Massive Update: Macarons, the Redux

But back to baking. Once the power was back and all was right with the world, I decided to try my hand at macarons once again. I thought I'd make pink ones with two fillings; lemon curd and caramel. Sounds simple enough, right?

False.

I ended up having to do every step twice. Macarons, caramel, lemon curd, all twice. It took all day, but I had nothing better to do, so by then end I was kind of in the zone. Look at my fluffy pink pretties!

I also learned a lot. For example, the secret of making caramel. What's the secret? YOU DO NOT FUCK WITH CARAMEL. You dissolve sugar in water and then you don't stir it. Ever. Until it is light brown. Then you whip it off the stove at the speed of sound and frantically whisk in some warm cream as it bubbles and hisses. Then you let it cool, and you get this delicious, burny, sophisticated caramel:

It's amazing how much better it tastes when you make it yourself. I actually lied when I said it took me two attempts to do it, because in reality it took four. I got it right the first time, only to discover that I had used a really unfortunate spatula that had shed melty plastic bits everywhere. I figured it would be better to redo the caramel than to eat cancer, right? The next two times I stirred it constantly and it turned into sugar crystals. You know what they say though: 4th time's the charm. Oh. That's not what they say? SHHHHHHH!