In the past few weeks, I’ve been working on moving my little space to a self-hosted domain. Of course, as a person who has ZERO idea on how to self-host & what not, this wasn’t an easy decision.
There were several reasons why I made this choice: Firstly, while wp.com offers the option of simply giving me a domain name, I figured that the long-run costs would exceed that of self-hosting. Next, with more reads & followers, I figured it’d be a good time to update the space & give myself the option of having more customization. As much as wp.com offers beautiful free themes & widgets, a self-hosted blog using the wp.org Jetpack allows me to have awesome plug-ins & a whole lot more customization. Also, I didn’t want to build up a whole lot of subscribers to my wp.com & then have to shift them over (I can’t actually do that so they’ll have to do it themselves… a whole lot of trouble). Finally, my Facebook Page has reached that 1000 likes mark. A huge thank you to everyone who has supported me, be it my friends, family or just fellow bakers & recipe lovers! (Of course, I wouldn’t want it to be stagnant at 1000 likes – do share the love if you enjoy reading this hehe)
Anyway, since I know nuts about html & coding, I’m still using a free theme designed by Alx. There are a lot of kinks here and there that I need to fix but I’m sure I’ll be able to fix it soon. I’m also trying to understand a bit more about html & CSS so that maybe, just maybe, I can create a really great theme to suit my own needs. I also got my lovely fellow intern Victoria to do up a really pretty banner for me ^. Kudos & hugeee thanks to her!
Rambling & life updates aside, I have been keeping up with baking! I’m here today with yet another macaron recipe. Yes yes, it’s a bit boring & crazy – I just keep posting this haha. But everyone loves macarons! Whether it is eating them or just simply looking at them, there’s something about this petitfour that makes it so damn attractive.
In Singapore, we have this rose flavoured drink called Bandung that everyone loves. I guess you can say that this macaron is basically that drink shrunken into a little nifty delicious & scrumptious macaron.
I used non-aged egg whites again & got really pretty shiny shells with smooth tops! It helps that Phoon Huat now offers Extra Fine Ground Almonds and I don’t have to sieve my ground almond + icing sugar mixture so much. Oh yes, I used my same old boring but extremely trust SMBC for the filling. I was too lazy to make a confiture this time but the next time I make Rose, I have an idea of including Lychee & Rapsberries (no prizes for guessing who I stole this idea from haha).
(I threw some Japanese rice tea for aesthetic purposes – didn’t use them in the macarons at all ahha)
Rose Macarons
Recipe for shells here
Swiss Meringue Buttercream
Enough for 72 Macarons
Ingredients:
- 2 egg whites (~60-70g)
- 100g sugar
- 150g unsalted butter
- 2 tbsp rose syrup
- 1 tsp rose extract
Directions:
- Put egg whites & sugar in a metal bowl & cook in a bain marie until sugar is totally dissolved and mixture is hot to touch
- Ensure that you whisk it continuously so that your egg whites do not become scrambled egg whites
- Once that is done, whip mixture up to soft peaks (I do this with my KitchenAid)
- Add the butter in in pieces
- Continue whisking until you get a nice buttercream
- Pipe onto your shells & rest in the fridge for at least 24 hours, up to 5 days or in the freezer for up to 6 months.
Anyways, stay tuned! I’m trying my bestest to churn out some other stuff other than macarons haha!
Love,
Eugenia
:-* Congrats!
Thank you! 🙂