London Trip - Macaroons Edition

Last year, at the end of November/start of December I visited London. I was on a mission for macaroons.

The first stop was Ladurée. We visited the store in Harrods. It was busy but the queue for retail was quick. Ladurée is a very pretty location with attentive staff. It may be expensive overall but it would be a great treat to have. The food selections all looked superb. Lots of freshly made tasty, looking pastries. I only went for the macaroons but even then I was spoilt for choice.

Paul and Ladurée, package may have got a bit damaged but the macaroons were fine.

My selection was the vanilla, chocolate, pistachio, vanilla rum, and salted caramel. Each of these were tasty and had full flavour. I would have each of these again except the vanilla rum.
The vanilla rum was a good macaroon but wow is that all booze. I could only have a couple very small bites. Two full macaroons and I'm sure I would have felt a little tipsy. I do like rum but with a mixer. I'd recommend the vanilla rum to real rum lovers and the rest to everyone.

Paul's Giant Pistachio Macaroon and Ladurée Pistachio Macaroon

A recommendation from family was to try the giant macaroons from Paul's. I chose the pistachio and the vanilla, my friend chose the chocolate.
Each macaroon was nice however a surprise to me was that the vanilla was my favourite. I think due to the increased size of the macaroons the full on flavours just got a but much. The pistachio was good but chocolate was too much for me.

Paul's Giant Macaroon

Ladurée was my favourite. I would go back there regularly if I could. Thankfully for my bank balance I live no where near. Ladurée has apparently the best macaroons in Paris. I can't confirm this. They may have been the best macaroons I've had but the best in Paris is such a big claim it will have to be investigated.

Recent Baking Trials

I have done several baking rounds over the last couple weeks and to be fully honest they didn't all end well.

This is just going to be a post to note my current baking failures and see what I can learn from it and hopefully that may help one of you when your baking.

Vanilla Cupcake

Day 1

First I went back to basics and just did vanilla cupcakes. These turned out well before getting to the cream. They tasted lovely but the cream I may have left a bit to long mixing (whilst eating a cupcake).

                                               Day 2

Choc Chip Cupcake

The second attempt were Jumbo Choc Chip Cupcakes. I wouldn't really call them jumbo but they were bigger than others I've made recently. They tasted nice but were a little crispy on top. This was due to the oven being at too high a temperature.

Mini Lime Cupcake

Then there was the Lime Mini Cupcakes. These were lovely, I ate too many but they were just so nice in light and the icing wasn't too sweet due to the lime cutting through the sugar. These I will be experimenting with to get bigger cupcakes with the same light and zingy taste.

Day 3

Chocolate Cupcake

Being a fan of Fairycakes/Butterfly cakes as a kid I thought I'd try Chocolate and Orange butterfly cakes but these were doomed from the start. Where was the orange! I didn't put in enough coco powder! Once these where baked it was clear I hadn't mixed the flour well enough either. 

They were edible but not successful but to top it off I didn't have enough butter to make the icing to disguise them and by that time at night I didn't want to.

Fudgy Cupcake

Finally was the attempt of Fudge Cupcakes. Let's ignore these. This wasn't a night for baking.

Wish me luck for next weekend's baking.