Well the Friday Treat Boxes with the Empire Biscuits, Lemon Flapjack and French Macarons went down a storm on Friday and I have had nothing but positive vibes from my customers. I will be making the Macarons again as my own family really enjoyed them too which was great especially as they have ground almonds in the recipe. I didn’t tell them about the ground almonds as they would have turned their noses up at the Macarons because “they” think they don’t like almonds. Isn’t that always the case though with children – they say they don’t like something but then they haven’t tried it so how do they know they don’t like it. It doesn’t infuriate me too much now as I know I was like that as a child too but it does give me a challenge to get the good stuff in the children without them knowing such as making a pasta sauce from liquidised vegetables that they would not eat normally but when you add carrots and sweet potato to a tomato based sauce they don’t know what is in it and it tastes good.
I baked some Brownies for a customer on Friday and then decided to make some spare just to use up some of the Macarons which had started to fall apart or which were not up to scratch – as it were – but were still delicious. The resultant Macaron Brownies were delicious and my husband and I finished off the last two pieces last night with a hot chocolate. I will definitely be making them again as I have frozen the leftover Macarons so nothing is going to waste. I am thinking I could use them in a cookie recipe too.
I have picked what I am adding to the Friday Treat this week already from the “Foodie Calendar” and I am quite excited about baking these treats this week. I am loving the Foodie Calendar right now, especially the USA one, which is available through Foodimentary ( a brilliant food blog which I love reading) as there is a different treat for every day of the year. How cool is that? For the UK food days there is a food blogger called Charlotte’s Lively Kitchen who a a good comprehensive foodie calendar which I like to look at.
This week I will be baking Peanut Butter Cookies to celebrate “National Peanut Butter Cookie Day” which is on the 12th June 2018. I have shared recipes for this type of cookie before but this time I will be adding salted peanuts to make the cookies a whole lot crunchier and to combat the sweetness of the cookie which I think with some recipes can spoil a good Peanut Butter Cookie. I love peanut butter so I better make sure I leave some for the cookies!! It is “Cupcake Lovers Day” on the 13th of June 2018 as well as the “Alzheimer’s Society Cupcake Day” on the 14th of June 2018 and who doesn’t love Cupcakes. The problem is I don’t know what flavour to make my cupcakes but I am sure I can think of something. My final part of the Friday Treat Box this week will be in celebration of “National Strawberry Shortcake Day” which is on the 14th of June 2018 and this is something I have never baked before but it can’t be that difficult as I have baked plenty of Shortbread in the past but I will just have to see what I come with as an idea of the treat. So as you can see everything is sweet again in the treat box so I am going to have to do a savoury box soon. I will be sharing a savoury recipe this week as a change from all the sweet bakes I do.
Talking of sweet and savoury bakes two of my recipe books are on offer for the next seven days through Amazon as paperbacks or e-books if you would like to grab a copy. I will add more information tomorrow on Facebook, Twitter etc,.
On a final note if you buy any of my products from the homebaking goodies to the recipe books it would be most helpful if you could leave a review on the Amazon site for the books or on Facebook or even comment on the webshop etc,. just to let me know what you think, how I could improve the service, changes which I could make as I am always looking for guidance and constructive criticism to help me along the way on my journey of self employment as a home baker, author, webshop owner and so on.