The Great Wall of Buttercream

Buttercream spaghetti anyone? Well, I am Italian.

I have a slight issue with anything that requires waiting. Macaroons. You pipe out your little rounds on a baking sheet, put them in the oven, liberate them from the oven in due course and then you have to wait. Wait for them to cool before you the buttercream-sandwiching process can begin to complete the macaroon as we know it.

It's just that I have a definite weakness for the warm, straight out of the oven goods, and naturally you need to try them (even if they are an un-sandwiched macaroon half) to make sure they taste good. So while waiting for my macaroons to cool, I may have eaten a couple, perhaps a few. Alas, I am an idiot. I haven't taken the butter out of the fridge to get to room temperature! (No, crazy though it sounds, I don't have a microwave) Thus, the waiting for the macaroons to cool has evolved into waiting for the butter to warm yet the outcome is the same. Many un-sandwiched macaroon troops were lost in the waiting game, consumed for no purpose other than impatience.

When I finally did get round to making the buttercream and sandwiching the little beauties together, I had way too much buttercream! Oh no! So obviously, I put a cool looking piping nozzle in and squeezed it all out onto a piece of baking parchment. Refrigerate and reserve for sweet cravings. I wish I was kidding; Tom and I demolished this little wall in a day.

Dissertation Distraction Part 1

Okay, so my final hand-in of my dissertation is due in about 3 weeks. I feel slightly unnerved however, because I'm not stressed. Don't get me wrong, it isn't that I'm so amazing and have worked super hard all year so that I can chill-out now, quite the contrary, I still have loads of work to do but for some reason I'm just not quite stressed-out enough yet to motivate me to do it! I'll put it down to my frequent yoga practise and peaceful mind/body relationship...

...Or, it could be that I fell in love with a cute little book on macaroons and decided to set myself a challenge - make every recipe from the book! Dissertation smissertation.

So first stop was wintery spiced macaroons, with cinnamon and ginger and nutmeg, but seeing as they tasted a little bit too Christmasey and we are now in March (Hurray!) I thought I'd colour them lilac to hint at the coming spring! Filled with classic buttercream. What else?

Best. Cookies. Ever.

I know, it's a bold claim but honestly these are the best cookies I've ever made. Tom thought so too, thus it must be true.

If I'm ever in a restaurant and there's something on the desert menu which involves the word "butterscotch", I'm there like a rat up a drainpipe. Probably because I don't really know what it is but have gathered that it's on the caramel, toffee, fudge spectrum and is devilishly sweet. So I made it my task to discover how one would go about making this heaven-sent treat and with minimal research (a customary google search) I found that my dearly beloved Caramac bars - reminiscent of childhood sweetie shop trips - are essentially butterscotch.

And so, in celebration of completing the first draft of my dissertation (woohoo!) and my body's declaration for gooey yummy calorific treats to compensate for the recent brain abuse, I made Butterscotch and Pecan cookies. Or Caramac and Pecan cookies.

So soft. So chewy. So gooey. So divine.

The Leaning Tower of Whoopie (pies)...

So, I have a great excuse to bake delicious goods at least once a fortnight; where I work on Saturdays we take it in turns to bring in "four-o-clocksies". For those of you who are unfamiliar with the concept of four-o-clocksies it involves eating something yummy (and often highly calorific) with a cup of tea, at 4 o clock in the afternoon to enable you to work those final 2 hours. I must say, it's a very successful motivational tool and I don't know why all businesses don't schedule it on the rota.

This past Saturday was my turn and seeing as one of the women I work with is American I thought I'd attempt a batch of Whoopie Pies. My mum bought me a recipe book on them for christmas so flicking through I picked the one which didn't involve buttermilk in the recipe as this just confused me (I have since learned you can easily make this with a cup of full-fat milk and a tablespoon of lemon juice; leaving it out to curdle...yum. Thanks Kenna!) So, I settled on salted caramel with a fluffy marshmallow filling.

My arm muscles certainly resented making the fluffy marshmallow filling, as this involved whisking egg whites, sugar, golden syrup and salt, in a bowl suspended over a pan of boiling water for 10-15 minutes! I can barely whisk for a minute continuously, so now my right arm pretty much resembles pop-eye's.

It was however, worth it as this fluffy marshmallow filling if piped out into rounds and set in the fridge, makes awesome vegetarian marshmallows! Who knew!

The whoopie pies were a success however, you need to gobble them up asap as they seemed to dry out quicker than other cakes.

Birthday Boy

So, while I've been gone it was my wonderful boyfriend's birthday (only 4 days after mine), naturally I was compelled to make him a kick-ass cake but I also wanted to play with a new icing head I got so one could argue that I went a little overboard on the piping!

Anyway, it was your average birthday sponge sandwiched with mouth-watering fresh blueberry jam (I use the word jam loosely as the berries were almost entirely intact) and blueberry buttercream. The buttercream came out an off-putting 70s shade of salmon/putty so I toned it down to a pretty lilac, yes I know, incredible masculine.

I had the lights off and the lighter at arms reach ready to start igniting the candles when at the signal (the door at the bottom of the stairs clicking shut when my beau got home from work) unfortunately though the surprise was slightly ruined by him running up the stairs 3 at a time - probably with birthday boy excitement - to catch me mid-way through lighting :-( "Go away!" was the wittiest response I could muster and he patiently waited outside while I lit the rest of the candles. In spite of that, the cake was delicious and now armed with even more piping heads I'm looking forward to excelling myself next year.

Back...Again

Right, so I'm definitely back with a vengeance this time, having finished my dissertation :-)

I've decided to tweak the posting a little to make myself more efficient, from now on I'll just be posting the moorish pictures and if anyone wants the recipe then leave a comment and I'll put it up!

Chocaccino and Banana & Cinnamon Cupcakes

Vanilla frosted chocolate and espresso cupcakes (a couple unfrosted) and banana & cinnamon cupcakes with a banana frosting.

Recipe to follow...