must've been beginner's luck

I had a feeling before putting these babies in the oven that they weren't going to be the beautiful little cookie I had baked only 12 hours before.

I haven't gone completely mental (I don't think), but I have to ask - does your food talk to you? You know, have personality? Maybe it's just me. I imagined my little cracked, feetless macarons telling me, "we tried to be perfect, like our predecessors. Please don't hate us, we still taste delicious".

See, told you I'd become obsessed.

Made these macarons, using the same shell recipe as last time, but a few things I did different (which I don't know if they had any effect on them) were:

• I used vanilla sugar, which is finer than granulated sugar. Oh, but does it ever smell delish.


• I started to sift the ground almonds and powdered sugar, got bored and dumped the rest in. Seriously, who does that?
  
• The first time I made macarons, I "aged" the egg whites in the microwave for 10 seconds separately. This time I dumped them all in a bowl and microwaved them.

There I was thinking I was a natural macaron baker. I need to learn about macarons' finicky nature before I begin experimenting, eh?

For the buttercream, I beat unsalted butter until creamy, added sifted powdered sugar until it was the consistency I wanted and then added orange extract to taste and a splash or two of milk (1 tsp?) as well.

They disappeared in less time than it took me to pipe them.

Chocolate. Carmel. Banana. Strawberry. Coffee. The ideas for the next batch are swirling around in my head. I don't know how much more of this I can take - I need some sleep!