Macaroon Thursday!

Today, my friend Jenna and I are starting part one of perfecting the French macaroon. Wish us luck!

a first attempt: beef pie & puff

So last night i made a pie. I didn’t go with the 7 hour Maggie Beer recipe that I first considered but made up my own recipe and cooked the meat for a measly 3 hours! haha, it fell apart at the touch so i say it was perfect. Also made my own shortcrust pastry for the base and had my first attempt at a rough puff for the lid. They rested in the fridge over night, as maggies recipe stated and have just come out of the oven.
my puff worked! not a good picture but i was too excited to eat these little beauties!

dietary challenge

i have a friend who is on the elimination diet as a tool to battle her chronic fatigue. after hearing some of the things she could eat and about a few naughty sneaky spoonfuls of ice cream i decided i was going to make her a tub that would be all fine with her! because of the inability to add any flavours to the ice cream i made it a slightly toffee flavour which had no extra additives however did make it a little over sweet.

i then realised we would be hanging out with a few other lovely ladies one night and as usual i wanted to bring some sweets along! so the challenge was set something yummy using only lactose free milk, eggs, sugar and pears (without skins). i ended up with basically the same dish for all, a poached pear pavlova!

a chewy meringue with a hidden jackpot of chocolate ganache topped with whipped cream, half a poached pear and a little nest of toffee curls. the only difference for the fussy version there was no ganache and the lactose free ice cream instead of cream.