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They’re colorful, cute, and damn delicious. And although macarons are becoming more and more popular with us, they are far from being available for purchase everywhere. We, therefore, reveal how to make macarons yourself. Et voilà!

Almond flour, egg white, and sugar – are the main ingredients for the fine Macaron dough. They are filled with fresh fruit puree, ganache, or buttercream, and there are countless macaron versions. The little delicacies are usually made red, yellow, or green with the help of food coloring. However, our two macarons variants get their color from natural foods such as matcha and cocoa. The two halves of the pastry are baked separately before they become a delicious double-decker with the filling.

While macarons aren’t as easy to make as a sponge cake, they’re worth the effort. Since macarons tend to be eaten with tea and coffee and not 10 pieces are eaten at once, the relatively high number of calories can be overlooked. After all, sometimes you have to treat yourself and enjoy something, right? If you don’t have the time to make macarons yourself, you can also order the delicious, colorful macarons online (www.feine-macarons.de).

Make macarons yourself: the recipes

Pistachio Macarons (ingredients for 35 pieces)

For the macarons:

  • 140 g peeled, unsalted pistachios
  • 2 egg whites
  • 1 tsp lemon juice
  • 150g powdered sugar
  • 1 tbsp matcha

For the cream:

  • 150 grams of butter
  • 60 g powdered sugar
  • 120 grams of cream cheese

That’s how it’s done:

  1. Preheat the oven to 120°C circulating air. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
  2. In a blender, grind the pistachios very finely and set aside 3 tbsp.
  3. Beat the egg whites with the lemon juice until stiff and gradually sprinkle in the icing sugar. Continue beating until you have a firm, shiny mass, then carefully fold in the pistachios and matcha.
  4. Put the batter in a piping bag with a large round nozzle. Squirt evenly distributed meringue dots onto the baking sheet and bake in the oven for about 10 minutes so that they are crispy on the outside and still soft on the inside. Take out of the oven, remove from the tray and let cool.
  5. For the filling, cream the butter with the icing sugar and gradually stir in the cream cheese and the remaining finely ground pistachios. Fill the mixture into a piping bag with a small star tip and cover half of the macarons on the flat side with it. Cover with a suitable counterpart, press down lightly, and serve.

A pistachio macaron has 92 calories and 7 grams of fat.

Chocolate Macarons (ingredients for 30 pieces)

  • 4 eggs
  • ½ lemon
  • 250 g of very fine sugar
  • 125 g ground almonds
  • 30 grams of cocoa powder
  • 100 g bittersweet couverture
  • 2 tbsp whipped cream
  • 30 grams of butter

That’s how it’s done:

  1. separate eggs. Squeeze half a lemon. Beat the egg whites with 2 teaspoons of lemon juice until very stiff (use the yolks for something else). Gradually drizzle in the sugar and continue beating until you have a smooth, shiny mass. Gently fold in the almonds and cocoa powder.
  2. Fill the mixture into a piping bag with a large, round nozzle and pipe small hemispheres (approx. 2 cm in diameter) onto a baking tray lined with baking paper. Bake the macarons in a preheated oven at 160 °C (convection oven 140 °C; gas: level 2) for approx. 25 minutes. Important: Leave the oven door slightly open.
  3. For the cream filling, chop the couverture into small pieces and carefully melt in a hot water bath. Mix the cream and butter into small pieces with a whisk. Let the mixture cool down a bit. Spread half of the macarons with the filling, then assemble with the rest.
  4. A chocolate macaron has 86 calories and 4 grams of fat.

Since the French candy hardens after just two days, it should be eaten quickly. The colorful delicacies are also wonderful as a souvenir or culinary gifts.

Meditation works easier than you think

Meditative thinking is still. Not the stillness of a quiet evening. It is the stillness when the thoughts completely stop with all their images, their work, and their imaginations. Meditation means letting go, sitting still, breathing, letting go, relaxing, going, and letting it happen. Try it! Meditating is easier than autogenic training. Religion is not necessarily a requirement when meditating. Nevertheless, it is important to open up and keep both feet firmly on the ground.

