"Chambord" Macaroons with "Tangerine" buttercream

So it's January and I'm feeling blue.

I have nothing in my life to complain about, yet I still feel heavy and (as my nieice says) grumps.

I guess after all that Christmas frivolity; a holiday from work, lots of delicious food, presents, dancing, singing, beautiful colours and smells and the overwhelming feeling of excitement because santa is coming (!) you would feel down when it all ends at once....

and to top it all off I have to take the tree. sob.

I thought giving myself a good challenge in the kitchen might give me a boost so I made these macaroons the other day.

They are delicious but they don't taste like Chambord or Tangerine.

This happens to me quite a lot when making macaroons, unless the flavour is chocolatey, coffee, caramel - you know those kind of flavours (Do they have a name?) they just taste like almondy chewi-ness which is fiiiiiiiine but when I am trying to make exciting flavours, I want them!

So I was slightly disappointed with these because I can imagine the taste of chambord macaroons with tangy tangerine buttercream and I think it would be good!

I used this recipe from hicookery.com. I should have followed the recipe properly and filled it with jam (which would have been yum) but I haaaaad to experiment! Sometimes this works out well but this time only so so.

I didn't use a trusted buttercream recipe = Fail.

The buttercream tasted too plasticky (?) and there was no flavour of tangerine :(

On another note this is the first time I made macaroons with hot sugar syrup (blimey it's scary to make!) because the boys parents bought me a sugar thermometer for Christmas (plus lots of great baking books!). I have to say I didn't notice a huge difference from the ones I've made before but the boy did say they were the best ones I've made yet.

AND they can't have been that bad because my friend, Hannah, tried them and made an order for her wedding! Looking forward to trying out some more flavours and colours for then but I think I'll stick to trusted recipes this time.

My new years resolution/challenge is to get out of my funk quicker this year. I spent yesterday giving myself at least one thing to look forward to each month. Try it, it worked wonders for me!

Happy January (staying positive!)