Salted Butter Caramel Macarons

I was bored and inspired this afternoon. I was bored because I simply love to procrastinate and at that point I was procrastinating my procrastination time. I felt inspired because one of my friends baked the most delicious looking brownies this week and I discovered Salted Butter Caramel Macarons at Isabellas for R10 each and that made me angry because they were so expensive. I guess I had the right state of mind to make something cool, so I decided to try making Salted Butter Caramel Macarons. I did a lot of research before the time to find an easy recipe. I also checked many websites on common mistakes made because this was going to be my first time attempting them. The recipes I settled on for the basic Macaron shell and filling came from a blog called "You can do it... at home".

I'm not going to copy out the recipe because she has written it out so well and it has informative pictures. I will be using this recipe for Macarons in the future because I mostly got them right the first time. I didn't follow the Salted Butter Caramel Macaron recipe but only used the filling instructions from there.

Basic French Macaron shell recipe (read this as it's best for beginners): http://youcandoitathome.blogspot.com/2010/11/basic-macaron-recipe-french-meringue.html
Salted Butter Caramel Macarons: http://youcandoitathome.blogspot.com/2011/03/salted-caramel-macarons-me-against.html

Reese's Peanut Butter Cups Cupcakes

I was inspired by something I saw on Pinterest and I was feeling a bit adventurous today so I went on a hunt for Reese's Peanut Butter Cups and made cupcakes out of them.

What did I use:

- Cake mix

- Eggs

- Butter

- Milk

- Reese's Peanut Butter Cups

- Reese's Peanut Butter Chips

- Icing sugar

- Cocoa powder

- Peanut butter

Quick breakdown of what I did:

- I used cake mix instead of making the cupcake mixture from scratch. This Reese's Peanut Butter cupcake adventure was a procrastination cooking session and it meant I didn't have enough time to make a cupcake mixture from scratch as I usually do; I was supposed to be studying. Even so, I used milk and butter in place of the water and oil that the cake mix instructions requested.

- With the mix ready I spooned a tablespoon into each cupcake holder and then added the quarters of Reese's Peanut Butter Cups as well as the Reese's Peanut Butter Chips.

- I covered the Reese's Peanut Butter Cups and Reese's Peanut Butter Chips with another spoonful of cake mix.

- They went into the oven and I made two icings, a chocolate one and a peanut butter one and layered them in the piping bag.

- After they were done cooling I did simple icing. 

- I think I might try this with Lindt Lindor truffles next.