laurasaur

This was a cake for my friend Melissa who turned 12 years old last week.

Inside the cake was what I normally bake when I am not sure of someone’s preference, layers of chocolate and vanilla cake with a chocolate buttercream.

I have only been in London a few weeks and already I have hunted down two French patisseries for the sole purpose of buying macarons. Last week when we were in Canary Wharf for interviews I stumbled upon Paul and bought a giant macaron. Unfortunately no one was sure what flavour it was, and even after sharing it and eating it neither of us had figured it out. The texture however was devine and it was far richer than the Ladurée ones, but obviously very bland. I think the huge one from Paul was 2 pounds something, and roughly equates to 3 or so of the little Ladurée ones which were 9 pounds 80p for 6 + a pretty box. Ouchie.

After discovering last night that there are two Ladurée shops in London – First stop today was Harrods. Which of course is packed full, mainly with tourists, and looks to have quite a cool food court with people chowing into these amazing looking gelati/sundaes.  But I wasn’t there for any of that and in fact we made it through the ground floor in possibly record time to end up in Ladurée.

Hubby helped me pick out 6 little macarons – here is my verdict. (L-R in pic above)

Orange Blossom – hubby chose this flavour and although I wouldn’t have done so myself I quite like it. The green ganache slightly put me off but it does taste very floral.

Salted butter caramel – Third place? Almost sticky ganache, with a scorched caramel flavour.

Vanilla – rich with vanilla seeds, although tastes slightly pasty almost. On second thoughts the aftertaste is of an amazingly rich vanilla icecream.

Chocolate -Thick and rich with a nice deep ganache. I give second place to this guy. I think this may actually have been bitter chocolate, they didn’t have both available and this is light and not so sweet.. I wonder.

Rose – amazing rose flavour, super fluffy ganache almost like whipped cream, consistency too thin for my liking but still devine, strongly rose scented and tasting like turkish delight.

Pistachio – My favourite, densest and delicious, with a nice texture. Mmmm.

All in all amazing! If you want to make me happy – buy me macarons. Pistachio ones if you are too scared to choose

Is it sad that my goal is to try all the flavours? Haha. The berry ones, and of course lots more pistachio ones And to be fair, I must of course compare with all the ones from Paul and then Pierre Herme when in Paris!!

One of the reasons I didn’t mind so much moving to London was that Paris was apparently so close by. Now I am yet to discover that nor see any cheap way of getting there, but I made an amazing discovery, there are not one, but two Ladurée stores in London. Ladurée and Pierre Herme may or may not have been two of my biggest driving factors to go to Paris…

image from http://www.laudree.fr

I’m really annoyed I missed seeing bodyworlds it closed just before we arrived here. There is an exhibition on at the welcome collection called “Exquisite Bodies” which is sort of not really similar, well, its wax models anyway and has the added bonus of being free.

Because we don’t have our own place or any jobs yet I’ve been thrifting it up a bit in the kitchen. Otherwise known as cooking like a povo/1940s housewife. The food I have been making is weird to me and to be honest I’m a terrible cook so a lot of it has been very average. I wish you could just bake everything.

I made the weirdest sauce ever to go with this roast chicken last night. All I have is wholemeal flour, rice, pasta, tiny bit of butter, milk and some vegetables and meat. So I did the roast with some roast carrots, haha, and it was looking pretty disturbingly bland. So I thought I would make gravy, but I couldn’t because a) I hadn’t made the chicken stock yet and b) wholemeal flour does not a good gravy make. So I did white sauce with wholemeal flour lol – I liked it, tastes like a mix between bread sauce and white sauce haha both of which I love but have never made myself.

What other weird things have I done… oh yeah.. hot chocolate with wholemeal flour – HAHA – do not recomend, rice pudding with evaporated milk, porridge with evaporated milk, and washed so many freaking saucepans because there is no dishwasher and no microwave, ahhh, so not used to having to actually do this stuff myself lol.

Anyway most people would probably be a bit disturbed at what I have been cooking but Jonnos pretty good and takes it in his stride although I do wonder what he is thinking haha. I have done some baking and did a batch of cocoa brownies with a layer of ganache which were proclaimed the best ever, made with wholemeal too although you couldn’t tell.

Oh yeah I have been epicly sick so been in bed all day, browsing ASOS.com, learning ASP.NET, reading food forums, deafening myself with dance music, you know the usual. I really need to find a wallet and I am scared of how cold it is going to get and how little warm clothes I have. Never fear. I will survive.

xx L L

Hi people, well this is not going to have any baking updates for a very long time, as I have no kitchen, or baking stuff. Infact I’m currently in an internet cafe. A good one, £1 for 2 hours… mochanet cafe, not sure what street, or where, ahh!! And it is actually a cafe too. Most people when you ask them is there an internet cafe are like what?? Internet?? Cafe?? Together?? What is it called if it is not an internet cafe then.

Current observations about London:
* Transport is horrendously expensive. For hubby and I to get in and around London from Hemel Hempstead its costing us around $100NZD/day. It is nice and fast though, and so easy to get around on.
* Technology is backwards and hard to come by. Our wireless dongle is annoyingly intermittent and currently not working. Internet cafes are extremely hard to come by, especially on bank holidays!!
* People here are not quite as scary as I thought. Although catching the trains is still quite an experience.
* Protein powder is rare, and health shops seem to be non-existent.
* We had like a bomb scare or something that closed down the Euston underground station. Excite!!

Anyway, I need to go meet jonno back where his interview was. Hopefully I can find it because I have wandered around a bit.