A simple guide to meditating

  • When meditating, I sit down in a normal chair.
  • I put both feet firmly on the floor.
  • The back is straight, the head too as if a cord were pulling it up a little at the crown.
    At first, I fix my eyes on a point in space. It can also be candlelight, which I look at for a while to calm down.
  • Then I usually close my eyes and let my weight sink completely into the chair without buckling in the back.
  • From that moment on I only pay attention to my breathing. How the breath comes and my torso and stomach expand and how the breath goes again and I let the air flow out until the process repeats itself automatically.
  • With each breath, I breathe in calm and peace, and on the exhale I release what I want to get rid of.
  • When thoughts come, I allow them but don’t hold onto them.
  • I then slowly relax all parts of my body.

  • Start at the head and then slowly work your way down to your legs.
  • I also don’t forget small details like relaxing the tongue and jaw.
  • When I’m completely relaxed and not disturbed by external sources of noise, I enter a state of relaxation that is indescribably beautiful.
  • Inner images come to light, which appears in the form of colors and states and can no longer be grasped mentally.

If your hands are very dirty after cleaning the house, cooking, or gardening, lemon juice is a simple and effective way to clean them. Lemon juice works wonders not only for short-term cleaning of the hands but also for long-term care.

Cleansing with lemon juice

Rub your hands with the juice of half a lemon, leave it on for a moment and then wash your hands as normal with soap. Cleaning with lemon juice is also a great help against discoloration, e.g. from carrots or cherries, and against odors, such as the smell of fish or onions.

Every housewife has at least once experienced that a pot has been set on fire. You have just put the food on the stove and just want to hang up the laundry or clean the apartment with the vacuum cleaner, then you pick up an all too familiar scent, leave everything and rush into the kitchen. Then you see the mess! Not only is the food gone, but no, but the pot also doesn’t seem to be salvageable, either.

Grandma’s advice on burnt pots

She said to me, “Child, you’re going to clean the pot as much as you can. Fill it halfway with water and add 2-3 tablespoons of washing powder. Mix well. Bring it to a boil on the stove and let it soak overnight. The next day you boil the liquid again and try to slowly loosen the bottom of the burnt with a flat wooden spoon. It will be all right.”

And she was right. The pot came out like new again and I didn’t have that much scrubbing or scraping work. Because that way the burned-in substance comes off almost by itself and the pot is not damaged. Also, note tips for overcooking and preventing food from burning.

Bake grandma’s cookies vegan easily: Vegan visits are announced at Christmas time and all recipes contain animal ingredients? This is how you replace butter, egg, and milk in Christmas recipes.

Bake classic vegan cookies

Cinnamon stars, vanilla crescents, gingerbread… Grandma’s cookies are so delicious, but unfortunately not vegan. We will show you how you can enjoy the pre-Christmas period to the fullest and easily replace butter and co in the recipes. The list of sweet Weinach delicacies is long and when you think of the beguiling smell of cookies in the kitchen, the Christmas season can’t come quickly enough. But what to do if you want to do without animal products or are planning a vegan visit? The following tips will help you to replace butter and co easily and successfully.

Replace butter

You can simply replace butter with margarine or oil in many recipes. In the meantime, there are often vegan products with butter flavor in the supermarket, so the taste is hardly changed. If the consistency is crucial, it is best to use a plant-based butter alternative, such as Alan.

Replace egg

Vegans also do without eggs, as egg production is perceived as the exploitation of the hens and as unnatural. However, eggs belong in many cookies and cakes – you can easily exchange that for a vegan product. However, it depends on what kind of pastry is needed.

In cakes and stollen

Instead of an egg in the cake and stollen batter, you can use half a mashed banana or two tablespoons of applesauce. The applesauce is almost impossible to taste. Depending on your taste, you can decide in the vegan stollen, as in the original, whether you want to add lemon peel, raisins, and the like or rather leave them out. The recipe variations there are as varied as the tastes of the tasters.

