The Art of Making Macarons

Recently, I've taken up baking again, just for fun. I used to do this more last year, and bring goodies to work since Liz and I can't eat them all:) It's fun to just mess about in the kitchen, sometimes changing up the recipes.


While I was in Zurich (for a day only!) on my trip, my friends and I found a chocolate shop (which you may remember from a previous entry) called Sprüngli, where they make small macarons called Luxemburgherli. They're meringue cookies made with ground almonds, with a filling between two halves.


I was craving these one day and tried to see if they have them in London, but the closest place is Toronto. On a whim, I also checked out the Sprüngli website to see if they deliver (yeah right!) but they only do in Switzerland, haha.


This all prompted me to attempt to make these myself. I knew I had seen some recipes for macarons (not macaroons, mind you!) on a favourite dessert recipe blog of mine, http://www.tartelette.blogspot.com/. So I checked it out, and the first batch failed miserably due to the fact that I had some measurement issues. This one, with the right proportions, turned out the best so far, even better than ones I've made since.


I give you macarons with a bittersweet chocolate ganache:









The pictures are a little larger than necessary, I know, but I forgot to shrink them. Anyways, these are so fun to make that I decided to expand my repertoire, and also made orange-flavoured macarons with a chocolate ganache, and pink macarons with a white chocolate ganache. Unfortunately, I have no photos of these as they got eaten by my book club, my bible study, and my friends from work. Okay, fine, I had some too:)


That's what I've been up to. I'll post again soon about my road trip to St. Catharines. Now that I finally have some photos, I'm back on the blogging bandwagon.


Have a great day, my friends!

Il y a longtemps que je t'aime

Lately, I am enamored of a certain foreign film that I went to see with Shona and Adele, two friends of mine who teach at a French high school here in town. This film, called Il y a longtemps que je t'aime (hence the blog title) :) , was showing in a small, independent theatre and I have to tell you, it really grabbed me. The title is from the song "La Claire Fontaine," a French folk song.

I took Liz with me last night to watch it again, because she hadn't seen it. The movie was showing later on in the evening and it's closing on Wednesday, so I really wanted her to see it before it was gone. If you haven't seen it or heard of it, you should look into it- it's so well done, and very poignant and cut me to the heart. In a good way though. It must have been quite a sight to see about 5 people in this dim theatre all bawling at the end. That's some kind of sisterly bonding:)

As movies go, I tend to go for the light-hearted movies with storylines about the complexities of humanity, and I have a weakness for certain musicals, while Liz is more of a psychological thriller girl, so sometimes it's hard to pick something we both like. This one is a keeper, go see it:)

Now I have the song in my head, "A la claire fontaine, m'en aller promener... il y a longtemps que je t'aime, jamais je ne t'oublierai..."

Chinese dumplings & tea

Last Monday, Candy, a friend of mine from the young adults at another church that we know, invited Liz and me to her apartment to make Chinese dumplings. We picked up a friend of mine on the way, who lives in the same building as her, after grabbing some Chinese veggies and such for the meal.

We had a lot of fun chopping up some different kinds of bok choy for the veggie ones, and they also made ground turkey dumplings. Afterward we tried different kinds of tea Candy had from China, and there is a certain way you drink it- always pour out the first pot of tea, and the second and third are always the best. It was delicious- we told Candy she should have tea-tastings here, she would definitely be in business!

Some chopping fun

Candy and I at New Years' Eve

These days, I'm trying to contemplate future career/education plans...it all gets a little tangled up so easily though. Where to study? When? How? ... :) All those kinds of questions. For now I'll stay in London but who knows what the next step will be? I'm kind of scared to start all over again somewhere else when I've gotten to know so many great people in London, but I'm just glad that God knows and He'll tell me when it's time ... hopefully when I'm more ready too! I feel pulled in so many directions that aren't wrong, but maybe are not the best choices, know what I mean?