So today, I attempted to strike off a "bucket list" item of mine: make homemade french macaroons!! Yay! Exciting right!! I went all around town to gather the ingredients. Of course, like any good baker would do, I did my research. I spent most of my morning watching YouTube videos, reading Pinterest tutorials, and found the perfect Fool Proof Recipe. With my quest to find the greatest recipe over, I headed out to gather my ingredients. I even went to the farmers market to get some ingredients. Here's what I needed...
Almond meal, confectioners sugar, cream of tartar, plain sugar, egg whites, gel food coloring, parchment paper, filling flavors (I chose raspberry, lemon and coconut)
**also, you may want to grab some pastry bags for easier dividing later**
Well, thorough the hours of collecting all the ingredients, spending time researching all the right steps and techniques, and finally tying on my apron to begin whipping up these treats, I learned three things:
1. You must follow recipies EXACTLY how they are printed, or you will turn out with a sloppy, goopy, burnt mess.
2. It is not raspberry season. In fact, its really only watermelon, blueberry and veggie season. The grocery store was a follow up after realizing that no one at the market sold my desired berries this time of year. (They were still super fresh & yummy, though)
& 3. I have absolutely no future, whatsoever in the macaroon baking industry, if thats even a real thing? I'm not really sure!
In the first batch, I wrongly measured the almond-meal to Confectioners sugar ratio. The next batch was a little better; I measured everything correctly and all was good, until I realized I had forgotten to add the sugar to my egg whites. Oops! And finally, the third and final batch. It was all going so well, I measured everything correctly, remembered all the ingredients, even set timers on when to put the sweets into the oven, and BAM..it happened! Guess who forgot to take their macaroons out of the oven. Yup, thats right, this girl.
Burnt, and way, way, way overcooked *I'm not sure I can even call them this anymore* macaroons. After all that planning, all the time spent gathering the ingredients, and after all my hard work, I failed. & I'm not going to lie, I may or may not have shed a tear or two. But the world may never know the truth on this on (I defiantly did!!) The idea of the pastry's sounded great, on paper. And the fool proof recipe obviously just wasn't Laura proof.
Things don't always go the way we plan them too, and through all this, I was reminded of a story in my favorite love story ever told; the Bible! The book of Job, to be specific.
Job was a wealthy man, I mean really wealthy! He had land, sheep, and a beautiful family; overall Job was a good man. God even bragged about Job to the heavens. Well, Satan challenges God of Jobs goodness. God agrees to this challenge, which lead to Satan releasing powers that killed all of Jobs family, besides his wife, killed off all his land, as well as murdered all of Jobs servants. Job was being tested, and just as God had planned, Job stayed loyal to his Heavenly Father. Throughout the story, Job is tested once more, this time with bumps and bruises all over his body. Once again, Job continued to stay loyal to God. However this time, Job wanted some answers, I mean, who wouldn't? Job felt as if, since he stayed loyal to God, none of this should have been happening. Well, he got his answer; Job's friends Bildad, Eliphaz and Zophar told him he must have done somthing to cause this misfortune. Well, guess who didn't like that answer; I'll give you a hint: his name starts with a "J", and ends in "ob", if you guessed Job, well DING, DING, DING, we have a winner!! Elihu, another friend of Job, comes to remind Job; that even though he may not have sinned to cause all this to happen, he was to stand up and take it like a man, after all it's all God's will anyways, right? Later in the story, God comes down to Job, basically to reprimand him for questioning his fate. After all who is the creator and father of the universe, God of course!
As humans, we see trials like this all the time! When a family member is sick, we may question, why them? Or when you don't do as well as you thought we would on that test, even though you studied extra hard. Possibly when you didn't get the job you were certain to be offered. Trials like these create the perfect pathway to our Heavenly Father. When we lean on Him through hard times, we can see that no matter what the outcome, it was all meant to be. God has the perfect, fool proof recipe for your life. He's even given you the ingredients you need to succeed, as well as the tools to help you along the way. How cool is that? Pretty awesome, if I do say so myself!
