - no dice on the green ones. See how they appear in image one through three? That is how they turned out after baking. 

A little disheartened, I popped in the pink ones - and within five minutes, behold! Feet formed! A cry was let out, warrior-like in it's glee and triumph. I pulled them out of the oven after thirteen minutes, let them cool on it's baking paper on a kitchen counter and, despite most not being suitably round and not as high as I'd prefer, are very nice indeed! I whipped up a quick chocolate ganache (a little too much cream in mine, I think), and sandwiched them. 

So that was my weekend - I tried my hand at making macarons, and found it to be deeply fun and addictive.

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little things: the third (in which she went to york at the weekend and had a musical overload)

Saturday dawned a surprisingly sunny day, so I popped into York - a beautiful city that's 45 minutes away on the train from the parish town I live in. 

(One of these days, I will stop using my phone as a camera and get a proper camera to use, I swear.)

The view from the bridge.

The first order of business for me by the time I was in the city centre was to find the nearest Starbucks to buy a pumpkin spice latte - my first ever! It wasn't as wonderful as I had expected - from the way Americans and Canadians go on about this seasonal Starbucks drink, you would think it tasted like manna from heaven. Having said that, it wasn't awful - in fact, it was very nice and a perfect autumn drink to sit with for a while.

There seemed to be a veritable variety of music available for those in town on the day! 

Darn it, would you believe I had deleted my photo of the name of this band and the charity it stands for?

The Glass Caves

The Buffalo Skinners

I really enjoyed The Buffalo Skinners, great live, energetic, charismatic and looked as if they'd just stepped out of the seventies. Had an overly affectionate wasp not tried to make sweet love to me, I could have stayed there forever listening to them play! As it was, I managed to stay for a good fifteen minutes before admitting defeat.

What goodies did I come away with from this trip? Two jumpers, neither of which are anything remotely flattering to a petite figure but are warm and comfortable for winter, two Betty's fondant fancies (a word of advice, if you don't care for waiting in the long queue for the big Betty's Team Room in the square, head to the one on Stonegate, which is a little quieter), and some chocolate from York Cocoa House.

I love Betty's fondant fancies, they are incredibly sweet (and thus, not normally something I eat much of), but each mouthful is like a little bit of pure happiness. Of course, by the time I got home to take a picture of the two cheery cakes, one of them had had enough of being in my bag.

Whoops.

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little things: the second (in which she reminisces about paris and the summer-that-wasn't)

Winter draws ever nearer, and as I wake up to ever darker mornings in a very cold flat, I look back on our rather non-existent summer with some longing. Yes, it never really quite manifested, and we Brits remarked upon our unusually wet and cold summer (and for us to even comment on it, well, it must be something) with our usual grumblings and put away our sun lotion with a sigh.

On the whole, I'm not remarkably fond of summer. Too many insects, the appearance of sweat (yuck) and my least favourite season for fashion. But this summer I was able to go on holiday with my closest three female cousins. It wasn't far all things considered, a mere hop across the Channel to the city of love - Paris. It was only for a week, but it was pretty perfect, and today I found myself wishing I was back there.

I am rather attached to Paris as a city.

There's no particular reason - no 'I fell in love here', no 'my biggest adventure in life happened here', no 'secret Francophile' (although one of these is actually true).

I just... love Paris. I've been to this city six times in my life, three times as educational visits, three as actual holidays, and each and every time has been a fond memory, a time of utter enjoyment and real pleasure. Of course, I understand that go holiday at a place is certainly not the same as living there - day-to-day life does not, as much as it ought to be, consist merely of strolling along cobbled streets, browsing through goods and wares, and sipping café au lait outside and the world goes by. I am sure if I were to live there, the place would become quite as mundane as living in England is to me.

But Paris! Oh, the food, the buttery croissants, the soft pain au chocolat, their divine arrays of patisserie. The clothing, the draping, the folds, the fabric. The memories, the warmth and laughter, the giggling and glee, the excitement and the happiness of a day well spent.

Ooh la la!

Goodbye summer! It's been a very brief encounter this year, I hope to see a little more of you the next time you visit!

(But not too much.)

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little things: the first (in which she tries an introduction, and messes up a cake)

I've had many blogs here and there, some private diaries for no ones eyes, some a little soapbox to stand on, some a place to girlishly giggle over this film, or that actor. So here goes another - hopefully one that has a little more success.

As far as first posts go, this one will be pitifully short! A little while ago, I tried my hand at making a classic Victoria sponge - except I rather forgot the baking powder. Blasted recipes, always requiring the ingredients to be so exact. I forged ahead anyway, and despite the sponge being decidedly flat, I improvised.

As I live on my own, and I was not certain I wanted to take in a potentially horrific disaster into work, I halved all the ingredients listed - which, by the way, still made more than one person could possibly eat.

As you can see, it is rather un-spongelike. 

Still, no great loss! I whipped up a little buttercream (using Pure, a dairy-free sunflower spread - not my best idea as it wound up tasting a little odd) and used fresh strawberries rather than jam, which I don't normally eat. The result was a nice enough treat - a little stodgy and heavy, but satisfied the sugar craving that started the whole thing!

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