Elegant Madeleines

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Today, I thought I would share one of my favourite recipes with you.  I personally love madeleines.  These are so easy to make (I mean, less than 15 minutes prep time!) and they look so elegant, they are sure to impress your guests.

If you’ve never had them, madeleines are little French butter cakes. They are perfect for so many occasions – bridal showers, Easter brunch, Mother’s Day or your coffee in the morning on a random Tuesday.   

Seriously though, these little bite-sized cakes look so pretty on a dessert table.

I personally like to add cinnamon to this recipe because I will eat almost anything if it has cinnamon in it! (Except carrot cake – stop trying to put vegetables in my dessert!!)

The last time I made them, the Mister and I finished the entire batch in one day!!  They are so good, you just can’t stop yourself from eating them! Plus I usually make the mini madeleines so it feels like you only had two bites, and so you reach for another.  And another…. Before you know it, the entire batch is gone!

I’ve tried various ways of dressing them up by dipping them in chocolate or dusting them with cinnamon sugar - even though they are so pretty on its own.

You can get some really good deals on the pans at places like Winners, Marshal’s and even <Kitchen Stuff Plus http://www.kitchenstuffplus.com/trudeau-structure-silcone-madeleine-pan-fuchsia-grey>. I personally bought the mini pans from Amazon because I feel like eating 20 mini madeleines are not as bad as 10 full sized madeleines. (Yes, my logic is flawed. No, I don’t care).

Here is the recipe that I like to use.

Elegant Madeleines

Makes: 24 madeleines

Prep time: 10 minutes

Cook time: 12 minutes

Ingredients:

• 2 large eggs plus 1 egg yolk
• 2/3 cups sugar
• 2/3 cups flour
• 2/3 cups softened butter
• 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
• 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

Instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 400°F. Grease the madeleine pan with butter.
2. Using an electronic hand beater, beat the eggs and sugar until thick and foamy. Add nutmeg and cinnamon into the egg mixture and blend well. Fold in the flour and use a spatula to mix well. Fold in the softened butter and blend.
3. Transfer the batter into the madeleine pan and fill about 3/4 of the way. Bake for 10 minutes or until they turn light golden brown.
4. Remove the madeleine pan from the oven and let cool on a cooling rack.

Photo Gallery Wall

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As you may know, the Mister and I recently moved into a new condo. 

I absolutely love the new space, but since the layout is completely different from our previous place, this means redecorating from scratch.  

The new place is more of an open concept compared to where we were before and I've lost a lot of wall space.  While to most people, this may not seem like a big issue, in fact, it may seem like a bonus! But keep in mind that I'm a photographer first. I have tons of photos from my travels (the only souvenirs I need and collect!). But more importantly, I never made a photo album for our wedding photos.  Instead, I framed the really good ones (we were lucky to have a lot of great shots) and created a gallery wall.

In my old condo, I made a 3x5 gallery wall (which you can see here) but I just don't have a similar wall space anymore.  Instead, I opted to create a 2x7 gallery wall. 

I got these 11x11 black gallery frames from Chapters-Indigo.  I fell in love with the simplicity of these frames and love that they practically match any decor.

The first thing I did was lay everything out on the floor to decide which photos will go where. I mixed in a few photos from some of the places the Mister and I have traveled to - just to mix it up a bit.

After this came the hard part - how high do I hang them?? 

I have a really odd drop in the ceiling, bringing the ceiling height to 7 feet on the only wall that I could display my photos.  I have read that the centre of your "wall art" should be at 5'5". This may work well with large pieces but I don't think that translated well with a photo gallery wall. Instead, i made the bottom row centred to 5'5". (When I did the 3 rows at my old place, I made sure that the centre row was centred to the height of 5'5".)  Because I don't like nails or holes in my walls, I opted to use the Command Picture Hanging Strips to hang my photos.

I must say, I am quite happy with the final results (even if it did take me months to finally get around to!).

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Wedding Gallery Wall

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gallery wall

So many times, people would come over and ask to see our wedding photos.  Given that we had so many great photos, I wanted to do something out of the ordinary with them. I decided to create a 5X3 gallery wall. (I read somewhere that hanging things in odd numbers is more visually pleasing.)

black and white photo wall

I used very simple 13X13 square gallery frames that hold a 5X7 photo that I found at Indigo.  I personally think this is the perfect size - not too big and overwhelming for the small room I would be displaying them, but big enough that it invites you to take a better look. The black gallery frames with white matting and my black and white wedding photos work perfectly with my decor. 

wedding gallery wall

I printed off a number of our wedding photos and even mixed them up with a few pictures of places we had traveled to together - especially since we got engaged while on vacation.  I spread out all of my photos on the floor to decide where their place on the wall will be. It took a lot of measuring and a lot of calculations, but it worked!  I am very happy with the results.

condo sized gallery wall

If you have a lot of photos that you would like to display, I would highly suggest you show them off in a gallery wall!

small room gallery wall

square frame gallery wall