MACARONS!! (not macaroons)

A macaron is a French sandwich cookie, where the outside is made of egg white, sugar, and almond paste, and the inside can be anything you want! I chose a plain almond macaron cookie, and I made my favorite Nutella buttercream for the filling.

This recipe calls for 2 lbs. of almond paste, which can be expensive/difficult to find--so instead, I made my own!

Almond Paste (source)

Makes 1 lb. of almond paste--so make sure that you double it if you're using it for this recipe! I doubled the recipe, but I made it in two separate batches because it fills up the food processor pretty quickly.

1.5 c whole blanched almonds (we could only find slivered blanched almonds, but they worked perfectly well)
1.5 c powdered sugar
1 large egg white, lightly beaten, at room temperature

1.  Place the whole blanched almonds and 1/2 cup of the powdered sugar in a large food processor.

Process the nuts and sugar until the nuts are very finely ground, stopping periodically to scrape the sides of the processor bowl. Be careful of over-processing.

2.  Once the almonds are very finely ground, add the rest of the powdered sugar and pulse until it is completely mixed into the ground almonds.

3. Stop the processor and add the egg white. Turn the processor back on and process the almond paste until it comes together in a clump in the food processor.

I then used my freshly-made almond paste to make delicious, chewy macarons.

Almond Macarons (from Brown-Eyed Baker)

2 lbs almond paste (again, this is double the above recipe)
1 lb granulated sugar
6 to 8 egg whites (I ended up using 6)

1.  Preheat the oven to 410 F and line baking sheets with parchment paper or silicone mats (I used parchment paper with much success).

2.  Place the almond paste and the sugar in a mixing bowl (a large one).

Blend the sugar and almond paste as well as possible. The mixture will be pebbly, but you can get the lumps out once there is more moisture. Using the paddle attachment (if available) or the regular beater arms, blend in 1 egg white at a time.

The batter after 5 egg whites.

Add as many egg whites as the batter will absorb without getting runny. This will vary.

3.  Beat for a few minutes at high speed to a creamy consistency.

4.  Place the batter in a pastry bag with a 12 mm plain tip (I used a fluted tip because it was the largest I had--the cookies still smoothed out just fine). Pipe the batter into 1-inch mounds onto pans. They will spread out (especially as the piped mounds get larger), so don't put them too close together.

These are the batter mounds that I used to make the smaller cookies.

5.  Bake the cookies for about 10 minutes or until light brown.

I had various sizes and various degrees of brownness, but all were delicious!

6.  Let the macarons cool attached to the parchment paper. To remove, turn them upside-down and peel the paper away from the cookies.

Finally, I made my favorite Nutella buttercream to sandwich the cookies.

Nutella buttercream (from Leanne bakes)

1/2 c butter, room temperature
1/2 c Nutella
3 c icing sugar
1-2 tbsp milk or cream, if needed

Whip butter and Nutella until creamy. Gradually add in icing sugar until desired consistency is reached. Add milk if needed.

The first macaron

Nice little poop-swirls of Nutella buttercream. Yumzies!

Giants on the left, minis on the right.

Red Velvet Everything

This started out as red velvet cupcakes alone (for Christmas), but then we had a few leftovers. (And by leftovers I mean that only one cupcake was eaten at a Christmas dinner for 12.) So, there's a bonus recipe-let at the bottom!

Regardless, they were delicious, and have since been consumed almost entirely.

Red Velvet Cupcakes (recipe from Brown Eyed Baker with a few very minor modifications)

I doubled this recipe, and it made 22 cupcakes.

4 tbsp unsalted butter, at room temperature
3/4 c granulated sugar
1 egg
2 1/2 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder
3 tbsp red food coloring (for a very rich red) OR the entire bottle of red out of the 4-pack (for an acceptable red)
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 c buttermilk
1 c + 2 tbsp flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 tsp distilled white vineagar

Cream Cheese Frosting

This recipe makes tons of extra frosting (but you still need to double it if you double the cupcake recipe).

4 oz butter, at room temperature
4 oz cream cheese, at room temperature
2 1/2 cups powdered sugar
1 tbsp vanilla extract

1. Preheat oven to 350 F
2. On medium-high speed, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Turn the mixer to high and add the egg. Scrape down the bowl and beat until well incorporated.
3. In a separate small bowl, mix together the cocoa powder, vanilla extract and red food coloring to make a thick paste. Add to the batter and mix on medium speed until completely combined. If you use only the smaller amount of food coloring, you may need to add a few tablespoons of water. You may need to stop the mixer to scrape the bottom of the bowl, making sure that all the batter gets color.
4. Reduce the mixer speed to low and slowly add half of the buttermilk. Add half of the flour and mix until combined. Scrape the bowl and repeat the process with the remaining milk and flour. Beat on high until smooth.
5. Again, reduce the mixer speed to low and add the salt, baking soda and vinegar. Turn to high and beat for another couple of minutes until completely combined and smooth.
6. Divide the batter evenly between the cupcake liners and bake for about 20 minutes, or until a thin knife or skewer inserted into the center of the largest cupcake comes out clean.
7. Cool for 10 minutes and then remove cupcakes from the pan and place them on a cooling rack to cool completely before frosting.
8. To make the frosting: Whip the butter and cream cheese on high speed for about 5 minutes, scraping the bowl down as necessary. Reduce the speed to low and slowly add the powdered sugar until all is incorporated. Add the vanilla and mix to combine. Increase the speed to medium high and whip for a few minutes until the frosting is light and fluffy, scraping the bowl as necessary.

Aaaaand I promised you my bonus creation....

Red Velvet Milkshake!!

Combine 1 cupcake (no paper), vanilla ice cream, milk, and just a bit of chocolate syrup.

Yumzies!

So a very merry and red velvety Christmas to you all!

Finale!

For our last day in NYC, we planned to go to the Today Show... But it was cold. We did make a sign, though!

This one's for Samuel L. Jackson. He said "motherfather" during the SNL dress rehearsal, but he managed to drop the f-bomb during the live show.

When we finally did get up, we went down to Chelsea Market.

Milk bar > regular bar??

Salted caramel macaron. Expect a recipe post soon.

We then went back up to Central Park to seek out the literary mall--we ran into a few other cool things, though.

John Lennon memorial

Central park explorer

The mall!

Shakespeare in the park ;)

THE rock from "The Angels Take Manhattan"
FANGIRLING

Central Park ice-skating rink

Later on, we went to the Museum of Modern Art, where we were surprised to find van Gogh's Starry Night (which I will admit I was partially excited about because of Doctor Who...again).

After dinner, we stopped by the Macy's in Herald Square (that's the big one) to look at the Christmas decorations.

That was pretty much the conclusion of our New York adventure!! It was a great trip :D

Coming up with these titles is difficult.

This morning afternoon, we went down to the financial district way way wayyyy downtown. We saw Ground Zero, Trinity Church, and the New York Stock Exchange!

I wonder how much they paid for that...

Afterwards, we headed uptown to the Greenwich Village/NYU area. It was kind of nice to pop into Starbucks and see the NYU students still studying for finals :)

For some reason, the US and France have a lot of duplicate monuments...

We found a store that sells only nuts.

And a famous cupcake bakery (Crumb)! Crave cupcakes in Houston was better, if I must say.

Finally we headed down to the Columbus Circle area to do some shopping! They were having a Christmas light extravaganza.

We finished up with dinner at Quality Meats and tried to go to the Top of the Rock, but the rain and clouds meant that there was zero visibility.