green_martha

There are still some things I have to post.
Like,, how my casaque turned out !

My digicam had issues with the petrol color, the most accurate one is the fourth picture. I'm very please with the outfit - although I seem to be the only one to find a cute factor in it :) I was afraid the pocket hoops would be too high but with a little stuff in them (car keys, etc...) and after a short while they slided down to their right position. I'm not happy about the pattern I used for the casaque (Mill Farm), I had to go back so often to Waugh that I might as well have just skipped ordering it. I used Katherine's tutorial for the petticoats, and just made them to be tied over my bump in front, which worked just fine. The stomacher was partly pinned to the jumps, partly to the skirt.
The cap is a bit on the big side, I've since taken it apart, cut it down a little and folded the lace in half. It looks much better ! (I'll post pictorial evidence soon, I promise). The jewelry is my wedding jewelry, which goes with lots of my costumes, apparently. I think it's time I let go off the blue-brown color scheme.

And I promised those to

heileen, I figured I might as well share.

Salted Butter Caramel Cream
320g sugar
160g salted butter (we had half-salted, works perfectly as well, I suppose you could even use sweet butter and salt)
80g cream
Prepare one clean jamjar. cut the butter into small pieces.
Add a little water to the sugar and cook until you get a slightly golden caramel. Take out from the heat and wait 10 seconds.
Add the butter and cream to the mixture and stir vigorously until you get a homogenous paste.
Pour into the jar and close it.
You're supposed to be able to keep it in the fridge for a month but I never saw one jar last that long...

Macarons
For 15 to 20 macarons :
1 egg white
74g icing sugar
42g ground almonds
10g cristallised sugar
food coloring
Mix the icing sugar and almonds and sift them so as to turn them into the finest grain possible.
Whisk the egg white with the cristallised sugar until you can turn the bowl upside down over your head and the egg white doesn't move. If you want to add food coloring, do it while whisking the egg.
Slowly add the icing sugar and almonds without breaking the egg white. Work slowly and regularly with a spatula until you get a shiny, lump-free texture.
Make little macarons on a baking paper covered sheet pan. Let them dry for 15 minutes.
Place another sheet-pan in the oven and pre-heat to 180/200° Celsius.
Bake the macarons for 15 to 20 minutes (we had to bake ours for over half an hour because we had put the oven too low). The macarons should not get brown. If you can't get them out of the baking paper, they're not baked enough.
Let cool off.
Take two macarons halves, put something yummy in the middle, like the above mentioned cream, or nutella, or jam, or buttercream, or ganache... and glue the two halves together. Keep in the fridge in a metal box. The macarons are best the same day or the day after, after that they get a bit dry.