Espresso macarons with espresso buttercream and salted caramel
I had some leftover salted caramel buttercream from the recent batch of macarons I made the previous week. Salted caramel. You know just why I couldn't bear to throw them out rights? It's perfectly understandable. These coffee macarons were lethal. It's akin to a cuppa pure coffee. I added plenty of espresso powder to both the shells and the buttercream, and it resulted in an intense coffee aroma when I placed all the filled macarons together in a box.
I was experimenting with painting on the macaron shells as I've seen pretty ones as on Tartelette and Evan macarons. Hmmm, it wasn't a actual failure but it came close. I couldn't achieve the pretty brush strokes and the colour of the coffee "paint" turned out really faint on the macaron shells. I was a bit bummed after the first few shells, but decided to just continue painting the rest and treat it like abstract art. You know, the sort of art that's always indecipherable and beautiful in the eyes of the beholder. ;)
And anyway, who cares about the looks when I got my other cousin, Jos, who's not a very big fan of sweet treats, to actually tell me a few days ago that she had one for breakfast every day after the barbeque session as we didn't get around to eating them as we were to stuffed to the brim with our dinner. It's comments like these that make me happy to be able to bake. And the cousins and family have lately been encouraging me to start selling some of the baked goodies I make. While I agree that I should get off my lazy butt and do something (anything, really) to bring me a step closer to my ultimate dream (of being a quaint lil' cafe owner eventually), I'm just too much of a procrastinator to start anything.
I've been thinking a lot recently actually. I think from now till the end of the year, I should do something to make my life just a little bit more interesting, and my goal is to start selling my goodies by the end of 2011! Here's to hoping that I set things in place successfully...*fingers crossed*.