V&A Late - Synthetic Aesthetics - Friday 25th April 2014

The V&A is open late every Friday (which is excellent) and every last Friday of the month they do a special late. Last Friday was themed 'Synthetic Aesthetics' and I popped along before meeting friends at Nandos.

V. interesting stuff. My highlight was 'Bacterial DNA Beats' which was music/imagined sounds of the inside of a DNA helix, apparantly inspired by 'bacteria's ability to transmit EMF signals' whatever that means (too tired to learn about this right now and no info provided). The sounds were played in the v. impressive Cast Court and was good and loud so felt very atmospheric and sparked my imagination.

Porthcurno Beach (Cornwall) Swan Boats (Ally Pally London) Arthur's Seat (Edinburgh)

I've been doing too much gallivanting to post much this month.

A few days in lovely Cornwall and I'm in love with this beautiful beautiful beach. Perfection.

Back in London, I finally rode a swan boat at Ally Pally Very relaxing and calm...apart from when I pedalled us over a large stick and I think it went inside the underneath of the boat as there were disturbing clunking sounds for a good while after!

Afternoon tea at Biscuiteers - tasty and adorable. I think the biscuits look better than they taste though - I'd rather have a bourbon! I wouldn't pay full price either (£40 for 2 people to eat one sandwich cut into 4 and some mini cakes each! what!?) I had a 2 for 1 voucher so it was £20 and it was a treat for my little sister's birthday. It was lovely though. The raspberry jam in the battenberg and the icing on the cupcakes were especially good. 

Then up to Edinburgh for a fantastic Easter wedding and a walk up to Arthur's Seat which is a glorious walk. Lucky, lucky people who live in Edinburgh!

All in all I had an amazing break :)

Macaron 2014.2

Ughhhh. FAILURE. Which I don't deal well with. I'd like to pretend this didn't happen but I won't.

Flat. Footless. Some underbaked. Some overbaked. The important thing is they taste good!!!!

It's the first time I've failed to get feet on my macarons though, I feel like I'm going backwards.

Possible reasons - overwhipped eggwhites? over mixed mix? did not bother to dry out properly as had same issue as in Jan where it was taking FOREVER and I wondered if I could get away without doing it. I guess not.

I've been using a different recipe to usual and I wonder if this has anything to do with my not drying problem. I'm going to revert to my old recipe for the next batch and see if it makes a difference!