JesJes Bakes

Pretty typical start to my Saturday: Running and body pump.

After getting cleaned up I headed over to Jess' house for our first attempt at Macarons.

Let me back track for a sec. Last week I picked up some macarons at the farmer's market. When Laura saw that they were $2 each she said that I should just learn to make them. The guy working the booth told us it was pretty much impossible. Umm...hello, sir? Have you met me? My name is Jessica, and I spend time cooking and baking every week, so I'm not a complete ameature. (The use of that word just gave me a high school flashback when Ian would tell us every day in theater arts to "Stop being such an aneature.") Thanks. I had already been planning on trying them out, but that basically lit the fire. Please don't tell me that I can't do something, because I'll do it, and better than you.

Moving on....I had spent a lot of time looking for an adequate recipe and gathering tips on how to get these precious babies to come out right. Honestly, I was a little freaked out because many people were saying that it's nearly impossible to get them to turn out the first couple of times as there are so many things that can mess them up:

• the climate can't be too humid - eff. I live in Houston
• the kitchen can't be too hot - effff. I still live in Houston
• mix it - not too much or too little
• fold it - but don't loose too much air
• punch it - wait? isn't this going to knock out the air?

I decided on this recipe. The whole process went pretty well. It took longer than necessary because I kept checking and rechecking the recipe so I wouldn't make any mistakes. Even with all of the double checks, I still managed to put in 1tbs of vanilla extract instead of 1 tsp. I almost flipped shit when I noticed that! Who knows how much that will effect them and in what way!

Jess was so kind to let me take over her kitchen and stand mixer (and for using some of your pictures!). I really don't think I would have had the patience without it! I might gift myself that for my bday.

While we waited for them to bake we opened some wine (good thing we didn't do this before other wise I would have made more mistakes I'm sure!) and I started on the filling. Well, I totally botched that. I was nervous of over cooking it, and it seemed puding like...until I realized that I don't know what the consistency of pudding is because I don't ever eat it. Yeah, it ended up just being a runny soppy mess.

We took out the macaroons and when I started removing them (after a cooling period) they were too mushy on the inside. I started freaking out and may have been a little rough with the cookie sheet (I hope Jes didn't notice as I started to rage). I calmed down, and popped them in the oven for a little longer and that basically fixed it.

Steven came home from a long day of golfing as we were ready to put in the last batch. Jess and I decided to get preserves to fill them with since I botched the other filling and couldn't be bothered to remake it. I set the timer and asked S to remove when they were done. When we got back, we were welcomed by some very golden macaron pieces. S said they didn't seem done so he left them in longer. I think he just forgot.

I stopped being a bakezilla and let Jess help me sandwich them with the strawbery and raspbery preserves. We decided that the strawberry flavor was crap, so switched to all raspberry. Yum! We had a few, then put them in the fridge and retired to the couch for a Girls marathon while S grilled up some dinner.

We had the most delicious steak kabobs and corn on the cob. He is the best hubs ever! After dinner we ate the majority of the macaroons. They were just so good I didn't want to stop!