It turns out that I have a lot more to say about how delicious lilikoi is. So to start with, make sure you read my first post about HERE.
Next I want to show you how delicious lilikoi macarons are. I mean just look at those little babies!
OMG so good. So yummy. So elusive. I’m not kidding, I have yet to see lilikoi in a grocery store, so I really have no idea how I’m ever going to make these again. Which is a shame because I could eat these all day long.
It um, actually got to an embarrassing point.
Confession: I was eating them like chips and salsa, not even bothering to fill the macaron cookies with the lilikoi curd because it took too long to fulfill my mouth’s needs (definitely not MY needs, just my mouth's).
…I may have a problem. But admitting it is the first step to recovery, right??
Anywho, in addition to those addictive little lovelies I also wanted to introduce you to my second ever fault line cake. I did a post about the recipient of this cake on my personal IG but I didn’t really highlight the cake much, so here is the backstory:
Recently I’ve been reflecting on a statement that I’ve read a few times:
In a world where you can be anything, be kind.
It takes a lot of hard work to master a skill or become an expert at something, but I feel that it takes just as much inner strength to show kindness, whether it’s to people you know or people you don’t know (sometimes it’s much harder to be kind to people you DO know), but when I see the people in my life repeatedly choosing to be kind and soft in a world that is often cruel and hard, I feel an overwhelming sense of pride swelling in my chest.
Knowing that kindness is often severely undervalued, I always feel the need to encourage/reward (positively reinforce?) this behavior. My office next door neighbor is the perfect example of a gentle person in a harsh world, and could not be more deserving of my brands of encouragement (a.k.a. CAKE). His birthday was coming up but he was planning to be on vacation so I decided to surprise him the week before with this special treat.
And I do have to admit, it was a thing of beauty.
I whipped up a chocolate cake with chocolate buttercream and went to town for this colleague of mine who also happens to be a total chocoholic. But did I stop there? Ooooooh no I didn’t. I made a [heat treated, eggless] cookie dough frosting (that I may or may not be eating with a spoon as I type) and just smeared it all around the cake. And then some on top.
Then of course since I was making it into a fault line cake, I did an extra smear of chocolate buttercream around the outside of the cake, painted the fault lines with gold coloring, and added some gold dragees around the bottom for some extra flair.
I was actually worried toward the end of the decorating process that I wouldn’t have enough cookie dough frosting because I couldn’t stop eating it (see above. This stuff is addictive, too. I really think I do have a problem). But I feel justified because the birthday boy decided to serve himself a piece for breakfast and a piece after lunch. And by piece I actually mean a FULL QUARTER of the cake each time, so I shouldn't feel bad for not being able to stop because this guy ate a literal half of the cake #myhero
Tip of the week: Why heat treated and eggless you ask? Well we all know that the main reason you shouldn't consume raw cookie dough is that eating raw eggs can lead to salmonella poisoning, but did you know that raw flour also can make you extremely ill? Grains can come in contact with farm animal fecal matter (words I NEVER thought would be in my fun, upbeat, baking blog) in the fields, and are not pasteurized before being milled into flour that is sold to consumers #eww The bacteria in flour can be E. coli which will cause treacherous symptoms in humans that I would rather not discuss here.
The point of this story is to make sure that if you’re receiving positive reinforcement from someone in the form of cookie dough foodstuffs, make sure that they are guarding your fragile little digestive system against the dangers that could be lurking by going eggless and heat treated.
Happy eating, y’all 😉
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