Sweet.Petite.Treats Behind-The-Scenes: A Merry Baking Christmas!

In the past few weeks leading up to today I have been sooooo busy with baking, baking & more baking!

It all started with firstly a trip to Melbourne to attend a large family gathering in celebration of Mr Petite's grandmother's 87th birthday & whilst there was amongst the frenzy of Oprah's appearance at Federation Square which happened to be on the same day as my visit to a cupcake shop where the journey of it's owner from selling her cupcakes at the markets to now having her own shop front has been so inspiration to me that this visit was a must on my Melbourne To-Do list (but more on that in a later post)....

Christmas giftboxes of assorted macarons

...to the epic baking & deliveries of macarons which have led me to some interesting people & places with Kylie Kwong at Billy Kwong's Surry Hills being one of them (but more on that in a later post)...

Ordered by an employer as a Christmas sweet treat for all her staff at the office
(what a wonderful gift!)

...catching up with Brother Petite which I have not seen in at least 5 years returning from Hong Kong for a quick visit... 

 Christmas giftboxes ordered by a Team Leader
for her team members at work 

Later was informed the macarons were also shared with their clients
at their store on Christmas Eve

...& somewhere in between while waiting for macaron batter to dry & shells to bake I stumbled into the addictive world of Words With Friends.

Now a little time for me...

What kind of a Christmas would this be without my very own red & green macarons?

Red Strawberry Chocolate macarons & Green Peppermint Chocolate macarons

I wanted to once again construct a Christmas Tree macaron tower (you can read about my first attempt here) & this time with filled macarons but in the days leading up to Christmas I discovered my containers once full of these festive treats were slowly depleting as they became our gifts to family, friends & close neighbours.

Green macaron shells filled with  peppermint milk chocolate ganache &
Strawberry flavoured macaron shells filled with milk chocolate ganache

So with inadequate quantities to fill a tower, the rest were made into the bags of three macarons we have been giving as gifts to others & now will be given to those who we may come across & acquaint with on this festive day.

Red Strawberry Chocolate, Salted Caramel & Green Peppermint Chocolate macarons assembled in cellophane bags (loving the addition of the Salted Caramel
brown hue amongst the festive colours)

A festive ribbon was then used to tie the macaron giftbags

To finish off stickers or gift tags were added

And to whom you may ask will this macaron giftbag be given to?

To You!

From All of Us at Sweet.Petite.Treats
have a wonderful day.
Wishing you, your family & friends
a very Merry Sweet Christmas!!!

FIND & LIVE YOUR PASSION(FRUIT) OPRAH STYLE

In Oprah's own words:

“Passion is energy. Feel the power that comes from focusing on what excites you... What I know is, is that if you do work that you love, and work that fulfills you, the rest will come. And, I truly believe, that the reason I’ve been able to be so financially successful is because my focus has never, ever for one minute been money.”

"Live your passion..." (Hmmm...how many of us are living our passion?). 

"Do what you love & the money will follow..." (how many of us are allowing our hearts to lead & heads to follow?).

"If you love what you do the money will come..." (how many of us are doing what we love & given money to do so?).

When I think of summer...I think of passionfruit

It was Oprah who first introduced me to the concept of finding & living one's passion.

As Australia go mad in search for tickets to the event of their lifetime where for one day Sydney's Opera House transforms into "Oprah House", I revisit my quest to find my passion & so far this is what I've found:

• There is not only ONE passion but many sub-categories of passion eg. work/career passion, spiritual passion & then there's passion passion (sensual & sexual passion)
• There are alot of questions one needs to answer about oneself before finding one's passion
• There are surveys which one can take & lists which one can complete to identify one's passion
• There are alot of experts out there that can help one to find one's passion but not without buying their books or DVDs
• Only 25% of people know what their true passion is
• "Passion" is related to "Attitude", quote: "Your attitude reflects your activities. If you analyze your regular activities you can find your interest & passion. If you want to change your passion & interest,change your ATTITUDE".

Another addition to my Summer macarons range:
Passionfruit Chocolate



So not dissimiliar to my quest more than 10 years ago, my search for my passion ends here (for now) when I find Him,

By Hang: 

"The world seems to be split into roughly three different types of people : those who have a passion for nothing (the ones who are content to lead an ordinary life),  those who have a passion for one thing (those who have found some calling in life and live and breathe that calling) & those who have a passion for everything (are not interested in things themselves, they’re interested in interest).

When a person who is passionate about one thing meets a person who is passionate about nothing, they feel extreme sadness that this person has not yet found their calling. To them, their life is so infused with purpose from their calling that they assume everyone else without a calling feels the same hollow emptiness inside them that they do. They are horrified with the prospect of living an utterly normal, undistinguished life.

When a person who is passionate about nothing meets a person who is passionate about one thing or everything, there is a sense of otherworldliness to it, that those people possess some kind of mutant gene which compels them to action. To these people, passion is an utterly mysterious process which they can only reverse engineer from the outside. To them, it’s like thinking of love as really, really, really liking someone.

When a person who is passionate about everything meets a person who is passionate about one thing, they just assume that this is a person who has settled. Every person who is passionate about everything ultimately faces the dilemma about how to focus their attentions. In order to be successful, they need to settle on something to be “their thing”; They need to become a software engineer or a journalist or a academic. Settling one one thing can, on the surface, looking like being passionate about one thing.

When a person who is passionate about everything meets a person who is passionate about nothing, the lack of curiosity is mistaken for unintelligence or a lack of opportunity. If only they were smarter or if only they had been exposed to a brilliant teacher in school like I had, they would be infused with the same sense of wonder with the world that I have. I think this is one of the more insidious miscommunications that exists because it imposes a subtle form of prejudice and judgement."

Passionfruit Chocolate macarons:
Passionfruit macaron shells filled with passionfruit milk chocolate ganache

So could this be the answer to why the other 75% have not found their passion?

The quest in finding one's passion, is it merely a reaction to another's quest who is so passionate about passion they passionately too want others to find & live their own passion?

 

The strong sweet aroma of passionfruit lingers in the air

As Sydney frantically prepares for the arrival of Oprah I have no doubt once again the quest to find & live one's passion will ignite in others & re-ignite in me.

But in the meantime...

I think I'll just Hang.


Tell me Dear Readers have you found and/or living your passion?