Macarons…Delicious Little Sandwiches

So waaaaaay back in 2013, I made a post about being lazy and inventing a cookie called the BritMac: Experience the BritMac

Since then, I made a video about making macarons for a friend who lived out of town and was unhappy with all the descriptions in macaron cooking books (for some reason, the description “make the batter flow like lava” doesn’t help people who have NEVER SEEN LAVA!!).

Unfortunately, that video had some problems being uploaded.  So I decided to work on a new one…which took me forever to put together.

But here it is! A video macaron lesson! (Or at least the shells)

Macarons for Everyone!

Just as note: I put the instructions in the video for a single batch but I am making a double batch. The single batch calls for two egg whites instead of four egg whites.

And here’s the recipe for the plain shell:

Ingredients

• 3/4 ground almonds (almond flour)
• 1 cup confectioner’s sugar
• 2 large egg whites
• 1/4 cup refined sugar
• yellow food coloring/lemon extract

Directions

1. Sift the almonds and confectioner’s sugar together. Set aside
2. Place the eggs in a large bowl and whip until holding soft peaks. Gradually beat in the refined sugar to make a firm, glossy meringue. Beat in the lemon extract and food coloring.
3. Fold the almond mixture into the meringue mixture, one-third at a time. When all dry ingredients are incorporated, continue to cut and fold until the batter “flows like lava”
4. Pour the batter into a pastry bag and pipe small circles onto parchment lined baking sheets
5. Let sit approximately half an hour. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F (I use convection bake to avoid turning the sheets half way)
6. Tap the baking sheets firmly on the work surface to remove air bubbles
7. Bake 13 minutes (turn half way through if no convection setting is available for the oven)
8. Cool for 10 minutes before removing from baking sheet

If I’m feeling non-lazy, I’ll make ganache or pudding to fill it with.  But when I’m lazy (which, let’s face it…is 90% of the time), I use store bought icing.  Sometimes I mix the icing with something (like lemon curd to make a citrus macaron , culinary lavender to make a floral macaron, or blackberry jam to make a delicious jammy dodger).  Also, when I make a pistachio or hazelnut shell, chocolate icing or Nutella works wonders.

Here’s a few picture of my macaron experiments over the years:

 

Hazelnut with Nutella

Easter Macaron Extravaganza

Christmastime…more macarons!

Let me know if you have some macaron flavor ideas!

 

Note: I scheduled this post to take place on my brother’s birthday. Happy birthday to him and I miss you everyday!

Squash vs. Pumpkin

So not really an animal battle cartoon this time. Instead, I present you with a vegetable battle  cartoon to celebrate the time between Halloween and Thanksgiving. I don’t have any more planned battles (animal, vegetable, or mineral), so let me know if there is a pairing out there that you would like to see!

As always- no promises on who wins 😉

 

Or maybe…adventures of Astro Dog for the next cartoon?

Happy Birthday, Harry Potter

***Potential spoilers for Harry Potter (books and movies) below.

So this doesn’t really fit into any of my three categories since I started this blog (and have been horrible about updating…).  But, I was working on the next animal battle cartoon and stumbled upon this drawing and figured I would share it since I’ve been remiss about posting.

Enjoy this look at Voldemort’s horcruxes and who destroyed them in honor of Harry Potter’s birthday.

 

Museum Madness with Mom

March 2017, instead taking a trip to see my parents, my mom came to visit me! (Sadly, Dad had to stay behind this time around.) Since my mom is one of my main inspirations for travelling (her travel stories would make a MUCH more interesting topic than mine!), we fully took advantage of Washington, D.C.  By going to a lot of museums!!

Hirshorn

I’m not usually a huge modern art fan, but when I first saw the blurb online last summer about the Infinity Mirrors exhibit (artist: Yayoi Kusama), I was truly excited!  Being a total math nerd, the concept of infinity is sort of important. The exhibit exceeded even my wildest expectations.  Although we only had 20-30 seconds in each of the rooms that composed the majority of the exhibit, those were 20-30 seconds of pure amazement.  Usually, I like to pick my favorite, or top two, of whatever it is that I’ve been to see. I was unable to for this exhibit…it was all AMAZING!  Here are my favorite pictures from the rooms:

 

African American History Museum

We spent well over five hours at this museum, and I feel like we barely scratched the surface!  For those of you who haven’t been stalking the Smithsonian web-site for tickets, the museum is divided into two parts: there are cultural galleries upstairs and history galleries downstairs.  It’s recommended that visitors start in the history galleries, but when we first arrived, only an hour after the museum opened, there were so many people in the history galleries, that they had closed them to additional visitors.  So we started upstairs!

