Matcha Macarons with Chocolate Buttercream

The return of the macs! I haven't made these in a month. This was my first time making a double batch. I typically like to stick with macaron recipes that only need one egg white, but my mom saved me 2 egg whites... and put them in the same bowl. It took quite a bit more time to whip up the egg whites. I wasn't even really paying attention much to the process because I going back and forth from kitchen to living room watching the Ultimate Recipe Showdown on cakes. One of the contestant was a dentist. She made 2 cupcakes, both of which looked amazing! I think there was a Key Lime Coconut one (one of my favorite flavor for martinis!) and the other one was a lemony sunshine cupcake, with a lemon curd topping... drool ( if my stomach can handle that much lemon.) She placed second, which isn't too bad. She lost by a point. It's just cool seeing that other dentists out there that share my passion. : ) I don't get to see that a lot. I strive to be her in the future!... Food Network... here I come! .... jk haha but I'm definitely looking forward to enter in baking contests. I might have to move to a smaller city though, competition around my area is probably crazy hard!

I wanted to make the earl grey chocolate ones again, but I don't think my parents were too fond of that flavor. I made a huge batch, and needed their help in consuming them. So, I made the matcha one again and didn't color it as intensely as before. I should have though, since I had an idea to make these semi- St. Patrick's Day- worthy. Oh well, they're green. I've definitely found my go to recipe for macarons and am glad that it worked out. I gave these to a friend who has never had a macaron before. I hope she likes them! (Hey Delaura ;-P) They're really a hard-to-describe cookie, in terms of texture and taste. Anyway, typically I would fill it with a ganache, but I had no cream on hand, so I did the next best thing... frosting. I didn't let the frosting set up when I took the picture... but it's not as grainy as it looks. Ganache goes so much better with macarons than frosting does. Maybe I'll do that in celebration of Macaron day... aka March 20th... yes there is such thing... I just found out about it probably 15 minutes ago... interesting. I'm going to try to freeze a cookie to see how well it tastes after it's thawed.

Happy (early) St. Patty's Day :-)

Click here for the Matcha Macarons Recipe

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On unrelated news... I was browsing sites and found this machine that I think has the ability to change cake decorating forever. It will make home cooks produce those thousand dollar cakes for probably 90% less. It's called the Cricut Cake... o.m.g. It is what the Cricut is to paper... aka.. it cuts out shapes of any type... and will be able to do that on gumpaste! I saw the video, it looks amazing. Everything is SO clean and professional. Rumor has it that this machine will cost anywhere from 300-400 bucks. Sigh. If I wasn't going to dental school, I would definitely love to invest in that machine and open up a bakery that sells affordable fondant wedding cakes.. because fondant cake decorating.. just got a lot more effortless. : ) Let's see if there's a machine that makes fondant roses... and scroll work... hm... I'll be dreaming for that day.... The Cricut Cake machine should be available May 1st.... I'll be sure to check it out.... but will definitely not buy it.... yet... give me a few years and a few more occasions to celebrate... I can see a lot of uses from this when I start a family.....

Up next: Corned beef, and maybe some cabbage. The beef is stewing right now in the crock pot with a bottle of beer. Never cooked meat with beer before, what could go wrong? haha...