Cookies, Gingerbread and Macarons - All for a good cause!

        Sorry to all of you who feel neglected due to my lack of blogging. Since my last post I've been busy baking for a cause and also eating out, socialising and what not. Unfortunately this post won't be as comprehensive as my other posts but I thought I would just share with you what took up most of my time and energy last week.

        So what's up with this baking for a cause? Well the adorable Sarah Q from church emailed me asking if I was interested in baking and donating to a bake sale so that they could raise some money to help fund a mission trip to Vietnam that herself and some others were going on. Who am I to say no? And I just love to bake. So I pretty much spent a week planning exactly what I would bake and when and how I would do it. I decided that I would bake 3 or even 4 different items to donate, carefully thinking about each item, wether or not it would be appealing to others and I also wanted them to be a little different, something someone else wouldn't think of doing.

        My first choice was double choc chip chilli cookies. I'd actually made these the week before and they were an absolute hit at work so decided to make them again. Cookies also keep well so I knew I could make these in advance and start them first. It was also the easiest batch of cookies to make.

        For ease of selling/buying/eating I thought I would package the cookies too. I made packs of two, one cookie would just not be enough for one person. I had 18 packs of these with enough to take some to work again.

        My second choice was gingerbread, though the recipe I used gave me something that was more of a cross bread of gingerbread and cookie, call it a gingerbread cookie. I had bought these shaped cutters in anticipation of making gingerbread so it was about time I made use of them.

        Packaged them in packs of two, a girl and boy cookie, I called them my 'gingerbread people'. I was going to decorate them but ran our of time and patience so ended up leaving them plain. Also had 18 packs for the bake sale and took some to work with a few rejects left at home.

        My third choice was going to be cupcakes, maybe rosewater flavoured or something but I knew that others would most likely be baking cupcakes so thought I would be game and attemp to make macarons seeing as they are all the rage at the moment and they would be even more popular if they were home made (I've also got a small fan base of my cooking/baking so knew these would hit the mark).

        I decided to do a lemon macaron with coconut ganache. I was a little disappointed with how they turned out as they wern't as good as some previous batches I'd made but by the end of these I was not in the mood to do anymore baking. They tasted good though which was the important part.

        These are worth their weight in gold and one batch only yielded me 17 macarons worthy of selling so I packaged them individually and kept them in the fridge for a couple of days before the bake sale.

        You would think by the end of this I would be a little tired of baking but on the weekend I still managed to make profiteroles at mum's request and also made friands.

        I was quite tired and exhausted by the end of my baking marathon but getting a few personal compliments from people who bought/tasted my goodies made it all worth while.