Treatsie At Home Subscription Box Review – August 2016

Treatsie At Home endeavors to bring the deliciousness of the artisan sweet home to your kitchen.  Your kit includes everything you need (except eggs and dairy) to make a dazzling dessert.

This tempting array of ingredients was in the box.  All the bags were nicely packaged and sealed well.

Treatsie At Home is very reasonably priced at $19.95 per month.  If you want to purchase a one time box it is only $24.95.  Treatsie also has a rewards program.  For every $1 you spend you get one point.  For every 100 points you get a $10 store credit.  You get points for the purchase of your subscription, but the reward is only good for one-time store orders.  Also, you can get 100 points for every subscriber that you refer to Treatsie!

This is the front of the recipe card.  The kit included:  *French macaron mix, *Sugar, *Buttercream mix, *Sprinkle packet, *Piping bag and tip for macarons, *Piping bag for frosting

The card also let you know that you will need to supply 4 eggs and 8 tbs butter (one stick).  And you need a stand mixer, 2 baking trays, spatula and sifter.  The yield is 48 macarons.  Sweet!

Let’s bake!

Here’s the inside of that same recipe card.  It features step-by-step instructions and pretty pictures of the recipe steps.  You can also watch a video on how to make the macarons here.  There is a small note at the end of the recipe about the video being available, but I wish it had been a tad more prominent.  I didn’t notice it until after I was done baking.  They also emailed a link to the video and an ingredient list, but that arrived just after I baked them too.

Here’s the baking setup with what was in the box on the left and my ingredients on the right.  (Aren’t my fresh chicken eggs pretty?)

Step 1 on the card is to separate the egg yolks from the egg whites.

Neatly labeled granulated sugar.

Step 2 was to add the sugar to the egg whites and….

Whip on low for 3 minutes, medium for 3 minutes and…..

On high for 3 minutes until they look like this.

Then add the macaron mix (labeled cookie mix) to the egg whites by sifting them in.

This step should be done fairly quickly (so the video says) so that the egg whites stay fluffy.

Step 3  Fold the mix into the egg whites.  Make sure to fold enough but not too much…….   The video might have helped me out here.  I don’t think I folded them quite enough.

Step 4  They recommend that you place the tip into the piping bag (it was rolled up with the parchment paper in the box) and then place the bag into a cup to fill it.

I winged it here because I like my method for filling a piping bag better.

You place the filling onto a piece of cling wrap, fold it over and seal all around the filling.

Then you roll it up like a candy wrapper (think peppermint candy wrapper).

Then you hold it like this and spin it around.

Tie one end shut and leave the other one open to pull through the piping bag.

Drop the untied end into the piping bag, pull it down and trim of the end that is sticking through the piping tip.  TaDa!  No mess whatsoever.  When you’re done, just pull the cling wrap out and throw it away (your bag will still be clean).

This roll contained the parchment paper, a size guide for the macarons and two plastic piping bags (one for macarons and one for the frosting).

STEP 5  Pipe circles onto a parchment.  The box included a guide to place under the parchment so that the macarons are 1″ wide and spaced 1″ apart.

I traced the template onto the parchment.  I don’t recommend this because the pencil lines actually transferred onto the bottom’s of the macarons.  I think I was supposed to just move the template around under the parchment.

In hind site, I should have piped these thinner and allowed the macaroons to rest longer before baking.  (All this was very clear in the video.)

Also, in the middle of Step 5 the instructions told me to add the sprinkles to the macaron tops before baking.  I totally missed that and just added them with some extra frosting to the outside of the macarons later.  My bad.

Step 6  While the macarons are baking you use this butter cream mix to make the icing.

First, whip the butter until fluffy.

Then add the buttercream mix and one tbsp water, maybe a little more if it’s stiff.

Here’s the back of the recipe card with the last two steps.  (And there at the bottom is the note about the video that I wished was just a little more prominent because the video was very helpful.)

Step 7  The macarons are done when they pull cleanly away from the parchment.  Mine were done, but were shaped a little like Hershey kisses instead of the flat cookie shape which was the goal.  Again, I think this goes back to me not folding them enough in Step 3.

Step 8  Pipe the frosting onto the bottom of one macaron and make a sandwich with another on top.  (I also had to add a little frosting and sprinkles on top because I missed the step where I was supposed to put them on earlier.)

But, oh my goodness!!  Didn’t they turn out cute despite my lack of macaron baking skills??

Cute.  Delicious.  Fairly easy to make.  Yummy.  Who cares if they weren’t absolutely perfect, they’re still pretty and so very good!  And I had never tried making macarons before. I think I have been living in fear of whipping egg whites correctly.  But I did it!!  Yeah me!!  Thank-you Treatsie for holding my hand and walking me through the macaron making process.

Do you too live in fear of complicated baking?  Fear no more!  Treatsie will make it easy and fun to make the most delicious dessert treats.

Visit Treatsie At Home to subscribe or find out more!