We found that starting in the cultural galleries was actually a good place to start, as the music, sports, military, etc. highlights in those galleries helped us put in context a lot of the struggles shown in the history galleries.

Here are some pictures from the museum that I thought that you all might enjoy:

One thing that I really liked in the museum was reading all the little “mini-bios” they had for people and events all around throughout the exhibits.  I wish that they had a book in the gift shop that had all that information compiled in one place and maybe with a tad more detail (or selections from the museum) so that I could read more and continue learning about these amazing people!

I felt really lucky that my mom could come up and visit me (and thankful to my dad for loaning her to me for the weekend…we missed him, but my place is a little small for an extended visit from both parents).  I hope that you can tell from the pictures that we had a great time together and that these exhibits were amazing!!  I hope that all of you get a chance to go and see and experience these too!

 

Bonus

Since I’m publishing this on the 4th of July…here’s some fireworks pictures from the 2015 celebration at the National Mall

 

Animal Battle: Mammoth vs. Platypus

I don’t know if I ever mentioned the origin of these cartoons.  I was over at a friend’s house and her daughter said to me “let’s draw!”  I had just scribbled out Snake vs. Mongoose at work because I was in a really boring meeting.  I showed it to her and she wanted me to do another one.  Then, Dragon vs. Phoenix was born.  From that point on whenever we saw each other, she would give me a couple of animals to pit against each other.

For this one, Mammoth vs. Platypus, I had to do some research!  All platypus facts are true (except…they might not listen to iPods).  Hope that you enjoy this one!

Conclusion: The platypus is a scarily dangerous animal for having such a cute and fluffy body.

Note: no ipods were harmed in the creation of this comic…

The Year of Four Continents

In Roman history, there was a period of unrest and civil war; at which point  the position of Emperor changed hands four times.  This was back in 69 AD and ended with Vespasian taking the throne and establishing the Flavian dynasty.  However, 69 AD is typically called the Year of the Four Emperors.

In Sparkles MacUnicorn history, after a period of work, graduate school, and paying off credit card debt- there was a period of celebration.  This is called the Year of the Four Continents and, unlike the Year of the Four Emperors, it was a period of celebration and fun!

Continent #1: Africa (May)

After finishing graduate school, I suddenly had time to take leave from work!  In celebration of this, I went with my mom on a tour of Egypt.  My mom had wanted to go to Egypt since she was four years old and her own grandmother went to Egypt in the 1950s.  The world was very different now, be we were fortunate that there was not political upheaval happening.  As a result, we got to see a lot of the country; from Alexandria in the North to Aswan in the South!

Left: On camels at Giza, Middle: Us enjoying a night look at the temple of Philae, Right: Karnak at sunset

Continent #2: Europe (July)

A month before I finished graduate school, I was feeling really nervous and excited and so of course I did an internet search to see what operas were playing at La Scala in Milan.  I was already planning the trip to Egypt with my mom and so when I saw that Aida, a Verdi opera set in Egypt, was playing over a holiday weekend it seemed like fate that I should go.

Left top: the Duomo in Milan, Left bottom: symbol of the Roman empire at the galleria, Middle: At the Sforza Castle, Right: Sign for Aida at Teatro alla Scala

Continent #3: North America (August)

Now, I know what you’re probably thinking.  You live in North America…that doesn’t count!  It’s only three continents!  But…I went for a week in the summer to visit a old high school friend who was living in Alaska.  So North America gets counted in the Year of Four Continents!

Top left: Sign for Iditarod, Top Right: Enjoying the scenery at a stop between Anchorage and Seward, Middle Right: Beautiful mountains around Anchorage area, Bottom Right: Seals sunbathing, Bottom: Moose hanging around on one of the roads.

