Elvis brought us some love...

Ms. Claus sent Elvis back to the Mardis house with Elf Cookies in a jar!

The girls are so excited to make these tonight.

Need a recipe...I've got it.

Happy Holidays- Christine

Totally NOT a Tutorial - Macarons

My husband LOVES macarons. No, not the coconut thingys. These macarons are the pretty colored delicate little cookies popping up in all the posh bakeries.  So I've been searching for the perfect macaron recipe to surprise him with his favorite tasty treat.

I found a fabulous book "I love Macaroons" by Hisako Ogita.

So, Little Miss Trouble (Lily) and I set forth today totally inspired to make daddy proud. I had heard that they are difficult to make, so I settled for the vanilla bean with vanilla bean buttercream filling. It's basic, I figured as long as I followed the directions, they would be perfect! I thought, I'll do a tutorial for my friends...

Since nothing turned out the way it was supposed to, this is NOT a tutorial!

Red flags started popping up while I was shopping for the ingredients.

-Almond Flour and cornstarch free powdered sugar are impossible to find, especially with a cranky toddler. So I decided to make my own almond flour and cross my fingers that the regular old powdered sugar would do. 

-Egg Whites, no problem I've got a container of egg whites in the fridge...no need to waste the yolk.

Wrong. You must use fresh room temperature egg whites.

The cookies were over dried, over baked, cracked, with peaks. Apparently temperature and moisture are very important when making these little suckers.

The butter cream filling was a nightmare. I won't go into the details. I tried 2 times, gave up and made my own butter cream filling with mini chocolate chips.

The end result was super tasty, but not nearly as pretty as the ones behind the glass!