Can you spot the Figgjo Annemarie plate? I also put a little surprise in these with a spoonful of crushed pistachios in the centre. Also I only used pistachio meal in the shells instead of blend of almond and pistachio meal that I saw in some recipes.
The pistachio ones looked the most like commercial macarons, they had a better foot and the top was glossier but some of the tops were domed and cracked. My reading would indicate that this is because I may have over mixed the pistachio meal and sugar into the egg white mixture. The chocolate ones I believe I the eggwhite mixture was too stiff and thus they mixture wasn’t as quite as runny as it should be. This is all a big learning curve and most importantly I can say that they all tasted delicious.
Chocolate, Chocolate and Chocolate
These of course are on a Figgjo Lotte plate 🙂 Some of these had a squirt of ganache in the centre and then butter cream round that or vice versa with butter cream in the centre. My favourite ones to look at though are the ones where I piped ganache on one side and butter cream on the other side.
I ended up with 60 odd macarons and they certainly didn’t last long at work.
I’ve thought about staying up till TC Yasi crosses the coast watching the twitter feeds but at the end of the day there is nothing I can do down here yet and I do have work tomorrow and the braces come off tomorrow as well. The people I know up north are all prepared as they can be so all we can do is sit and wait for the train wreck to happen.
I made the Iced VoVo cake from Raspberri Cupcake last night/this morning for an afternoon tea at work today and it went down quite well. I used the strawberry jam I made before Christmas on the cake as well 🙂
Totally how I’m feeling right about now. I’m about to head out to the deck and roll Sunshine Balls (Apricot balls but I add dried pineapple and mango in as well as dried apricots). I rolled my Rum Balls last night – all 175 of them and I only ate 2 whilst doing that!
and before you say it is 38 days, I count down till the 24th, it’s the day we do Christmas.
I love Christmas. Without a doubt it is my favourite time of year. The last few days I’ve been working on some of my Christmas crafting and I’m doing my first batch of Christmas baking tomorrow. In saying all that though, this Christmas is going to be oh so very different to any Christmas past. There’s no Pabbi to dish out the rice pudding or to hand out presents from the tree. When we were in London on the way home from Iceland, we came up with the idea to go to New Zealand for Christmas to hang out with Mum’s sister and her family. Mum, Grandad and I are going (Matthew was not interested in the idea and is staying home) on the night of the 23rd and return on the night of the 31st. Will be great to catch up with my cousins and get to see the first great-grandchild.
I’m so tempted to start putting up decorations in my room but I’ll wait till Dec 1… though I’m going to hang a few porcelain snow flakes in the next few hours. They are white, you’ll hardly be able to see them hanging from the white shelf against the white wall …
This Saturday is the Christmas BBQ for the Icelandic Club -> hence the Christmas baking tomorrow. Really looking forward to the BBQ especially to catch up with one of my good friends who I’ve not seen in an obscene amount of time. I’m going to take along a big container of Loftkökur … mmmm. A funny note to mention, google Loftkökur and my recipe is normally the first or the second result to appear :). When I was in Iceland a few months ago, one of my sister’s told me that someone she knew had been raving about this Loftkökur recipe that she had found on the net and how great it was. She sent the link to my sister and my sister replied – that recipe is from my sister 🙂 so funny.
In order to make Loftkökur, though I need the secret ingredient so I made a trip over to Mum’s today to pick up the Hartshorn salt, I also “borrowed” two of her biscuit trays … and I brought home some of my Christmas decorations.
mmm Hartshorn salt, there’s nothing quite like a sniff of Ammonium bicarbonate.
In other news, I go back to work tomorrow! yikes. I’ve got some crutches which make getting around easier. The first thing on the agenda for me to do tomorrow at work will be finish organising the Christmas Party – it’s next Saturday night. It’s themed, the 20th Century. There was too much debate amongst my two other planners between doing a 20’s theme or a Mad Men theme. I ended up suggesting let’s do the 20th Century instead. People can come dressed from whichever era they wish and if they don’t want to put much effort in they can just come as the 90’s.
I’m doing an early 60’s/late 50’s theme. I’m eagerly awaiting the arrival of a few essential packages to arrive early next week for my outfit. All I have left to do is figure out my jewellery (will probably try to find some “pearls” at diva or the like) and practice my hair. I’m going to have to do some op-shopping before then though to find a shirt for N to wear. I’m so excited, can’t wait to see what outfits people put together.
I had a big Thursday night making these biscuits; I didn’t end up going to bed till sometime after 1am and was up a few hours later to make the packaging. I was quite lucky that two of the girls at work helped with the wrapping and stapling the tags on. I ended up with 52 planes as two were sent to the scrap yard due to faulty wings…. I don’t advocate icing biscuits past midnight, technique is never as good as it is at say you know 4 in the afternoon! I was tired and that resulted in not always keeping a nice even pressure on the icing bag which resulted in some clumpy icing. That is my criticism and one I am sure that most non-baking people would not notice anyway.
