French Macaroons

French Macaroons seem to be all the baking rage lately. Some will also have you believe that you need to be a French pastry chef in order to make them. WRONG. Its easy. Easy if your not like handicapped in a way that you may run out in busy traffic or play golf in a raging lightning storm.

The French Macaroons are a cookie made with ground almonds, sugar and beaten egg whites. If you have a nut or egg allergy beware. I don’t want any news that one of you allergic types tried these then you seized up and had to take fifteen Epi-Shots in your butt to keep you from heading into the bright lights.

Generally speaking the cookies have either buttercream or jelly/jam spread in between the cookies. I went the butter cream route today. The cookies have a semi hard plastic shell type exterior and soft chewy interior. You can dye them any color you like.

Here are a few pictures of my examples I busted out this afternoon.


French Macaroons
 
Prep time
Cook time
Total time
 
A cookie. Its French and they call it a macaroon. They are in vogue right now, so make them and impress people.
Author:
Recipe type: Dessert
Cuisine: French
Serves: 12
Ingredients
  • ¾ cups Finely Ground Almonds
  • 1 cup Powdered Confectioners Sugar
  • 2 Egg Whites
  • 4 Tablespoons Granulated Sugar
  • 2-4 Drops of Food Coloring
Instructions
  1. Grind and sift Almonds into bowl
  2. Sift Powdered Confectioners sugar into bowl with ground Almonds
  3. Using a whip attachment on mixer or handheld blender whip Egg Whites to soft peak stage
  4. Slowly add Granulated sugar a tablespoon at a time to whipped Egg Whites until stiff peak stage
  5. Fold stiff peak Egg White / Sugar mixture into ground Almonds and Confectioners Sugar until well incorporated
  6. Add 2-4 drops of Food coloring of choice to cookie batter and stir to incorporate
  7. Spoon cookie batter into piping bag or ziplock bag with corner cut off
  8. Pipe dime sized batter onto parchment lined baking sheet, well spaced out. Batter will flatten out a bit
  9. Leave baking sheets with piped out cookie batter on counter to rest 15 minutes to form a crust on top of each cookie
  10. Pre-heat oven to 325 degrees
  11. After 15 minutes rest and oven pre-heat place baking sheets with cookies into oven and lower heat to 300 degrees
  12. Bake for 8 minutes
  13. Rotate baking sheets in oven
  14. Bake for another 8 minutes
  15. Remove baking sheets allow cookies to cool for 10-15 minutes
  16. Remove cookies from baking sheets and allow to completely cook on racks
  17. Gently spread buttercream frosting or jam of your choice between cookies

 

I’m Seeing This Girl and She Might Just Be Out of Her Mind

Well she’s got baggage and it’s all the emotional kind
She talks about closure and that validation bit
I don’t mean to be insensitive, but I really hate that shit

Ugh, Monday. Well, lets get this going and the pain of another work week ahead of us.

Kate is still pregnant, puking and whatnot. However now the circus surrounding this non-event has finally grown some legs the mainstream media can sink their teeth into to keep this going even longer.

It seems a couple radio station DJ’s down in Australia decided to call the hospital where Kate was being treated for puking and shitting herself due to the satan spawn growing within her polluted womb, as a prank. A nurse answers the call from the DJ’s impersonating the Queen enquiring about Kate and the nurse puts the call through to the ward where Kate is being treated blah blah blah. Its all a joke, a radio gag done in every “Shock jock”, morning drive, prize hoopty radio station from one end of the globe to another.

It turns out, the nurse that took the call, and transferred the call to the Duchesses room, toilet, shower, puke bucket, was so distraught from being taken in the gag, she kills herself. Oh yea, dead right there as they say. When I first heard the news she was dead, I immediately thought to myself, “awesome, the palace/hospital is playing a gag, back to the two nitwit DJ’s to make them sweat a bit and feel shitty for the prank.” Right? Honestly no sane person would kill them self over a stupid telephone call. In my mind I am thinking, hey the British royals and or hospital really get how to combat this dumb-shit nonsense. They pretend the nurse kills herself, the DJ’s feel like shit and the tables get turned on the idiots that these kind of radio stunts aren’t funny to begin with.

Only one problem. This dumb broad actually kills herself over this crap. WTF? As you can imagine, the DJ’s and the radio show is shit canned. Now we the innocent people of earth will have to listen to media pontificate how horrible it is to play jokes on people and how the most feeble minded, and insecure of the population must be protected from being the brunt of a freaking joke. One more nail in the coffin of freedom. Get ready, and watch the cockamamie bullshit the media and then our own elected idiots around the world react to these events. These two DJ’s will and already are taking the blame for this, and no one is going to bring up that the nurse was the one with the ultimate problem.

Moving along…

My Jets pull off a win against Jacksonville. Dolphins slip against San Fran. Giants and Saints score about 450 combined total points against each other. However most notably in weekend sports news, Manny Pacquiao, got “knocked the fuck out” by Marquez with a right to the jib in the last seconds of the six round. Not just a KO, but a KO that Manny took a damn nap face first in the “oh shit” of life for about two minutes.

By scorecard and punch stat, Manny was in control of the fight and leading the way. Just goes to show you however as in life, things can turn on a dime and change. If you’re not ready and protecting yourself at all times, you’re taking that ride.

Manny still got paid $20 million dollars, so I don’t feel too terribly bad for him. If this does anything, it will motivate Floyd Mayweather to stop pussyfooting around and agree to a fight with Pacquiao. That is as soon as the “Money Team” runs out of strip club money and Floyd has to start paying back gambling debt.

Thats about it for the weekend. We lost another Seal this weekend saving a Doctor who was kidnapped by the Taliban. As much as the administration would have you believe otherwise, things are still bad over there and Americans are being lost. Keep them in your prayers and thoughts. Its a tough time of year to get a military chaplain and officer at your door to tell you that a son or daughter isn’t coming home. Remember this when you bitch about not being able to find that perfect gift for the present exchange at the office Christmas party.

French Macaroons and Apple Pie is on my mind today. So is Dark Knight Rises on iTunes. So is cutting the grass and laundry and going to the bank and….

I beter get moving and make this day off a productive one.