Friday, August 16, 2013

French Sweets

After hearing people rave about these round sandwiches with ruffles at the edges, I decided to try them out and see. It took some time for me to Yelp a place with a decent rating and fairly good reviews for their French macarons.  And apparently I heard that they are pronounced ma-ca-ROONS, which can be confused with the American coconut macaroons, so one is supposed to specify which kind of "macaroon" he/she is talking by adding French in front of macaroon and what not. I even went online to find the pronunciation but somehow I still end up not really knowing how to say it. If the macarons are really pronounced like the American coconut ma-ca-ROONS, I was thinking why not call them ma-ca-RONS as in RON from Harry Potter. When I went to buy these at the store, I just ended up saying "Can I get 2 of 'these'...?" as I pointed at them through the glass. Anyways....English...or maybe I just don't know enough about these macarons...and so I digress.

                                                                       

These two little ruffled sandwiches cost me nearly $4. But I wanted to at least see how they are supposed to taste like. I got a gray earl and vanilla. I didn't dig the gray earl very much, but the vanilla was good. The "shells" were chewy and soft. The filling was thick and sweet, but also chewy, I think...and I could see how they can be addictive. But with a price like that, and being the poor college student that I am, I don't think I'll be able to afford such luxury. At least not much.
Anyhow, I actually wanted to bake them, so that's why I ventured out to buy some, 2 to be exact (or else I'll look like a cheapo for buying 1) so I can have some sort of idea how they're supposed to kind of taste like. I will venture with baking French macarons tomorrow. More updates on that later :)




Red Velvets

Did I mention that I like to bake? Well, I do. I don't have a fancy big oven to bake in. But I do have a big-ish conventional oven. And I grew up baking in small conventional ovens, so I have gotten used to that. I recently found a set of bakeware for a conventional oven and was stoked. It really spurred my passion for baking. I can now bake pretty cupcakes! No more lopsided, unevenly baked cupcakes~! So I tried baking my first batch of red velvet cupcakes a few weeks ago. I finally blog about it now because I found out I have one follower :") so here was how they turned out! I thought they were pretty good for a first time :) At least I was content with the result (^.^)