Tag Archives: lemon

A semblance of Lemon Macarons + I need a new oven

Posted in Baking Recipes, Cookies, From the books, J'adore macarons, Lemon Obsession, My favourite things by

I’m officially obsessed. I want to make every macaron flavor in the Universe– every odd, outrageous, and wonderful flavor known to man– and file all the really memorable ones into my repertoire. But right now I have to experiment with recipes and techniques to find the ones that produce consistent results for me. And then I have to master them. And I also seriously need a better oven, but more on that later.

Malcolm Gladwell says it takes 10,000 hours of hands-on application to become an expert at anything. And I know this is only my second try at macarons, but the improvement in knowledge from my first to my second try is immense. The recipe I tried this time was the French macaron recipe from the adorable Les Petits Macarons book. It’s a little difficult to bake from because the base recipe is a few pages away from the flavor variations so you have to flip pages, but you can easily remedy this problem by typing the full recipe up into one piece of paper or recipe card. (Luckily I’ve done that for you already!) Despite this, the instructions in the book are very informative, and it has a troubleshooting portion at the back with scenarios and pictures which is beyond useful.

The smorgasbord of flavor combinations between shells and fillings the book offers is probably enough to allow you to clock in the 10,000 hours if you make them all. There is no doubt in my mind that I will get there, but for now I’m going with something very simple, straightforward, and fresh-tasting: Lemon Macarons.

Baby-steps, you know?

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Lemon cakes and well wishes

Posted in Baking Recipes, From the books, Lemon Obsession, Layer cakes by

It was an incredibly dreary day when I made this, and yet I could not allow it to permeate the purpose of this cake. The summer weather has been odd, abruptly throwing rain in the middle of heat waves whenever it felt like it, like a child throwing a tantrum, or maybe a person splashing water into the face of another in the heat of an argument. Either way, the clouds had caused the sun to cast a dark gray sheen over everything, but thankfully not on our moods.

Jason was holding my camera as I messily assembled his birthday cake.

‘Hurry up, will you!’ He told me as he snapped some process photos. ‘I’ve got tons of things to do!’

‘Shut up and concentrate on taking good pictures!’ I called back.

He checked the LCD of my camera. ‘Oh please. I think you’ll be pleased with all the photos I took,’ he responded, a smug smile crossing his face. In truth he took several blurry photos, but I was in too good a mood to care an awful lot. Anyway, it wouldn’t be right of me to rain on his parade while I’m making a cake to celebrate his high school graduation.

‘Hmph, being narcissistic again, are we?’ I chided him playfully.

It’s been this way between us lately, and anybody who knows what my relationship with this particular brother of mine is like would comment that we’ve come a long way. People make jokes about cats and dogs fighting but those jokes got nothing on us when we fought as children. I remember distinctly a lot of name-calling, body-dragging, and sabotaging of personal belongings, but all of it feels like another lifetime ago.

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Finding resolve + Hot Cross Biscuits

Posted in Baking Recipes, Biscuits & scones, Christmas & holidays, The Breakfast Bin by

As some of you my dear readers know, the start of this year hasn’t been particularly pleasant because of a certain “discovery” that happened. In fact I can think of several adjectives that can describe it, but let’s stick with …infuriating. Don’t get me wrong, this discovery was an important eye-opener, and in the long run a beneficial and positive one, but it’s been hard on me. I won’t deny it. And the fact that it has caused me to neglect almost all the things I love (except coffee), has been cause for why I’ve been spending my days feeling like I’m in a rut. My disposition hasn’t been the brightest because of it.

This blog is one of the things that suffered most from this period, and I hated this fact knowing I had promised myself to make this blog better than it was last year. I sure as hell couldn’t keep that promise if I could not even find the time to post. At the start of the year after the “discovery”, I had so many terrible emotions rolling through me that only added to the physical and mental exhaustion I was experiencing from work. A great deal of my time was spent hating the people responsible for this whole mess. There was too much work to be done to rectify the situation, and I was constantly beat and dispirited. I was so burnt-out in just about all aspects of my being that I spent weeks not baking at all. I’ve never been the type to spend idle days, but that was all I wanted to do then: Lie down, try to get restful sleep, forget about everything.

I had been shaken out of my character.

