Mudarons - not quite mud puddles and not quite macarons

So I was sitting around having a chat with my friend jojobirdo when she mentioned a recipe she had just made for Chocolate Mud Puddle Biscuits which consisted of only 5 ingredients and turned out with a delicious brownie texture.

Of course I was instantly intrigued, easy, chocolatey and delicious who wouldn't be. So I copied the recipe into my ideas book with the thought I might try it one day.

But that very night after dinner the craving stuck me and luckily for me I had all the ingredients handy.....almost. Jojobirdo and I had mused how similar the ingredients were to a macaron, except the mud puddle recipe called for crushed nuts instead of ground almond.

So I made a little modification and came up with this cookie which as it turns out looks nothing like the Mud Puddle Cookies I googled, which should spread out while cooking into a flat shiny textured cookie with a crackly finish.

But I am happy with my not really Mud Puddles, they looked a bit like a messy macaron. They are actually really yummy and only took 20 minutes to mix, cook (and eat).

I think I might call them Mudarons.

I also made a variation with marshmallows, and it seems they were so good warm I didn't have any left the next morning for pictures.


Thanks Jojobirdo.

Mudarons makes approx 30
(any US conversions in brackets)

2 cups icing (powdered) sugar
1/3 cup cocoa
1tsp vanilla
2 egg whites
150g (5 1/4 oz) ground almond

Preheat oven to 180 C (350 F) and line baking trays with parchment paper.

Place all ingredients in bowl and  mix with a hand held or stand mixer. Mixture will be very stiff and sticky.

Pop approx 2 tsp onto baking trays allowing a little room to spread.

Bake for 10 mins or until just cooked.

Remove from tray after 5 mins to wire rack. 

Variation Hot Chocolate Mudarons - after 8 mins remove trays and place a marshmallow onto top of each cookie. Return to oven and bake further 2 mins.

Debbie Brown Cake Decorating Workshop in Brisbane

Squeee - this is the sound of me squealing in excitement. I have just booked in for a Debbie Brown Cake decorating workshop to be held in Brisbane, Australia in a couple of weeks time.

Debbie Brown is the author of numerous amazing cake decorating books. I just had a quick peek in my bookshelf and saw I have 50 Easy Party Cakes, Enchanted Cakes for Children and Cartoon Cakes, and I can't say this about all my decorating books I have actually used these books to make at least 4 different cakes I can remember with pretty good results. 

and when I just popped into the online bookstore to get these pics - I saw a new book on the way pictured below Gorgeous and Gruesome cakes for children. Wahoo! looks fabulous.





Anyhoo back to the workshops, there are 4 different workshops with a different cake to be made each day, I wish I could attend them all but I had to contain myself and just pick one.

If your thinking of attending  you will need to bring some of your own equipment a rolling pin, cake smoothers- a turntable and a small knife.

At the end of the day you get to take home your very own made with your own hands and love creation.

Bookings are via debra.brown@btinternet.com

Here is a link to her website Debbie Brown

Mocha Macaron Melodramatics

So Borders had a 40% off cook book sale and I went a little crazy. I can't tell you how many books I bought or you will never be able to think of me as a sensible person again, but one of my purchases was a book devoted to Macarons.

It is gorgeous to look at and I was swept away by the exciting sounding flavour combinations and beautiful photography.

Then after I got the book home I noticed the basic recipe for each macaron is quite different from the one I use and does not require a sugar syrup to be made.

Well I thought to myself, I can give this a try, it seems much simpler than the recipe I normally use.

I kept reading..... whoa 2 to 6 hours of resting before cooking. I live in a house with 3 kids 5 years old and under including a very able and active climbing toddler. Oh well, I thought to myself I'll just have to stand guard in the kitchen for as long as it takes (only just over 2 hours luckily and most of that time the toddler was asleep, yay for me)

and so it began, I followed the recipe and made macarons, they were ok, they rose and gained the little frill/ feet, I was able to remove them from the paper. If I had never made macarons before I might have been jumping for joy, but instead I was a bit cranky I had wasted all that almond meal on mediocre macarons. Melodramatic much???

The recipe I usually use is a little more complicated - it requires more equipment. But for me I think the extra effort is worthwhile and results in a better macaron.

For some the recipe below might be perfect as it requires little more than a bowl, spoon, spatula, sifter and hand held electric mixer and way less mixing time (although more resting time). Also everyone has a different taste preference and I admit to being a little harsh. My trustee tasters who received the macarons thought they were lovely and some preferred the bitter coffee to the sweet rose. So I will share the recipe with you, but I do recommend clicking here to see my other macaron recipe which for me would win hands down in a macaron bake off every time.


This recipe is adapted from Macaron by Alison Thompson, it is a beautiful book and I would buy it again (and at 40% off like I got it in a heatbeat). As I said before it has many gorgeous pictures and wonderful flavour combinations and as a bonus many of the fillings use up the egg yolks. I actually used a different filling than recommended.

So what lessons did I learn today. Don't judge a book by it's cover. Easy is not always better. Stick with what you know.

Well none of the above, I'll still be buying cookbooks for the beautiful photography and life would be too boring if I never tried anything new. But I did learn to love my other macaron recipe just a little bit more.

Macaron Shell

(US conversion in brackets)

225g (8oz) pure icing sugar (powdered)
140g (5oz) almond meal (ground almond or almond flour)
100g (3 1/2 oz) egg whites

Line 2 baking trays with parchment paper.

Optional step - Combine icing sugar and almond meal in a food processor and pulse a few times.

Sift icing sugar/almond mixture and discard anything remaining in the sieve. If you are discarding a lot of almond, try to replace it with a little more sifted almond.

Whisk egg white with an electric mixer until stiff peaks form. Fold in sifted almond and sugar. Fold until the mixture is glossy and moves slowly when the bowl is lifted.

Spoon mixture into piping bag and pipe 3cm rounds onto the trays, spacing them approx 3 cms apart. Tap the trays firmly to remove any air bubbles (eek at this stage the macarons had a couple of largish air bubbles which disturbed me so I burst them with a toothpick and smoothed the macaron over - not sure what the macaron fanatics would say about this behaviour).

I sprinkled some finely ground coffee onto the tops at this stage, but it is optional.

Rest at room temperature until a crust forms, that is until you can lightly touch the uncooked macaron without it sticking to your finger. This will take between 2 to 6 hours depending on humidity in your area.

Ok, I am officially not in love with this recipe at this stage

Preheat oven to 150 C (300F). Once heated place macarons into the oven and reduce temperature to 130C (265 F). Bake for 10 -12 mins until firm to touch but not coloured. Remove from oven and cool on the baking tray. When macarons have cooled carefully remove from parchment paper.

Match macarons in like sizes and sandwich together with filling.

Filling
50ml cream
100 gm (3 1/2 ounces) 70% dark chocolate
1/2 tsp instant coffee


Bring cream to boil, dissolve coffee in cream. Pour over finely chopped chocolate and stand 5 mins. Stir until all chocolate has melted. Allow to set a little and use as required.