i love..

lots of things

i got a lotta love for brighton

i also got a lotta love for my new blog

inmycup

http://inmycup.blogspot.com/

fancy a cuppa?

or something a little stronger?

come on over...follow me! 



in my cup

http://inmycup.blogspot.com/2011/08/warm-wellcome.html

Eeek I got the blogbug,

check out 'in my cup' my (hopefully daily-ish) update of what's in my cup; a tea break blog and drink diary, not in a tipsy way.

Put the kettle on and follow...

hey macaroona!

J'adore les macaron.

C'est vrai!

Last week I discovered Laduree has nestled into the cobbled streets of Covent Garden. Their little pastel coloured macaroons are such intense sweet loveliness they even snuck in above the ones at Sketch in my top 10 macaroon list (my dad and I were very pleasantly surprised by Sketch's lemongrass macaroons washed down with a cuppa,a rather pricey tea stop but definitely worth it for the ambiance, quirkiness & pastries) Third place in the list so far goes to the ones from some random little Toronto Patisserie that I was treated to last summer by my lovely host on my holidays. Shortly after I had declared the macaroon was dead and long live the whoopie pie. Oh how foolish was I. And how regretful after tasting the ones from wherever it was in Toronto. 

So far I hadn't ever spotted a Laduree outside of gay Paris so was very excited to happen upon this little gem in Covent Garden after a night of French themed gallery going and gastronomy.  It didn't even matter that the tea and macaroon fest cost the same as dinner, it was soooo worth it.

In an effort to recreate Parisian chic I decided to embark upon making my own. This was also due to the fact that should I wish to live on macaroons and tea this week I would need to remortgage in order to buy them from my local Waitrose at almost £6 a box. Ouch.

My home baked macaroons are far more of an ugly little sister to the elegant Parisian patisseries from Lauduree, however they are the ugly little sister with a heart of solid gold ad all the best dance moves as they taste damn fine. I have been told this too by taste-testers today at lunch, so you have it on good authority.

I shan't rewrite the recipe here...unless you ask nicely, but I shall share with you that I used Lorraine Pascale's recipe from 'Baking made Easy'. Although I tweaked it by adding some rose water to the mix for 1 batch and also a few drops of Almond Essence to the cream in another batch in an attempt to recreate the precious flavours of the Lauduree ones. Tres tasty.

 http://www.laduree.fr/en/maisons/monde-details

http://www.sketch.uk.com/

http://www.lorrainepascale.com/

my fat bottomed heart of gold almond and rose English macaroons

Reading rooms

Today's post is a celebration of the beauty of good bookshops.

I was gutted when my local Borders turned into a Pets at Home thus removing my favourite Friday post work guilty pleasure (Starbucks Chai & a stash of magazines/books helped pave the transition from working week to weekend) so I'm celebrating these little beauties as alternative reading rooms... 

http://www.dauntbooks.co.uk/

I Love love love Daunt's on Marylebone High Street where I recently found these enticing books for my reading wish list

Lazy Thoughts is one lady's comeback to Jerome K Jerome's Idle Thoughts of an Idle fellow so looking forward to digging into that one.

Much as I love a great bookshop like Daunt's you can't beet a root around a good ol' second hand one for digging out some curiosities. Here are some gem's I found in my local Help the Aged Charity bookshop (which also serves coffee and biccies enabling me to linger over the books and indulge in some great earwigging of chatter whilst browsing too)