Monday, June 24, 2013


Right now it is raining a tropical monsoon. You rarely see rain like this in Vancouver in spite of our reputation. But the air smells heavenly so I have all my windows open. There is so much rain in the air right now it looks like it is foggy out.

I spent most of my energy during the past two days baking and getting depressed. I baked four batches of macarons and all but one were awful. Only one batch worked and I photographed them a couple of days ago. Then, late on Sunday, I found an old oven thermometer and discovered my oven is almost twenty degrees hotter than the dial.

I have also decided to bake by weight instead of volume so today I am going to find a professional digital scale. By the time my hazelnut flour arrives from Vermont, I will have “aged” egg whites.

It’s all about technique. Les Escoffiers age their egg whites up to five days at under paper towel in their fridges then they let them stand for 6 hours at room temperature before they are whipped. Phew. And they adjust the flour content of their recipes ever so slightly when various coloring agents are added. Technique and precision.

Visibility is about two blocks!

You can see the streaking raindrops in this one.

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