I don't think I love very many things, but here are the ones I can think of…

I love the first few notes of a song starting to play and knowing it's my favourite
I love to see the stars as I lie in bed
I love to dream
I love the smell after rain
I love the moment after I finish reading a book, before the spell breaks
I love the feeling of cold water on my skin, like a reminder that I am here.

Bronté Collett

Once Upon a Macaron

“You'll never know everything about anything, especially something you love.” ~ Julia Child

I'm pretty proud of these sweet little things. For Christmas I received Gesine Bullock-Prado's book Sugar Baby, I've watched her video on how to make Parisian Macaron's and after my first failed attempt at making them, I was excited to finally try her recipe which looked much easier. There was a couple hiccups mainly just figuring out how to work with our oven and knowing how to adjust the way I was baking them due to the results I was getting. My first pan was really good, the feet were a little lopsided but I read that it was due to uneven temperature in your oven --- nothing much I could do there, I did read that using the fan for the confection setting didn't always work well so I adjusted my settings to bake, I don't think that made much of a difference.

 I only had one pan that I was confident in using for these delicate little pastries so for my second batch I made the mistake of not letting the pan cool off, resulting in cracked shells. I remedied this, however, by sticking the pan in the snow outside of the kitchen door for a couple of minutes! After that most of my pans came out amazingly!

I kept the flavour pretty simple, vanilla Italian meringue buttercream for the filling and I kept the shells plain (the almond flour does add some flavour to the batter) adding just some violet food colouring. I'll be a bit more adventurous next time I make these!

I put some away in the freezer so when my brother comes home for reading week, he can try them too. I don't know how that will turn out...the recipe said you could freeze them tightly sealed for up to two weeks, but we'll see how things go.

***

I am back to school today after having 6 days off for Teacher's Convention, it's hard to get back into the groove of waking up and attempting to actually learn things so early in the morning, it helps though that the days have been getting longer and it was actually light outside as we drove to school at eight this morning! I can't wait for spring, we have so much snow outside though that it probably will be a couple months before we can see the grass, albeit brown.

We went ski-dooing before supper a.k.a. shoveling/stomping the snow around the ski-doo trying to get it unstuck, and the snow was more than half way up my thigh in some places! It was such a relief to get back into our yard, we probably got stuck at least 10 times --- so tiring...I guess we got some exercise! It's warming up so hopefully a bunch of snow melts before we get some more.

Anyway what can you expect, we live in Canada, eh? ;)

To Grandmother's House we go...

“My idea of good company...is the company of clever, well-informed people, who have a great deal of conversation; that is what I call good company.' 

'You are mistaken,' said he gently, 'that is not good company, that is the best.” ~ Jane Austen, Persuasion

I always have trouble trying to start off my blogs, in school it's been drilled into us to have good transitional phrases, a flow that will help the reader follow your line of thought. A hook is also essential, it grabs the reader's attention and if effective they'll keep on reading. This blog has really helped me develop my writing and kept me up to standard. I've finished my High School English and I miss creative writing, my favourite part of English was the short stories we read. You can read them in one sitting, they often have twist endings, cliff hangers. I guess I admire how one can convey so much in such a short piece of writing, how they grab the reader and suck them into a story so quickly. It's also one of my favourite things to write…maybe I will share one with you someday :)

Almost a week ago I stayed at my Great Grandma's house for two weeks while her daughter and husband (my Grandparents) were off gallivanting across the country side! They actually didn't go very far just to Fairmont Hot Springs with my Grandma's siblings and spouses. However my Great Grandma always asked, "I wonder where my little wanderer's are today" :) We spent our days, while I wasn't at school, reading, crocheting, baking and watching old movies like Anne of Green Gables and episodes of the Walton's.

Looking after my Great Grandma worked out perfectly, during exam week I could sleep in and walk to school when I was ready to study, I was able to bake little goodies for my Great Grandma and provide her company! We had a good deal of great times, times where we sat and I listened, where she would tell me stories of her youth, a sparkle in her eye. Times where we would eat pancakes for dinner for the third or fourth time, where we ate much too many brownies and rhubarb muffins. Needless to say, we had a good time :)

I'm home now and have 6 days off from school, yesterday I made some Macaron's and I've taken some pictures to share with you later on this week. I was so excited about them…but anyway I'll let you know how they went in my next post.

Well I am going to start some of the homework my teachers so willingly piled upon us before this long break. I hope you have a great day!

Bronté xo

P.S. If you follow this link you can see a photoshoot my mother and I did for her film project!