Do judge this book by its cover

Photo blog today! Because really, this is just to toot my own horn... though it wasn't entirely successful =( But for now, let's show some normal Japanese food from Ichiban Boshi:

From 121___08

I love beef tataki for its yuzu sauce.

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And tsukemen is one of my favourite ramen of all times~ in winter. For summer, it's hiyashi chuuka, which I can't wait to have this summer though I'm really really reeeeally dreading the upcoming summer =( going to be super hot.

From 121___08

I bought a silicon mat from ebay. After my failure first time round of baking macarons on baking sheet and having them all COMPLETELY stuck onto the paper, I decided silicon is the only way to do it. Of course, you could get Silpat, which is the "branded" version of silicon baking mats, but you're looking at around $40-100+ per mat, and I'm not willing to pay for that.

From 121___08

From 121___08

This little guy should be well known now as my main helper during baking.

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Look! Feet!

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Macarons with feet are considered successful right?

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The reason why they are quite uneven is because the oven's heat is uneven, and there is nothing I can do about it unless we get a completely new oven installed. It's pretty old, but it still works...

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It looks good, but there was actually something wrong with it.

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And you can't see the problem just by looking at the photo.

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At least the taste was all there.

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Filling was just chocolate ganache.

From 121___08

From 121___08

So what was the problem? Ultimately, it was the texture that failed. It wasn't soft with a light crispy shell, it was actually hard, like a biscuit. I tried troubleshooting it and found that macarons have a standing time of 2 days where osmosis happens between the filling and the shell. Moisture gets absorbed from the filling to the shell, softening the shell to that chewy consistency that successful macarons have.

From 121___08

The thing is, I kept it for 48 hours and while it did make a little difference, it was still pretty hard. The only other thing it could have been was that I overwhipped the egg whites mixture. It is really hard to get that part right because if you underwhip, the mixture falls flat... overwhip and you get the wrong texture. Understand, now, why macarons are so hard to make.... but it's still a good experience. 

I haven't tried again since then, but it's quite a hassle to make, since you have to manually pipe each circle of it. Made easier with the silicon mat, of course, but it's still tedious work, plus I don't have a piping bag- I used ziplock bags. Plural because they tend to BURST on me halfway through, causing quite a mess.

And I still refuse to buy a piping bag, or fancy baking equipment, because piping bags are hard to clean and that's my number 1 irk. I don't have a sift either, because I don't sift my flours... which could potentially have ruined the texture of these macarons actually, because you're meant to sift the almond meal. This is what you get for not following instructions. I swear, baking has to be the most efficient way of teaching a kid to follow instructions precisely.