Almost

Mise en place. Butter cream, macaronage, french meringue

 So I am officially employed at the award winning bakery, Terra Breads! After a month of doubting I got a call back! Feels like I never left and also like it has never calmed down since Christmas.
If you have not tried anything from them start with the pizza bianca or the pecan fruit bread and enjoy, as you put those "no carb" crap diets to rest and just EAT because "we eat to live."

piped out and drying

 On a related note the head baker at Terra Breads, Mary, makes some damn good pastries called macarons. No not the American macaroOns which are made with coconut but the Parisian almond meringues which can be flavoured any way you want and sandwich any filling from jam to ganache.
I'm not a fan of making such dainty items but because I have never tried or made a macaron and the idea of flavour pairing had sparked an urge to go out and grab ingredients to give them a go.

 So basically they are made from four ingredients: egg whites, sugar, icing sugar and almond flour. I can't stand the artificial colouring (as you can see on the left) some bakeries add to them so if you have seen them before and look at mine don't be fooled :) The almond flour and icing sugar are processed to a fine powder ( finer the smoother and shinier the top) and then folded to a certain point into the egg white meringue. That's it!

 You can have them on their own or sandwich them together with a filling. My pairings were: green tea, passion fruit butter cream; fresh basil, lemon butter cream and saffron, lemon butter cream.

They didn't turn out exactly the way they should be but after some advice from my teacher and Mary I will attempt them again...sometime later :)
Needless to say they were still great and everyone enjoyed them.