Purpose to Life...Baking?

After reading my friend Regina's blog, I have come to the conclusion that I need to live life with more purpose and will attempt to do kind things in my everyday life in an effort to be purposeful and to be consciously living day to day as oppose to the whole living for the weekend mindset. For the next month in addition to my healthy eating (I'm doing South Beach) and baking, I will purposely do one kind thing a day. I will be thoughtful about what I do and do it with the knowledge that I am doing something that is meaningful. I shall also set aside time to reflect on my day and life everyday. I generally do this reflection before bed or when I am driving, but I shall stop doing it as I drive as to be more safe and purposeful.
For me, purpose is leaving a positive imprint on the people I engage with on a daily basis. I tend to think I do this through my baking and so I will continue to bake and develop myself through my baking.
I made more cake pops, since the last set was such a success. They are are going to be in fun spring time shapes so look out for the pictures to come.

Happy Birthday P Sis Stephanie.

I brought dessert to her bday wine trolly and potluck. Red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese frosting: chocolate sprinkle, yellow nonpareils, and grapefruit gumdrop hearts, chocolate chip cake with strawberries. It is awful to say I had more fun making the desserts than sitting on the wine trolley? The good note is I got some awesome almond champagne to go with macarons, whenever i attempt them again. I also had a lovely time with my close friends chatting, gossiping, bitching, and eating desserts. My recommendation is do the wine trolley if you are a couple looking for a nice date, but not as a group activity because it can be very expensive, plus cold since the people in the back wouldn't close the back door.

Cake pops were her bday present. Chocolate cake pops with baby blue coating, because baby blue is her favorite color,

 The cupcakes up close.

 The heart gumdrop decorations I made.

 The mini cupcakes with just frosting.

Up close with a mini cupcake.

Macarons make me want to be snarky! April Fools to me!

 I decided to attempt French Macarons, because the weather was so nice and I just felt extra happy. I though this should be good, I'll have macarons to pass out. I had also gotten this book a few days ago in the mail.

So with my trusty book and several recipes online for reference, I set off to conquer macaron making. I had to let my eggs dry, so I decided to make a ganache first. I had mangos at home so I figured a mango ganache would be great, especially since I love the taste of mango.

It came out great. Mango, white chocolate ganache. Maybe a little too much white chocolate. 

My eggs were dry and so I whipped till the peaks were stiff. Maybe a little too stiff because my macaron came out too airy. I added the flour mixture and then pipped.

And this is what they looked like out of the oven! There are feet!!! so I did something right!

 They final product wasn't bad but over half my shells were cracked and thus rejects!

 Here's my nice one. It was so time consuming and I was making them till midnight and I only had about 20 fully made cookies with ganache that weren't cracked. The grueling process really made me cranky, but I shall try again. I suppose this was my own April Fools joke on myself: thinking I could make macarons so easily.