Magnificent machines and macaron magic.

Firstly, may I apologise for neglecting Mintcustard. I have a book deadline on 30th November and I am putting all my culinary energies into that at the moment. However I really had to blog about a marvellous evening I spent in the company of some of the loveliest fellow food bloggers at the Waitrose cookery school, courtesy of Kenwood UK. Having been a Kenwood Chef family for decades, my Dad was a huge fan,  I was pleased to be invited to have a sneek preview of the kMix Boutique range. Having recently won a raspberry kMix hand mixer for my vanilla tablet at the recent Ndali vanilla gift swap I was hoping to get some tips and ideas as to how best to use Mary the mixer. By the way,does anyone else name their kitchen appliances? She is Mary after Mary Berry of course.

I love the raspberry colour of my mixer but to see so many other options had me mentally redecorating my kitchen several times over in the evening just so I could have something from every colour-way!

 

Not only did we have the opportunity to look at and lust over these beautiful pieces of kitchen gadgetry we were able to try out the kMix stand mixer. As we were at the cookery school it made sense to use the facilities to learn a new skill. The trouble was, they were asking us to make my nemesis, macaron. I watch GBBO, I am an experienced baker. how hard can it be? The answer in my case was very hard. When I made macaron at home they were too runny, had no feet and really resembled flat almond pancakes rather than pert little buttons. Hmmm, now I wasn’t so sure it was a good idea coming.  Luckily I put aside my concerns and the results were stunning. By using an Italian meringue as a base the results were wonderful. We all managed to produce macaron that would keep Mary and Paul coming back for more. Not a soggy bottom in sight. If we had a problem at all it was that we all needed to be braver with the food colouring, instead of brightly coloured disks to  match the vibrancy of the new kMix range we all created very delicately hued pastel morsels. Not to worry, it is really the taste that matters the most. I can vouch for the fact that they tasted just wonderful.

The evening was great fun, but as I journeyed home on the tube carrying my box of macarons a very strange thing happened to me. It has only occurred  at one other time in my life and that was during the Olympics and Paralympics. My fellow travellers engaged me in conversation. They weren’t drunk or even after a free macaron. They were genuinely interested in what I had made, how I had made them and if I was now going to enter the Great British Bake off! I did explain that the box contained the efforts of many but should you wish to chat to people on the tube carry a box of baked goods and someone is bound to want to have a natter.

Thank you to Kenwood UK for hosting the evening and inviting me. Mary the mixer and I will be cooking up a storm in the kitchen as we run up to Christmas. Hopefully if Santa (my husband) reads my Christmas list correctly and I’ve been good enough she and I will be joined by others. Namely the stick blender and the kettle! (hint, hint.)