Mid-Winter Break

Snowy roads at my Grandma's House

     I've decided to take my blog in the creative direction. To be honest, I don't consider myself to be that creative, although I love doing art projects or making things. 
     Now when the weather looks like this, you're going to be stuck inside for a while. I decided to do something I've wanted to do for a long time: bake macaroons! 
     This was before I got really sick, but I was inspired by a YouTube video on how to make macaroons. The lady in the video made it look easy, so I said to myself, "Why not?"
    
 You only need a few things:         For the frosting you just need:
Three egg whites                           a stick of butter 
1/4 cup of white sugar                   and powdered sugar
2 cups of powdered sugar
1 cup of almond flour
and a pinch of salt

     I didn't really know what to expect, so I just went for it. The first thing you have to do is sift the powdered sugar and the almond flour to get rid of all the lumps, which at first I didn't think was necessary, and then I saw how many chunks were left, and I was very glad I did it. 

Sifting the almond flour

Left over almond remains

   

Getting fluffier!

Mixing the egg whites

     After all the dry ingredients are combined, you can move onto the egg whites and sugar. I have never done this before, so I was nervous that I'd mess everything up, but it said mixed for eight minutes, so I did. 



     I added pink food dye because I thought it looked pretty. I was worried that my macaroons wouldn't be perfect circles, so I traced the bottom of the salt on the parchment paper, and then flipped it over so none of the graphite got on the cookies. The perfect circle thing didn't turn out so well, but that doesn't affect the taste!

My attempt to be neat

Not so perfect

Lookin' good; all 19 of them

     After the cookies sat for 30 minutes to form a skin, I put them in the oven for 20 minutes at 300˚F. I made the butter cream for the filling and that was so easy, and it tasted great! I let the cookies cool for about an hour before I touched them because I was nervous that they would break. I paired up the ones that were similar in size. And of course, I accidentally made 19 instead of 20, so I didn't have perfect 10, I had to settle for 9. 

The finished product was so beautiful that I didn't want to eat it! I shared them with my family, and they were very impressed with my first try making macaroons! I was too, to be honest. I needed to be a bit more confident in my baking abilities. And that was how I spent one of the days on Mid-Winter Break, of course I should have been doing my homework, but this looked like more fun!