I do like a really good moist coconut macaroon. It`s just a shame they are so hard to come by. Plus moist is one of my favourite words - it more or less means "damp" but works on a whole different level... Anyway, I digress.
You get macaroons in the supermarket but they are big, flat things on a bit of rice paper with some chocolate swirls on the top and whilst nice, they are really little more than a soft coconut biscuit.
The best I`ve had came from a deli or supermarket in France and were bigger, fatter and insanely moist in the middle, so much so you`d think they were undercooked (maybe they were?).
Anyway, my quest to find an equally moist British macaroon has ended in failure, so I decided to try making my own. And I was in for a bit of a surprise. You see I`d always imagined macaroons to be cakes with coconut in them, made with flour, eggs, butter, coconut (obviously) and other stuff. But when I looked then up, all the recipes pretty much said whisked egg whites, caster sugar and coconut. At first I put this down to all the recipes being on US sites, so assumed that those weird Americans made coconut meringues (which is essentially what the recipe is) and just called the macaroons. But no, heading to some English sites it seems the recipes was correct, which is even more weird as I`m not a big meringue fan.
Anyway, I went with the flow and made some tonight and what do you know, they worked reasonably well. They certainly tasted right. Not as moist as I`d have liked but I think that can be fixed by a) making them bigger and fatter, b) cooking them for slightly less time and c) replacing half the dessicated cocunut for creamed coconut instead.
Off to the shops tomorrow for some more ingredients and batch number 2!
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I went to see The Prodigy in Milton Keynes yesterday. It was like a mini festival organised and headline by The prodigy, also featuring Does It Offend You Yeah, Chase and Status, Enter Shikari and Pendulum, plus a second smaller stage with other acts.
I definitely wanted to see DIOYY and Pendulum (not so fussed about CandS and ES) so drove up not too early but not too late (especially as it was the first day of the school holidays get away and I wanted to avoid traffic) and got there in about 2 hours. As it turned out I got have arrived much later and still seen everything (although quite how easy car parking would have been I don`t know) but you live and learn.
The Milton Keynes Bowl was huge and a pretty good venue - although the wind was getting quite blustery in the afternoon, it didn`t dip down into the bowl itself so the sound remained good.
DIOYY had a bit of a hard time getting the smaller crowd enthusiastic as a) they were the opening act b) everyone had dome to see The Prodigy not them(!) and c) I don`t think many people had heard of them, let alone knew any of their music (I had heard their stuff and bought their album after noticing they were supporting The Prodigy on an earlier overseas tour and checking them out to see what they were like - and I liked what I heard. It was only later that I also discovered they were from my home town of Reading as well). Anyway, I thought they sounded pretty good live and will certainly try and see them again and will be buying their new album as well.
Chase and Status - not strictly my cup of tea but the atmosphere was better and they sounded nice. Enter Shikari got a bit dull so I went to the toilet instead and got a hot dog on a bun (no onions... grrrrr. Brown sauce... hooray!) It also rained a bit as well but it was so little it dried moments after it landed on you so no big deal.
Pendulum were great. The sound system was cranked up another notch and they sounded really good - deep bass, very clean and smooth. The tracks from their new album were good - I especially liked The Island Parts 1 & 2 (I`ve been listening to that track extra loud at home ever since!)
And The Prodigy themselves were fantastic. The gave it everything usual - lots of energy. They even played stuff from their first album - 4 tracks in total (Charlie, Out of Space, Everybody in the Place and my festival highlight, Weather Experience, complete with a fantastic laser show). Sadly, their 4th album (always Outnumbered Never Outgunned) didn`t get a look in. I at least expected spitfire to make an appearance. Still, its the one disadvantage of having such a big back catalogue packed with so much good stuff - you can`t do everything and keep everyone happy. Something has to give. I think the only downside I had was that I think I was standing in a bass hotspot which drowned out a bit to much of the main tunes. Plus I wasn`t so keen on the arty video effect presentation on the video screens - I wasn`t close enough to the front to get a good view of the stage (don`t get me wrong I was closer than a lot of people!) but the video screens should have been showing the guys doing their thing a bit more clearly for those people further back.
Getting out of the car park afterwards was a nightmare. I made it out of the venue and got to my car pretty quickly but I then sat in a queue and didn`t move an inch for an hour and a half! Then I spotted some traffic moving in the opposite corner of the car park, made a dash for it and was on the open road within 2 minutes having exited through a gate belonging to one of the other car parks! God knows how long I would have been waiting had I stayed put.
Anyway, all in all, a great day. Definitely want to see Pendulum do a concert of their own. And The Prodigy will definitely be a must see the next time they play somewhere reasonably local.