Lamingtons

This was one of my more successful challenges yet. It wasn't too difficult and it was YUMMY! This challenge was inspired by the CWA challenge where not many dishes turned out according to plan. The recipe was in the latest issue of the masterchef magazine so I thought it had good cred. Once again, I forgot to take pics, but I did take a picture of the final product because I was so proud of them. Oh and I almost forgot, I need to thank Alyce for helping me with the macaron and lamington challenge. Would have taken me twice as long otherwise.

Ok so first off was the sponge mixture.Very simple sponge mixture but the trick with this was to beat the eggs and sugar in a bowl which was sitting in the sink with some water. I have never done it like that before but I will definitely try it again. Don't know if it made a huge difference, but seeing as I have never done it before and it was the best sponge yet, logic would say to try it again. Baked the cake and let it cool and I put it into the fridge to firm up a bit so it would be easier to cut.

The icing mixture was basic too. Cocoa, butter and heaps of icing sugar. When I say heaps, I mean HEAPS! It was just a matter of combining all the ingredients in a bowl over a double boiler.

Ok so the fun part was coating my lamingtons. Note to self though, the smaller the pieces of lamington, the more lamingtons need to be coated! It was lots of fun though and the end result was amazing. Dare I say, better than bakery quality lamingtons.

Macarons

Inspired by the challenge in London, I decided to attempt macarons. I couldn't quite locate all the ingredients for Callum's violet macarons so I decided to some simple chocolate macarons instead.

The mixture was pretty easy, just had to make sure that my eggs were beaten to nice soft peaks and I had to be careful to not knock out much of the air. So I managed to get a nice mixture and managed to pipe most of the macrons in the same shape. After I let it stand for about 30minutes, then they went into the oven for about 15 minutes.


Unfortunately, they didn't turn out the best. They didn't get the smooth top (well most of them didn't) and they didn't have "feet". However, the inside texture was quite yummy and slightly chewy which was good and the filling was good too but I forgot to take pics. We ate them before I remembered to take pics...hehe. Anyways, overall it wasn't a complete epic fail but not a complete success either. Then again, it was my first time so I wasn't expecting to master it quite yet. I know for next time that the egg whites cant be cold (straight from the fridge) I need to watch them while they bake, and too much sprinkling of cocoa on top will make them cave in.