Thimbleanna

Month: April 2010

Adventures in Baking

53 Comments / February 22, 2011 / Family, Recipes

Before I say anything else, I just want to thank ALL of you, from the bottom of my heart, for your very kind words about my little store.  People who read and write blogs are the nicest people EVER!  And a special thanks to all of you who supported my store too!

So, did you all have a good weekend?  Between my store opening duties, I decided to have a baking adventure.  I’m sure you’ve noticed that macarons, those beautiful little french cookies have been popping up all over.  I was driving somewhere a few months ago, and I heard on an NPR moment, that macarons are to this decade of the 21st century, what cupcakes have been to the first decade.  Well hell-lo!  You know how I feel about cupcakes, so those little macarons must be something else!

And on top of that, there’s this:

Macarons

Holy Cow!  McDonald’s in France are selling Macarons!  After I saw the picture above, and watched the video in this article (go check it out — it’s funny and it shows you what the French think of McDonald’s and their macarons) I decided that I really must try these little cookies out.

I searched blogs and read as much as I could before I started.  One of my new favorite blog crushes in the food world is Not So Humble Pie.  She has a gorgeous blog and she’s done some very thorough posts on the making of macarons.  She has a really good three part series (part 1, part 2, and part 3) to help navigate the possible pitfalls in macaron making.  So, armed with her basic recipe, on Friday, I set out to make her Lemon Marscarpone Macarons.  First I tested one little cookie:

Macarons

Not too bad!  Not too bad at all.  Problem was that it was as hollow as a cave inside that little macaron, and they’re not supposed to be that way.  So, I decided maybe they were cooking too fast and I dropped the oven temp by ten degrees, to 325:

Macarons

Nope.  Not as good — theses cookies were pretty flat and still hollow.  I bumped the temp back up and decided to just bake them in all their hollow goodness and be done with this batch.  They tasted fine and at least they looked ok:

Macarons

For my second attempt, I decided to try Ms. Humble’s Blueberry Macarons.  On this recipe, I was short 5 grams of egg whites and decided not to crack open another egg just for five little grams.  I’ll just cut this story short right here and tell you that they looked awful.  They tasted ok, but that 5 grams made a huge difference in the moisture.  These cookies were dense and heavy.  And they were still hollow!  (Those spots are bits of blueberry — these were goooood!)

Macarons

So I gave up for the day.  On Saturday, I had a wonderful outing with the quilty peeps — it was a great break and it gave me the energy to try again on Sunday.  Once again I used Ms. Humble’s basic recipe (being sure to measure more carefully) and decided to go with pink this time.

Macarons

In the meantime, I’d had a little e-mail conversation with Lisa and decided to let the egg whites “age” for 24 hours (I didn’t do this with the first batches) and let the cookies rest for an hour before baking (the first batches only rested for 15 minutes).  Here they are looking all sweet and innocent while resting:

Macarons

And here they are after they baked:

Macarons

What. The. Hey!!!  They’re lopsided.  That was totally unexpected.  I have NO clue what caused that and just to check if it was the resting time, I only rested the second batch for 20 minutes.  Still crooked.  And guess what?  They were STILL hollow!  These are some VERY. FUSSY. LITTLE. SUCKERS!!!  At this point, I threw in the towel and “frosted” them with raspberry jam (they tasted great).

Macarons

So, I’ve been beaten by a cookie!  Any macaron experts out there?  I’d love to hear from you.  I do love the taste of the macarons, although, for me they’ll NEVER replace a cupcake.  (And it’s not just because I can make a pretty good cupcake LOL!)  I feel like I’m trapped in a game of paper-rock-scissors.  Me-cupcake-macaron.  Paper kicks rock, rock kicks scissors, scissors kicks paper.  I kick cupcake, cupcake kicks macaron, macaron kicks ME!

OUCH!!!

XOXO,
Anna

A Little Store

62 Comments / February 22, 2011 / Chat, Store

Well Hello There! It’s a beautiful spring day here in the heartland, and I hope you’re having a nice day too! I’ve been busy, busy all week (and then some!) birthing bunnies, as, after much thinking and deliberation and many bunny requests, I’ve decided to open a teeny, tiny little store here in ThimbleannaLand. {Eeeep!}

I should probably back up a little. A few months ago I went on a search to find Moda’s gorgeous Bella by the Bolt. What with the nine-patch quilts, the yoyo quilt, embroidery pieces, and my new-found love of quilts with solid fabric I realized that I was burning through solids and I should buy it by the bolt. A search ensued and I turned up … nothing. There are many of you out there who crank out more quilts with white and solid sashings than I do and I thought YOU might also share my Bella by the Bolt problem.  So, being a Bella hungry girl with a website, I decided to open a specialized little shop and sell Bella by the Bolt.

Store Button

I set about making a little store and when that Bolts o’ Bella page was done, it was looking like an empty little store, so I decided I’d pop a bunny pincushion page in there too. I’m not a bunny making machine though, so there won’t be very many bunnies in that room of the store.

Chocolate Bunny

And THEN, since that bunny room was so small, I thought I’d add just one more page for the occasional fun thing that might strike my fancy. I had a scare a few months ago when the source of my Patisserie Dome went out of business. I whined about this problem to my good buddy, Linda NoBlog, who also has a beloved dome, and she discovered a source for the domes. If you’ve been here very long, you know I LOVE my Patisserie Dome, so I couldn’t resist putting it in the store. While I was searching, I found a cool Bon Appetit Dome, so I plopped that in the fun stuff room too.

Patisserie Dome

So, to recap, I opened a little store with three rooms:

  • Bella Solids — available all the time. And currently on a Grand Opening Special of 20% off through April 30th!!!
  • Bunny Pincushions — available once-in-a-blue-moon. ‘Cause making those little arms and legs is time consuming!
  • Fun Stuff — available most of the time. A few of my favorite things that I thought you might like too!

And please don’t worry. This won’t turn into a store blog. {Really. Stop rolling your eyes!} It’s too teeny tiny to take-over — my day job will keep that from happening.

If you have time — I’d love it if you’d check it out — Thimbleanna{dot}com!

And have a wonderful weekend!
XOXO,
Anna

We Have a Weiner!

44 Comments / February 22, 2011 / Bunnies, Quilting

Well, it’s the Day After. Did you all get your fill of chocolate and Easter eggs? Our day was very quiet. No one would even color eggs with me! Party poopers.  ;-P  MeMum made a delicious, traditional Easter dinner — ham and scalloped potatoes. It was wonderful!

Not much else has been going on around here. In my ongoing effort to squash a few UFOs, I’ve dragged out the red yoyos again.

Yoyos

I think I’ve made about half of the yoyos for a double sized quilt. They really go fairly quickly and they’re great for on-the-go — when you’re waiting at the Dr. office, in traffic, etc. Hopefully, it will move right along.

Hmmm. So, I guess you’re here for the bunny drawing? Guess I shouldn’t drag it out any longer. I yelled in to TheManoftheHouse — “Pick a Number!” He yelled back — “Ummm…103!”

Make Life Bunny

Congratulations Shiela C — that’s YOU!!! Send me an e-mail with your vital stats and I’ll pop Make Life Bunny into the mail!

Thank You to all the rest of you for entering my little bunny drawing! I’m sorry I couldn’t give you all a bunny, but don’t give up — it’s spring, the bunnies have been multiplying, and a new batch is just around the corner!

XOXO,
Anna