Macaron Mania!

So being the overachiever (in the kitchen) that I am, I decided to start this little french journey with the coveted  macaron. Baking for me has been sort of a love hate relationship, you see i don't really like to follow a recipe. thats where cooking and I get along fabulous! the recipe is more like a guideline and i can change, add, substitute, whatever. baking is more of a refined and delicate procedure that takes time and other annoying things like actually following a recipe.yet i am determined to master this art called baking if it kills me.

The Macaron: Created in paris in the late nineteenth century by a monsieur Gerbert, but according to Paris patisseries it is a contemporary creation, a creation that has Parisians in a state of Macaron Mania! walk into any patisserie and you will see this rainbow of Macarons. literally almost every color and flavor, including but not limited to! rose, pistachio and cherry, chocolate, salted caramel, espresso, even green lime with basil, wasabi, black licorice.

Now i am no Pierre Herme (apparently the king of macarons) i knew that coming into this but i had no idea how much i would actually suck at making macarons! i thought OK here is the recipe and the ingredients, go!
NO. how could i have been so naive?! to think that any of these pastry's could be easy! but i did and lets just let the pictures do the talking.....

The lone macaron, so pitiful, so sad, so ugly! this macaron took me exactly 6 hours to make. ya. the cookie part is chocolate and the filling is salted caramel. sometime maybe in the distant future i plan on making a lemon macaron. but after today i don't know.

So the next post i will be making raspberry tartletts. they seem easy enough but you never can tell! oh and the pictures of my macarons were taken my Katie schuchart. the only reason my macarons dont look like poop is because of her! thanks katie!

Where to start

So I got three books to kind of help me get an idea about french cooking, they are shown on the left.the Paris cookbook has all kinds of recipes that I am super excited to try! the Paris patisseries is just desserts! and I am super excited to make my first tarts! and Tartine is also desserts. i hope that these will help me get an idea as to what I am getting myself into! the next post i will give the recipe and pictures of how it turned out,  I plan on making every recipe in all the books! so wish me luck! until next post,

                                                 XX Cassandra

New blog

Hello everyone! this is my new blog called Cafe Au pair, it's about my life as an Au pair and my life in the kitchen. I recently got hired as a nanny to an amazing family in Alaska and am loving it! they have three beautiful children who I thoroughly enjoy taking care of and cooking for! I have always had a passion for cooking, I guess you could blame my parents! and I have always wanted to be a mom and have children. As you might also guess I find the french culture fascinating. I hope to learn the language as soon as possible! and am hoping to cook some amazing food and showcase it to all of you!until next post!
xx Cassandra