These sweet little things ...

For me, one of the happy places to be in is in the kitchen doing one of the exciting things to do - trying out a recipe.

I have, for the longest time, wished to learn to make French macarons. For one, they're one of my favourite photo subjects.  And, not only are they pretty, they're quite delicious too. They may not be for everyone's liking but for someone with sweet tooth, they're to die for. Okay, I'm exaggerating. You get the picture - I have one big crush for these little sweet things hahaha. The problem is, where we are, there is no bakeshop that sells them. Or if there is, I don't know.

So, what does a desperate woman like me do? Scour the internet for the recipe. And take the time to read the comments and reviews of the recipe if there are available.
 
There are quite a number of French macaron recipes (with accompanying tips and tricks) out there. The most common tips I found are:

• Measure the ingredients as accurately as possible. The recipe I picked uses weight (in grams) as measurement (instead of the usual volume in cups and tsps) so I had to buy a small digital weighing scale.
• Make sure that your utensils are clean and oil-free especially the bowl you'll use to prepare your meringue.
• Over beating or under beating of the egg whites will yield undesirable result. This can be a tad tricky for someone who hasn't worked with meringues. But just remember, YouTube university is just a click away ;) .

Okay, so without further ado, up close, here's the result of my first attempt -

My first attempt with French macarons. They're crunchy outside, chewy inside.

Not the perfect macarons as they are way too sweet but I guess they will do for now. I had the most encouraging sidekick a.k.a. MDH who has the greatest trust that I can do it.

For this batch, I used strawberry jam. Even if they're from the same batch, I ended up having two colours. That's because I experimented on the baking time. Some of them are now stored in the fridge as they need to "mature" for best flavour. Apparently, macarons are best when they're not so fresh. I didn't know that.

So in the next few days, during my free time, I will tweak the recipe I used to come up with something less sweet and maintain the same texture. Lots of experimentation (didn't they say 'baking is chemistry'? )  in my favourite lab, our kitchen, in the coming days . Hopefully, I will 'discover' the 'perfect concoction' before the official Christmas baking begins. Yup, I'm planning to include macarons in our Christmas goodies this year.

Another Tale, Another Tear

She said she usually cried at least once each day not because she was sad, but because the world was so beautiful & life was so short.

~ Story People

Give me the strength to hold back my tears.
~ Me

He gives the bestest gifts

Over umph-teen years of being married to this guy, a gazillion years of having known him and be with him, his gift giving hasn't changed. He knows the bestest gift to give.

The morning of our anniversary, this was how the bedroom of The Boy Who Means The World To Us looked like. This was MDH's anniversary gift to me - repaint of MDK's bedroom.

Less than an hour before we headed to our fave Italian resto for our anniversary dinner, here's what it looked like -

It took awhile for the bedroom occupant to pick a colour. I think it even stressed him out a bit. Ah, boys :). He did ask for some suggestions and so I showed him some of the shades I was leaning towards - something green with a grey undertone, a lighter shade of olive green maybe. He said he liked something with a tint of yellow and anything blueish was not an option.

It was quite interesting when he looked at the swatches. His first batch (yes, batch) of choices were based on names. If it was green and he liked the name, he picked them. It sounded like an easy criteria to pick a colour, but in reality, all the ones with 'cool-sounding' names didn't really look good in the room.

I took this pic against the loft wall. I picked this corner of the loft since this is visible from MDK's bedroom and at certain angles, the 2 colours (red-orange and green) are visible at the same time.

So, after weeks of deliberating which colour to put and with my assurance that it was just a paint and that if he wouldn't like it, we can repaint it, he decided to pick Guilford Green by Benjamin Moore. And when I asked him to confirm that it was his final choice, he said, "I don't even like the name." So Guilford Green it was!

As soon as the first brush stroke was applied on the wall, I was smitten with the colour. Quite soothing to the eyes. Most importantly, it looked clean.

Bedroom layout

And here's a bonus pic - the ensuite. It's the smallest bathroom in the house so it was quite a challenge when we painted it. With the ladder and stuff in it, only one person at a time could work. But it was for The Boy Who Means The World To Us so we didn't mind.