adriano zumbo's salted caramel macarons

When Adriano Zumbo launched his bake at home range late last year, I swiftly acquired the entire range thanks to my lovely mum who knows how much I love to bake and how much I love Zumbo. In the past half a year, I've made 3 out of the 4 that were part of the original launch and lo and behold, there's another 2 which have launched in the past month! For those that follow Mashi, you would've read her post here as the two of us had a crack at the salted caramel macarons late last year.

A most pretty array of Adriano Zumbo's bake at home range.

Fun on a Friday evening.

Patiently piping our shells in the hope of some macaron feet.

Look at the determination in Mashi's face in this photo!

First batch that came out of the oven - some came out a little crackly but other's came out with feet. I did my happy dance at this point.

Not so great to start with...

But perfect macarons we have here!

Unfortunately these macarons look better than they taste. Despite leaving them to sit overnight in the fridge, they were airy to the taste and just didn't have the crunch and chewiness you'd expect of a macaron. And for salted caramel macarons, these came out rather orange!

Instructions are definitely easy to follow but you'll need to set aside a good 2-3 hours from start to finish to make this batch of about 20 filled macarons. Makes you appreciate the ones you buy outside; suddenly they don't seem so expensive after all when you consider all the effort that goes into making the two discs and a filling that comprise that one macaron. Anyway, have yet to try the Passionfruit macarons and I hear part of the new launch is one more macaron flavour; hopefully they work out a bit better taste-wise!

the grounds of alexandria @ huntley st., alexandria

There's been much on the grapevine about 'The Grounds of Alexandria' and I've been one of the slower ones to head over to check it out but when a friend came visiting from Melbourne, it was the perfect place to catch up!

Albeit it's a little hard to nab a seat on a Saturday; I hear you need to head there nice and early. For those there at around 11am, you'll find better luck grabbing your food to go and eating in the courtyard. If you ask nicely (which is what we did), a kind lady moved across slightly for us to seat the three of us at the end of a table.

Fruit yoghurt muesli and a Bacon & Egg roll. Coffee a must to start a weekend.

By our table they were serving freshly made donuts and how can one resist? Choice of nutella topping or berry topping.

The awesome K who I call the crazy cat bag lady. The last time I saw her she bought a crazy cat bag.

I felt a little bad about this piggy who was positioned nearby the bacon & egg roll stand.

These two make me laugh so much. They were trying to do a lover's entwined toast with their cups of fresh lemonade which didn't really work - you need to hold with opposite hands!

So much to see as you look around The Grounds of Alexandria.

A cute yellow tricycle.

Hoping we'll have better luck next time getting a table inside! There's much more on offer on the menu and well, I'd be happy just to eat all the things I ate on this visit. Actually, there's a muffin I bought which I ate much later and it was absolutely scrumptious! One of the bonuses of coming here is that there's ample all-day street parking nearby so breakfast can easily extend into lunch. Oh, and all the pots of jams you can buy - it's really quite a foodie's delight!