Continent #4: South America (November)

Still on a high from all the travel that I had been able to do already, I was looking at prices to try to go somewhere over Thanksgiving; another chance to take a vacation without having to take a lot of leave from work.  Next stop: Buenos Aires!

Top Left: Some Malbec wine waiting to be drunk (mission accomplished), Top Middle: Sign at a restaurant explaining where the beef cuts come from, Top Right: Drinking mate on my way to a bar-b-que, Bottom Left: Gauchos (one is standing on a horse), Bottom Right: Casa Rosada

Looking Back at 2009…

I just want to close by saying that I feel really fortunate that I was able to take all of these trips at all- let alone all of them in one year.  It was definitely an adventure (well…four adventures).  While the cultures were vastly different everywhere that I went, there was one constant that I found on all my trips.  That is, that wherever you go, you can find people who are willing to be kind and help out the tourists. I aspire to be one of those people in my own hometown!

I hope that you enjoyed the mini-photo collages and let me know if there’s a trip you’d like to hear about in more detail!

Animal Battle: Rat vs. Pigeon

You’re probably reading the title and wondering: who do I want to win this battle?  The rat or the pigeon?!  The vermin that crawls on the ground or the vermin that flies in the air.  Gross.

Well…choose your side and I hope that you enjoy the outcome!!

Just as a note- I got a new drawing program and I’m not sure I like how the coloring is working out.  So some of these pictures are in color and some are in black and white.  Let me know what you think…these comics might stay in black and white if you all think the colored images aren’t as good!  It might make the postings faster too…

CARTOON TIME!

There was a rat…

And there was a pigeon…

And an innocent family, just trying to enjoy a nice spring afternoon…

Although they both had a rather impressive vocabulary for vermin…WHO SHOULD WIN THIS BATTLE OF GROSSNESS??

Ok, I hope that you enjoyed that sort of surprise ending.  Go sparrow!!

 

Travel Log: Queenstown

In honor of Octoberfest, I thought that this travel story was appropriate.  Before you read, you should be aware that I have never been to Germany.  Or Austria.  But…

One year, after Christmas, a friend from high school and I went on a vacation to Australia and New Zealand.  One of our favorite cities that we visited, was Queenstown in New Zealand.

Our first night in Queenstown, we ended up wandering around the town for a while and then at around 8pm we decided to look for somewhere to go for dinner.  Even though Queenstown has TONS of restaurants it seemed like there was at least a two hour wait for everything that was open or that the restaurant didn’t open until 9pm.  This was about day 14 in our epic adventure and we were tired.  So we decided to just go into this ale house and suffer through what we thought would be traditional pub fare (sorry to those of you who like pub food…it’s not my favorite).

But: there was no suffering.  Not only did we get to sit outside on this really  nice patio, but this place had an amazing menu (I got the most delicious lamb burger I’ve ever had and my friend got a great dish of roast lamb) and they had beer samplers!  We figured since we were in an ale house, we should do the beer sampler.  I’ve seen beer samplers back home; the servings were small.  So when the waitress asked us if we wanted to share one, we thought she was crazy.  Of course we wanted our own beer samplers!  She gave us a look of disbelief and went back inside to prepare our order.

We soon figured out what that look was for.  A little bit later, the waitress came out carrying these two huge trays of beer.  As she walked to our table, the entire patio got silent and just stared at us in disbelief.  We looked at the beer, then we looked at each other: Challenge Accepted.  Here’s a few photos from that day/night…

The scenery on the way from our hotel to the town:

A look at the ale house where our shenanigans took place: 

Wait…that’s the beer sampler?  Uhm…ok.  We can do this!

Here’s a shot of my favorite one we tried:

That’s a lot of beer!

But, we did it!  We made our way through the sampler…and then had another pint just to laugh in the face of that challenge!  Pretty good for a couple of girls who were really in town for the wine!

Side Note: a few of the tables who stared at us when all this beer came out ordered the sampler too…they shared it.

Additional Side Note: We had meant just have a quick, quiet dinner before getting some sleep for the next few days of adventure in Queenstown.  Now, this story is one of my favorite travel stories ever!  Just goes to show that you can have the most fun when plans fail you on your vacations.