In cookies

Seeds soaked in water are particularly good for replacing eggs in cookie dough, for example, linseed (1 tbsp seeds plus 3 tbsp water) or the trendy superfood chia seeds (1 tbsp seeds plus 3 tbsp water). Depending on the seeds, you can also get important omega-3 fatty acids, mucilage, linamarin, protein, and lecithin (linseed) or vitamin A, niacin, thiamine, riboflavin, and folic acid (chia seeds).

As whipped cream

Whipped egg white is probably the product that is the most difficult to replace, but that can also be done: aquafaba, the water from chickpea cans or jars, is the keyword here. Thanks to its high protein content, you can easily whip it up. At the latest after the addition of icing sugar and other delicious ingredients, there is no longer any taste of the legumes’ own taste.

Replace milk

Vegan milk alternatives are now available in every discounter. Soy milk and oat milk are the most common there, but try almond milk for your vegan Christmas treats (e.g. for marzipan pastries), and coconut milk if you want it to be a bit more exotic. But you can go there according to your personal taste and availability in your favorite supermarket.

Happy vegan baking

You can quickly and easily modify and bake any of your grandma’s favorite recipes for vegan food lovers and those who want to try something new. And with the thought of the scent of cinnamon and freshly grated orange peel, we wish you a lot of fun trying out and eating the vegan cookies and a contemplative (before) Christmas season!

With our tips on keeping your home clean, you can keep your home much cleaner and thus prevent large dirt traps. This makes housework easier and saves time.

Cleanliness in the apartment

Where people live, it also gets dirty. Most housewives know the problem. As soon as a room is clean, you can start all over again. However, there are some housewife tips that help to make cleaning faster and easier.

Prevent dirt and grime: shoes stay outside

A lot of dirt sticks to shoes and of course, it automatically ends up in the apartment. Then the apartment can stink and unpleasant odors have to be neutralized. However, dirt that has been brought in does not necessarily have to be the case. In the future, the shoes will simply be taken off directly in front of the apartment door. If there is no space for a shoe rack, it can be placed in the hallway of the apartment. But the shoes are carried into the apartment, and a lot of dirt remains right in front of the door.

Order: no empty-handed walk

It’s a real nuisance when things are lying around everywhere and it automatically looks messy as a result. However, if you train yourself to never go empty, you can quickly get the problem under control. Just put everything away straight away. Grab the empty coffee cup on the way to the kitchen. All necessary movements can usually be combined with other gears. That way, tidying up happens on the side and doesn’t take up even more time. It is clever to use a laundry basket to help you. Then you can put the collected things in there and bring them to their place.

Establish a fixed order

The order has a positive effect on well-being. But this only works if everything in the household has a fixed place. Chaos cannot arise in the first place if everything is put back in its place immediately after use. This requires a bit of discipline at first, but it becomes noticeable relatively quickly. Of course, the entire household has to be sorted for this. But the effort is definitely worth it.

Remove dust collector

Of course, decoration always has an effect on the ambiance. And there is nothing wrong with a few nice decorations. But the more that stands around, the messier it often looks. Of course, dust also collects on decorative objects. Dust collectors should be avoided as far as possible. Especially those that you’re not attached to anyway. Sort out thoroughly once and you save time wiping the dust.

Remove small stains and impurities immediately

Of course, there is no getting around the weekly major cleaning. Smaller stains and dirt should always be removed immediately. Even if it’s just a spot on the work surface. Swipe over it once and it looks completely different. And it doesn’t all accumulate.

Plan to relax

The household is quite nerve-wracking and exhausting. It is certainly important that it is clean on your own four walls. Every now and then the budget can also be ignored. It is important for the soul to sit in a stable hammock from time to time and simply take a break. After that, you can continue with the household chores with renewed vigor.

If you want to remove the stench from the apartment, simple home remedies can help you. Because the unpleasant smells can be neutralized with vinegar, baking soda, and the like. Remove apartment odors quickly and easily and avoid bad smells in the future.

Where do unpleasant smells come from?

Do you live in an old, musty apartment? Or the garbage can stinks again and the whole apartment smells burnt from cooking? Regardless of whether it is a permanent unpleasant odor or a short-term stench. In the following, we will show you how you can neutralize odors. But before you can get rid of the stinky smell, you need to know where it’s coming from.

