If you can't bake them, shoot them

So I took my baby Cammie (my DSLR) out to play recently cuz I bought macarons from Canelé, my favourite place! Also where my bestfriends brought me for my birthday treat.

I love the macarons there! It's where I bought my first macaron from with Geisel hehe.

I need to stop my macaron craze!!!!!

Their packaging changed a lil. Now the macarons come encased in this plastic holder. Guess it's to prevent the macarons from knocking into each other when the customer carries the box around?

Haven't actual sat down to scrutinize photos and edit them using Photoshop.. felt kinda good to be doing that again cuz that's how I spent most of my free time during my gap year.

So I've also been sick for the longest time and it's annoying me to no end!

Had to skip my Nepal OCIP trip meeting today because I felt so horrible, especially after having a bit of my breakfast. Sigh me no likey because I haven't really stopped coughing since the haze period? It got better for a bit, but it's a lot worse now.

Doesn't help that I hate taking meds and never take them on time (or at all) just because. My mom sometimes has to force feed me my meds and I can sense how annoyed she is whenever she has to do that hehe.

Knees have been really bad too, hurts to lie in bed even because my knees ache and burn so badly that I try to find a position to lie in that doesn't hurt them.

Wish I could replace my knees with a snap of my fingers. :'(

I've decided that I'll go back for physiotherapy after I'm done with my internships! Wouldn't wanna attend uni (if possible) with knees like that, would be restricted from doing so much, especially dance! For now I'll just stick with achy knees and treatments at those TCM places.

My schedule for this week and the next is gonna kill me: Intensive Nepal trip meetings everyday before the 7th, and yours truly has to plan team bonding activities for us to do.

For some reason I'm always doing team bonding! For camps, for orientations.. I think I'm getting really good at planning them.

Looking forward to my 15 days in Nepal!

Ending off with a photo of a really demure-looking me headed for #DMCraya a few days back. Too many photos to save and edit here and there, so I guess I'll post them up some other time.

Bye!

Gwen Bakes: (Failed) Macarons

So I wrote a blog post about how I had this bucket list to clear.

It has been a while since I last sat down and wrote a proper blog post with proper photos from my baby Cammie (my beloved Sony DSLR which I am contemplating selling so that I can upgrade – more on that another time), and I decided that why not start my old blogging habit again by documenting my baking adventures?

(Don't expect high quality photos though, I'm still just getting into the mood of using Cammie again + photo editing.)

I've always had a strong interest in baking, and I seldom admit this but one of my dreams is also to open a bakery or a cafe that people would love sitting in all day.

Dad and I have even had long, serious discussions about this due to my mom being so awesome in cooking. We thought we could work something out in future due to how Singaporeans are taking a huge liking to the cafes springing up around here.

Today I (unsuccessfully) cleared the one on the top of my list: The macaron *cue dramatic background music*

Dun dun dunnnn!

I doubt anyone remembers, but I've ever mentioned how macarons are my absolute favourite things on Earth. They make me so happy!

Albeit it was a failure (photo at the end of the post, I'm keeping y'all in suspense. DON'T SCROLL DOWN TO SPOIL YOURSELF! I'm not using reverse psychology here and oh the recipe link's below too), I figured it could be considered a success if you change the recipe title to something like....... 'Meringue Cookies' or something?

I kid you not; this motherbitch is extremely testing on your patience so be warned if you ever feel ambitious (or bored) enough to try baking something that shops in town are selling at $2.50-$5 per piece!??

With countertop cleared and my army of baking utensils at the ready!

Sifting the icing sugar + almond meal + cocoa powder + salt took up bulk of the time, which surprised me a lil' cuz I expected myself to spend more time whipping the egg whites into a meringue instead.

In the end half my almond meal was left behind due to it being too big to sift through! Madness. Almond meal isn't cheap in Singapore either, so oh well.

My mom took the first failure so well.

"Aiyah nevermind la, your first time also what. Nevermind lor."

Do not overwhip the egg whites, and always ensure that you allow your egg whites are at room temperature, which is an essential for those stiff peaks.

I have no idea how long I did this for, but I normally follow my gut feeling when it comes to whipping egg whites.

My gut feeling was SO WRONG when it came to the folding in of the dry mixture into the egg whites though.

This was where it all went terribly downhill (and I expected it due to all the research I've done before baking this badass).

I over mixed the batter, and I mistook 'slow running lava' as runny.

No idea how that happened.. it just did!

Was so frustrated that I was this close to throwing out my ruined batter. THIS CLOSE. Then I felt bad because that would be about 3 cups of icing sugar I'd be pouring down the drain – and did I mention how expensive almond meal is?

Even piping them was tough due to the batter being soooooooooo runny.

Decided that YOLO! "Just whack only! Fail already what."

(Whoopsie, photograph from my Instagram)

The counter was a total mess.. as was I.

The final product?:

ABSOLUTELY HORRENDOUS – but deliciously, sickly sweet – COOKIES MUAHAHAH

The batter made so much though – not just the ones you see in the picture!

Due to the over mixed and terribly runny batter, they wouldn't rise upwards no matter how long I made them sit out (essential for your macarons to rise UP and not OUT).

And if you were wondering, duh they didn't grow 'feet' either. Not like I expected them to, the failed batter was sign #1 that the feet weren't gonna happen, not today.

They do, however, taste really good!

Not something I would consume a lot of at one go though, the amount of sugar plus the fact that my stomach hasn't been too good to me due to my eating habits the past few months. But hey I'm back to trying my best at eating clean and working out daily!

These should be called meringue cookies instead HAHAHA. What a way to cover up my fail!

I'm gonna have another go at baking them really soon, when I'm not as tired or in a rush to get them done. These babies are pricey for a reason, and they are prolly the world's toughest cookie to bake! The mixing etc. alone took me almost 2 hours due to the sifting.

Oh well, shall stuff these in my brother's mouth for the time being. And my boyfriend's, that is, if they last till I see him but urgh these are the equivalent to diabetes in TWO BITES, which is why I'm pretty sure my brother would enjoy them.

Okay fine, diabetes in four bites.

(I had more than 10 bites for sure)

(Shit.)

You can get the recipe here @ CHOW. 

I normally tweak recipes especially if I've baked them a couple of times but since this is my first time trying this recipe I've yet to change it. The measurements aren't in metric form too so it's best to Google for a metric conversion chart – take note the different measurements for different kinds of things!