These cupcakes were requested for a 17th birthady. I recived only good reviews, so I call them a sucsess.

I had four different designs but it seams I only took photos of three. You get the general idea

mac•a•roon

Yesterday I had my second attempt at the delightfull french treat of macaroons. I was given a beautifal little book " Secrets of Macarons" by Jose Marechal. I was particulay interested in learning to make these propery beacause thay are a gluten free treat. Many deserts can be adapted to becomeing gluten and lactose free but they often lose something in translation and taste slightly odd.

The book has 25 pages of informatin and techniques before you even get to start you little creations. On my first attempt a few weeks ago I decided to skip the first and go directly to the recipe. What I made were brown blots of chewy biscuit that had the unfortunate resemblance to a small animals bowel movement. The nextra effort in making an Italian meringue defiantly makes a difference to the crust. The almond meal created a problem as well, the only sort i could get was far to coarse and needed to be sifted mutable times to remove impurities, resulting in a bowl full of almond bits i have no clue what to do with.

I do believe my Macarons to be a success, unfortunately having never tasted a "real" macaroon I have nothing to compre it with. I may have to entice somebody out to coffee so I can have a the chance to sample and compare.

Today i have officially graduated and have a Cert IV in Disability work. The event took around two hours, I'm not sure if it was worth the $80! I felt like a kid playing dress ups in the heavy black robes and stall. It was satisfying to finally have a formal close, we finished in October last year and the actual receiving of the piece of paper has seamed a long time coming.

The only thee from our class who attended

The guy that handed us our papers did comment that I had a unusual name... then he said congratulations .

Dads awesome photography skills ;)

This however has not turned out to be the path I had hoped it would become and once again like so many other I am left with the question "so, what now?"