An almost success

Last night I made my first attempt at macarons. After spending a few days perusing the Tartelette and Kitchen Musings blogs, I felt I was ready to give it a shot, and settled on a strawberry macaron recipe at Tartelette. I probably should have made something more basic, but I thought the dried strawberries sounded interesting. In sum, the whole affair was almost successful.

The first step was drying the strawberries. The procedure for this seemed simple enough - slice them thin and pop them in the oven at 250 degrees for about an hour. Pull them out and let them cool completely. I followed the steps exactly, but here is where I got confused. If you leave the strawberries to cool on the parchment on the sheet, the parchment seems to retain some moisture and keep the strawberries soggy. When I noticed this, I pulled the strawberries off the parchment to finish cooling, but I don't think I did it fast enough. The strawberries were not as dry as I would have liked them to be when I put them in the food-pro with the almond flour.

I snapped the photo below right as I pulled the macaron shells out of the oven. At first glance, they seemed almost perfect - excellent results for my first try. The cookies were glossy with a nice round dome and even had little feet. I was so excited I called my husband (he was away on business) to let him know the results.















Well... as soon as I got off the phone, my almost perfect macarons became decidedly not perfect. In cooling, the shells began to crack and some started to sink in the middle. I pulled one off the parchment for inspection to discover that inside the fragile skin the inside of the cookie was still very gooey and moist. I think that somehow I underbaked them.

Into the garbage they went.

I hope to try again on Sunday.

I realized today that I named my blog Hoboken Cupcake and then used a photo of cookies for the header. I think that the only solution to this problem is for me to bake some cupcakes and photo them for the top of the page!

Getting Started

So today is my first post. I am going to make a serious effort at this blogging thing... for now anyway. It's not that I don't think there aren't enough blogs out there about baking or dessert; I know I am adding to an already over-published subject. This blog is for me, more than anyone else.

At the moment, I am a home baker. I bake a lot. Constantly. At least one loaf of bread each weekend, in addition to as many cupcakes and assorted pastries as I think that my husband will tolerate. Don't get me wrong, he loves my baked goods, but he is fighting the good fight against potentially expanding waistlines. I give as much as possible to my neighbors, constantly fearing that with this next plate of cupcakes, instead of thanking me, it will be thanks but no thanks, we have had enough.

While I have always enjoyed baking, over the past year I have learned that it is one of my true passions. It is a hobby now, but I am hoping that some day it could become something more than that. I plan to use this blog as a way for me to record what it is that I am baking, keep track of my progress, and seek advice from any fellow bakers who happen to stumble across my posts.

To start, I will mostly be sampling recipes that others have created, always sourced to give credit where credit is due. Hopefully, I will at some point feel comfortable enough with my own experimenting that I will begin to share recipes I have crafted myself.

Off to separate some eggs. We have been invited to a barbecue this weekend, and I have been tasked with dessert. I will be making my first attempt at macarons, as well as preparing mini-cheesecakes and some type of cupcake. Results to be posted in a few days.