It is important that the musty smell does not come from mold in the apartment. Because this one is dangerous. If you suspect mold in your home, read our post on home remedies for mold removal. But if you want to remove the smell of cigarette smoke, the garbage can, or from cooking, then we have collected some home remedies below. With these, you can easily remove home odors.

1) Remove apartment odors with vinegar

If you want to get rid of unpleasant smells like cigarettes or cabbage smell from your room, then use vinegar as a household remedy against the unpleasant odors. To do this, place a small bowl filled with vinegar in one or more places in the room. Then you can breathe again. Because the vinegar neutralizes the smell. Set up several vinegar bowls in large rooms. And if the smell is particularly strong, you can also wipe the large surfaces of the room with vinegar water.

2) Neutralize odors with coffee

Coffee powder from fresh coffee beans neutralizes smelly odors in the home. For this, you can sprinkle the coffee powder on a small plate. Then distribute the plates or bowls in your apartment. This will neutralize the odor and drive away from the stench.

3) Orange peels against roasting smells

Orange peels are also very good for neutralizing odors. If the whole apartment stinks after frying fish or meat, you can put orange peels on the hot stove. The evaporating scent of the orange ensures a pleasant freshness. Also, see our article on getting rid of a smelly odor from your vacuum cleaner.

4) Neutralize odors with washing powder

Special home deodorants or room fragrances from the drugstore ensure better smells. But they are mostly expensive. If you want to save money, you can put some washing powder in a bowl. Then set them up hidden in the apartment. You can use it to remove many home odors. It also helps if you want to neutralize the smell of nicotine and drive away cigarette smoke.

5) Bind home odors with salt

The all-rounder salt can also help you to remove the stench in the apartment. Because this binds bad smells such as burnt smells or fresh paint smells. If milk has boiled over, you can also add salt to the hot stovetop. This will immediately stop the smoke and smell of overboiled milk. You can also put a bowl of saltwater in the freshly painted room if the walls are freshly painted. This will neutralize the smell of the paint.

6) Baking soda against smelly trash cans

If you want to avoid unpleasant odors in the kitchen when you open the trash can lid, then using the miracle cure baking soda will help you. To do this, you’ll need to put 2-3 tablespoons of baking soda in the trash bag. As a result, the baking soda neutralizes unpleasant odors and absorbs smelly moisture. Baking soda also inhibits the growth of bacteria. Accordingly, bad smells can be easily removed from the trash can. Cat litter also helps very well with smelly garbage cans.

7) Neutralize odors with fragrances

You can also mask the smells with scented candles. Because the burning scented candles drown out the smells for some time. Accordingly, the method is only a quick emergency measure. In addition, you must combat the cause of the odor. You can also use a fragrance diffuser or air freshener. Strong incense sticks are particularly good. Also, note our recipes for making scented candles yourself.

8) Cat litter against the stench in the apartment

Since cat litter binds bad odors, you can use it to neutralize various smelly places in the household. If the trash can or diaper bin smells, fill it with kitty litter. The ground should be well covered. For the closet or shoe closet, put some cat litter in a sock and put it there. And you can also place a bowl of cat litter in the fridge so that unpleasant odors disappear. Then you have to change the litter once a week and the stench stays away. Also, read how to remove oven smell.

9) Eliminate odor from dogs and cats

Anyone who owns pets knows that odors tend to cling to sofas and mattresses. And these can also be permanently neutralized. You will need cinnamon sticks, cloves, anise stars, and cardamom pods. Then boil them in a pot with plenty of water and let the brew steep for about 15 minutes. This should result in a strong spiced tea. Finally, let it cool down and fill it in a spray bottle. You can then use this to spray the sofa, pillows, and mattress. Consequently, the spices with their essential oils neutralize the bad smells in no time. In addition, you can make a lot of other room fragrances yourself.

10) Odor neutralizers from the internet

There are also so-called aroma diffusers on the Internet. Not only do they emit a fresh scent, but they also serve as humidifiers. And these are also very cheap. We picked out our favorite for you. Also, note how you can make textile fresheners yourself.