I walked round work with a box of biscuits Friday morning, handing them out and wishing people Happy Super Hornet Day, some people thought that the RAAF had supplied them for us, others wanted to know which bakery they were from, some people said “oh Helen, you are a bit of a nerd aren’t you” to which I of course replied “Why yes I am”, other people were just happy to get a pretty biscuit.
251/365
Though the real purpose of the day was not to come for another few hours. I swear the time between about 12:00 and 12:45ish when I went down to the river went ever so slowly. There were five of us from work outside Customs House. If you look at this hi-res image on the Defence website, you can spot the five of us on the board walk in front of the steps to Customs House, pretty cool! I had my 16-35mm lens on my camera as I thought that they would fly at a “nice low” height over the river. I should have had my 70-200mm on, they were high in the sky. It also meant that the flyover was quite quiet as well… 🙁 🙁
It was very cool to see the Super Hornets with the F1-11s and the BAE Hawk escort but oh I do wish they had flown lower and louder 😀 I think my biscuits were more impressive than the flyover.
I will once again say I had no intention of 11 days passing between posts. Oh well. Photos, we all like photos.
Curtains!! 226/365
Yep, at last I’ve finished my curtains and they are up. I went to Ikea between Christmas and New Years. Amongst the things I picked up was this fabric, I had planned to purchase a more “demure” fabric but there was no way I could say no the slightly kitsch, slightly folksy fabric that is Annamoa Fabric … I picked up lining at Spotlight a week or two later… Then the wait happened whilst I tried to find curtain eyelets, eventually I found curtain eyelet tape at Lincraft. I made one curtain at my house on a Saturday. Yeah, let me tell you it was quite an adventure using the kitchen floor as a cutting table. The next day I headed over to Mums and borrowed the kitchen table (such bliss for cutting fabric) and some of her advice. I didn’t quite get the other two curtains finished that day but did the rest of the sewing the following Sunday when I was next over.
They make my room feel so cheery! And oh for lining as well now my room isn’t so bright in the morning and slightly warmer at night.
Yay for new curtains!
Patterned Legs, 227/365
There a few fashion rules I have for myself, one of these is no tights/stockings in Spring and Summer. Really because unless they are 8 denier or less it is just too damm hot to wear stockings in Brisbane during those months. I picked this pair up from Coles over the New Year for a very nice sum of $3.something!
Romatherapy Tomatoes???? 228/365
Yeah this is what Woolies calls baby Roma tomatoes…
Peach Upside Down Cake, 229/365
At what point did it seem like a good idea to make an upside down cake in a spring form pan….. Common sense did question it but no I was going to be good and follow the recipe. Let’s just say I had a ball cleaning a black sugary mess in the oven…. Upside down cake + spring form pan = mess!
Other than it was quite a success. The recipe is off Taste and here is the link Peach Upside Down Cake. I had almonds on hand but really didn’t feel like breaking out the blender to make almond meal so used hazelnut meal I had on hand instead and I think it made the cake even nicer. Had a slightly nutty flavour. One thing to note though is that I made this cake Thursday night to take to work on Friday. For morning tea, the cake was fantastic, just the right amount of moistness. When it came to divying up the last few slices for afternoon tea the cake was a bit dry.
Looking Up, 230/365
I saw The Blind Side on Friday night – man oh man what a movie. I was happy to see Sandra Bullock win the Oscar, man oh man that dress was gorgeous and the hair!
I was kicking back on my bed when I got home with a million thoughts going through my mind and I was struck to a degree by the way the posters look from below.
A single flower, 231/365
A single flower, a single plant. This dahlia is the only thing in the front garden at Mums currently.
Sore Toe, 232/365
A change from photos of metal adorned teeth… For the last week or so the tip of the toe next to my big toe has been quite sore. I thought my toenail was digging in but trimming the nail didn’t help it all. I just tried to ignore it, thinking that yeah it will get better. It’s no longer sore but when I decided to change my toenail polish on Sunday I discovered why it had been so sore! Check out that bruise! Four days after taking this photo, I can tell you it is a bit darker as well.
Welcome Lights, 233/365
On the same trip to Ikea as the one when I got the curtain fabric I also picked up these Welcome Lights/Christmas Candolier from Ikea for something like $3 after Christmas. I love them! I’m keeping these out all year! A much more modern version than the set my parents brought out from Iceland with them.
Melbourne snow dome, 234/365
I picked up this snowdome for next to nothing at Borders one day. I was going through photos the other day and finally found the perfect photo. In saying that, I’m still trying to decide what photo to put on the other side!
This hat, 235/365
I’ve posted photos of this hat before but I love it too much not to share more. I’ve moved it from hanging on the curtain rod to a hook on my door. Now it greets me when ever I walk into my room! I do wish my head was a few cm smaller so it did fit me.
Yeah, that is a whipper snipper, 236/365
Our lawn had a hair cut today or really it got a buzz cut. I’ld call it a number 4. Before it could be mown they “trimmed” the lawn with a whipper snipper!
It’s hard to believe that I am 236 days into my 365 day quest! When I tried in 2008 I lasted 75 days. I’m just about two thirds of the way through now, really happy with that. 😀