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If only life were as easy as braiding lemon breads

Posted in Baking Recipes, Bread-making, Lemon Obsession, The Breakfast Bin, Yeasted breads by

How goes the first couple of weeks of the new year for you all? Mine has been one heck of a roller coaster ride. Sometimes when I lay down to sleep at night, I feel shocked at how much has happened in the last 11 days since the year began. Work has been absolutely draining and stressful and overwhelming. Sometimes all I want to do is lie down and stop thinking about everything. The weather has been nice over here too, contributing to my desires to take it slow. Maybe I need a change of careers. Or something.

I know I told myself that 2013 is going to be an awesome year– my year. I felt good about its approach, and I felt good as I welcomed it with open arms. I had this sensation in me that this is the year when things will begin falling into place. That I’ve been feeling the blues these past few days has been discouraging me though. I feel insecure. I feel terrified that things seem to still be muddled until now. I know it’s grossly premature to have this fear that I am going to be disappointed at the end of the year just because I’m having off days right now, but it’s an odd feeling. I feel like there’s something else out there I should be doing to get to where I want to be. And yet I have no idea how or where to get started.

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A lesson on looking beyond the surface

Posted in Baking Recipes, Lemon Obsession, My favourite things, Spoon desserts & puddings by

Young people are naive. And I don’t say that to sound old. I am still quite young myself, but the older I grow and the more my mind opens up to new and different perspectives about life, the more I realise how true this is. A lot of young people seem to think they have their own minds- all the statements made about being unique- but almost always it’s as if they (or we) have been brainwashed with concepts of which things are more “worthy” of time and attention than others.

At some point during my younger years, I was one of those teenagers who were quick to judge the worth of something based on how they impress me upon first glance. I remember when I was fresh out of university at 19, I had considered job offers in several big-name companies with “glass house”-type offices. It didn’t help that nosy outsiders who had no pertinent knowledge on the matter kept whispering in my ear that this company or another had a big name and a solid reputation, as if these points were all that mattered in picking a job. I let my imagination run away with their words of a spectacular future then and was stupid enough to accept a very professional-sounding position in this well-known company despite the odd nagging sensation inside me.

Looking back on that time, I can only shake my head at myself. Aside from not being the type of person made for a typical corporate office job, I also wasn’t the type to do something just for the sake of keeping up appearances. I have always been the sort of person who simply wanted to do my best while still being myself, and it’s always worked for me. And I have always strived to do things that I know will make me happy, because in the end I can pour my efforts into it and feel like I had not wasted my time. I don’t know what happened to me then that I would let myself get carried away by all the talk, by all the expectations of the people who did not matter. I guess it really was naivete on my part.

You know, for all the grandeur of the place, I actually hated my job. I hated how there was absolutely zero chance for the kind of growth that I wanted. I felt very much like a caterpillar trapped inside a cocoon that would not open and let me turn into a butterfly. I felt miserable. At times I would remember this phrase my Dad used to say to me all the time: Not all things that come in pretty packages are what they seem. He keeps saying that to me in hopes of, I suppose, embedding it into my mind. But I had to learn it the hard way. And it’s a lesson I will never forget. It is a mistake to ever judge things largely by how they look. Sometimes something so simple and unassuming could have so much magic in it. Sometimes a thing that looks perfect on the outside can have a rotten, maggot-infested core.

I’m sorry I had to use the word ‘maggot’ in a food post. There’s a recipe in here somewhere, I promise.
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I really like how lemon bars make me feel

Posted in At home, Baking Recipes, Brownies & Bars, From the books, Lemon Obsession, Must-Makes from Martha by

I wonder when this seed was planted. The more I think about it, the more I realize just how unhappy I have been feeling with my life. And I don’t mean it in the aspect of comfort and luxury. I’m grateful for those, sure. I can’t discredit my parents for giving those things to me. But the more time passes, the more I grow anxious: What is going to happen with my life? What about where I’m going? No one has ever attempted to talk to me about this topic. Maybe that’s why I feel a little lost.

I’ve been baking because it removes me from all the fears and apprehension that swirl around in my mind constantly, but that’s only a few precious hours in a week. The rest of the time I feel like I’m stuck in a ditch, frustratedly clawing my way out of the hole I’ve dug myself into in my head. And you know what I realized? I am the only one who can get myself out.
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