(Drink responsibly everyone…)

 

Merry Christmas: My Most Unlikely Baking Tool

I’ve been baking a lot this weekend.  More than usual even.  Tonight, I was standing up for two hours decorating cookies and as I was moving around the sprinkles and icing for the cookies around my dining room table, I was struck by one item that you might not usually see sitting around with a bunch of cookies.

A hammer.

Yeah.  A hammer.  The same kind you use to hang pictures.

I’m not really sure how many other people find a hammer to be such and important of Christmas baking, but to me it’s been invaluable!  Here are a few uses for my baking hammer:

1. Smash candy canes for the chocolate peppermint cookies
2. Smash chocolate bars to melt them on top of the toffee bars
3. Make sure the snapware is closed all the way so the cookies don’t go stale

That’s is so far.  But to end this…here are some pictures of cookies! With a poll for which recipe of the pictured cookies you want!!

Chocolate Peanut Butter Chip

Chocolate Peppermint Cookies

Thumbprint Cookies (Shortbread and Jam)

Sugar Cookies

 

Unicorn in the City

I was thinking about it today…and I while I love to travel to exotic locations, most of my travel consists of commuting to and from work.  On the face of it- that is a very depressing statement.  However, as I was walking home today from the metro, I thought…what if I made my daily commute into a Sparkles MacUnicorn story???  And so THIS was born…

Once upon a time in a town in the continental United States (let’s call it Glitterland)…there lived a unicorn named Sparkles.  This unicorn lived in a rainbow-y* mid-level high rise.  Sparkles woke up before dawn in order to cross the River of Responsibility and to avoid the sinister monster Grid-Locke.  Some days it would be unbearably hot even before the sun came up and sometimes Sparkles would have to go out in snow storms.

And some days no matter how early Sparkles got up, brushed her mane, and put on her fancy hoof polish she would be caught in Grid-Locke’s evil clutches.  But Sparkles knew that she had to make it to the Grey Tower of Cerebus so that she could buy shiny unicorn feed and live in her rainbow-y stable.

One morning, Sparkles was feeling very tired and everything seemed to go wrong.  It took too long for the elevator to come.  A car almost hit her at the crosswalk.  The construction she walked by everyday suddenly closed off her usual path.  She just missed the train she usually got due to slow-moving slugs who would not stand on the right of the escalators.  They were clearly minions of Grid-Locke.

And it was hot.  So hot that Sparkles thought she was going to melt as she waited for the next train to come.  The wait was usually three minutes when Sparkles missed the train.   That day it was twenty and there were no seats left so Sparkles couldn’t do her crossword puzzle.  Sparkles was late to the Grey Tower of Cerebus!!

Thankfully, the Grey Tower of Cerebus had the magical ability to control the temperature and Sparkles was able to meet with her unicorn friends at work.  Soon it was time to go home and Sparkles wondered what evils the afternoon commute had in store.

It was still hot as she left the Grey Tower of Cerebus, but there was a nice breeze blowing.  This made Sparkles happy.  There were lots of slow moving giants**, but Sparkles was small and able to dodge through the crowd quickly and there was a train waiting on the platform and Spakles got on board…and even got a seat!  The train filled up quickly and was soon crowded with unicorns, but they were all very polite and Sparkles was able to exit the train with no problem.  There was a crowd of slow-moving slugs in between Sparkles and the escalator…but they all stood on the right.  Sparkles couldn’t dare to hope that the rest of the commute would be this magical.

But it was!  Sparkles was able once again to dodge through the crowd of giants and then only had to walk back to her rainbow stable through the heat and humidity of Glitterland.  The breeze came back.  At the crosswalk, a car actually stopped and the driver smiled at Sparkles (she waved back) and let her cross.  No one turning left tried to make a Sparkles pancake.  Sparkles was so happy she even climbed the steps up to her home instead of taking the elevator.

Take that Grid-Locke and all your minions!

*Adding the words “rainbow” and “sparkles” randomly as adjectives is what will give this story its pizzazz!

**So…I’m only five feet tall.  Yes.  I’m done growing.  Basically, everyone I encounter is a giant.