18th Recipe: Bastille

With this recipe we enter a whole new realm of difficulty(fresh hell?). It is the beginning of the 2 macaron level; only 2 more difficulty levels–2 1/2 macarons and 3 macarons are remaining after this. When I tackle these recipes, each one takes me more than a day, sometimes several. I (mistakenly) always assumed that as my expertise rose, my time level would drop….I would be more organized, less stressed, things would be easier with my new-found skills. But if this recipe is any indication, we up the ante and the stress is higher, and everything takes longer yet ! We should start with the picture of the ideal Bastille….

This recipe consists of layers of Genoise cake with a filling of fresh strawberries and an orange pastry cream. (15 eggs for this recipe….really?)Sounds relatively simple, till you try to pipe the Italian Meringue onto the cake to look like THAT. Here’s mine……

Then of course you torch the outside. It tasted Devine, but I’m a little worried about my lack of skills showing.