The One and Only Potion
By: Fatima Al Taie
A magical potion indeed. One that
soothes the morning’s unsettling feud
and flames a spreading fire through
one’s mind. First things first, I don’t
know which country has the best
coffee to exist, nor do I know what’s
the best way to prepare one and I’m
not going to search it out and pretend
like it was a century long information carved in my head. Feel free to
share that kind of information with
me if you please. But I assure you, I
know a good cup of joy when I taste
one, none store-bought though,
it’s always the cups I prepare at the
blanket-wrapped warmth of a good
morning and a magical beam of sunlight when it first shines. An incident
of beautiful poetry.
However, I am here to share just a little information for the mass of m inds
reading this at the very moment. For
those of you who mind the bitterness
of coffee, don’t just add milk. Steam
the milk and the bitterness is no more.
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Steaming is either a one part process
in which you have a steaming wand
attached to your coffee machine, or, a
two parts process in which you heat
up the milk, put it in a jar (or use a
French press) and shake the jar until
you get a foam. When you whip egg
whites, you breakdown the proteins
and form a fluffy white meringue. The
same happens when you shake a jar
filled with milk, you breakdown the
sugar particles in the milk (ultimately
the protein too) and hence give yourself a creamier texture. And bitterness
will lose its body in that mug of yours
that it will have your taste buds begging for more.
The Devil’s
Confectionary
By:Fatima Al Taie
I don’t know where to start. Do I start with the fact that
those are known to be the hardest cookies to bake? Or the
fact that the ruffles at the edge are called “Feet” and are
the mark of a true macaron (NOT MACAROON, totally
different)? By now, you have figured that this piece is going
to be about the wildly known vibrant and colorful “French
Macaron”. Which, just so you know, weren’t originated in
France, but were revolutionized there.
I’ve known for a while now that the macaron we know
today has originated in Italy, how? I’ve only recently read
that the Macaron cookie was born in Italy, introduced by
the chef of Catherine de Medicis in 1533 at the time of her
marriage to the Duc d’Orleans. Upon the coronation of the
Duc d’Orleans the king of France as Henry the II, the chef
had moved along from Italy to France, introducing the
confectionary to the land of sweet, sugar-drizzled magic.
However, only later at the beginning of the 20th century
did the Macaron become a “double-decker” affair. Pierre
Desfontaines, the grandson of Louis Ernest Laduree
(Laduree pastry and salon de thé, rue Royale in Paris) had
the idea to fill them with a “chocolate panache” and to
stick them together. All thanks go to Laduree’s grandson,
who created beautiful dreamy confections out of the most
complex cookie to ever bake. (Quick fact about Laduree’s
macarons, the flavors they put into their macarons are
brought right from the origin of each individual flavor).
Why did I entitle this as “The Devil’s Confectionary”
you may ask since I seem so enchanted and taken by
their magic? One may think that practice makes perfect with anything. I assure you, this cookie isn’t one of
these things. I remember the first time I tried making
it and I left the meringue sitting there after whipping it
while I sifted the almond flour and the powdered sugar,
only to go back and find my well-aerated meringue had
burst all its bubbles and gone from a perfectly fluffy
cloud of goodness to just weirdly liquefied whipped egg
whites. Did that stop me? NO. I went back at it again
and again, there was no beginner’s luck with this piece
as usually is with pretty much every other piece I have
ever worked on. Until I was finally able to achieve the
right result I had started forming these issues of anger
for the thought of baking these obnoxious shells of
almond, so sophisticated and required all the attention
one can give.
For these cookies, I had to count my folding of the batter, how many times did I fold it? Did I do it vigorously
and ruin the egg whites? Did I over-mix it? Under-mix
it? Is the humidity evident in this room? Is the room
temperature right? Surely enough, the less humid the
place/city/country you’re at the better chance you have
at making these little devils work. So I’m basically at the
wrong side of the world for trying to make these cookies work.
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