Fail: Chewy Orange Almond Cookies (★ ★ ☆ ☆ ☆)

As I'm writing this entry, I'm watching the episode of Home Improvement where Tim uses power tools to cook food. Blowtorch grilled cheese sandwich? Yes, please!

I may or may not have specifically chosen this episode for inspiration.  

I have to watch something when I write.  It helps fill the silence.  Puts me in a good mood.  

BUT I can't just watch anything.  

Law & Order: SUV.  How in the heck am I supposed to come up with something witty while that is on??!!  All I end up doing is mentally counting the windows and doors to make sure they all get locked.

Yep, Home Improvement fits the bill.  Actually, Gilmore Girls is my muse.  Nothing, draws out my most stunning repartee as those ladies, but I love, love, love Tim Allen.  And it's just a Tim Allen kind of night, you know?

Almonds comprise the bulk of this cookie.  Almost like using an "almond" flour.

Recipes are an interesting science, aren't they?

Sometimes you get one that is so good, it turns out every time.
Other recipes are delicious, but require exacting care.

But there is another category.  The kind people don't like to talk about.

The recipe we'll endearingly call..."The Crapper."

Sometimes it doesn't matter what you do.  The chemistry just isn't there.  And if it isn't there then why, pray tell, can't we admit we made a boo boo?

Yes, Martha Stewart, I'm calling you out.

Soft peaked meringue (front).  Almond flour mixture (back). You fold the flour into the meringue.  

I wanted to make these Chewy Orange Almond Cookies because:

1) I love almonds.
2) I love anything chewy.
3) Orange, mixed with chewy, mixed with almonds, sounded like the perfect complement to cold lemonade on a summer day.

Welp, I'm sorry to say these were anything but refreshing.

And hey, you all know I'm not afraid to admit operator error.  The fact that most of these didn't turn out because they were either under or over cooked (as you'll soon see below) was completely and utterly the result of my lack of attention.

*Note: If after this post you STILL want to make these (i.e. you are a glutton for punishment), make sure you watch these like a hawk.  They are the "require exacting care" type I was telling you about earlier.  The difference between soft middle sticking to the parchment paper, and darkened crispy unsalvageable lump is not much my friend, not much.

The batter will be very runny.

But the 8 cookies, I actually made correctly didn't even taste good.  

If crazy almond ladies were a thing, these are the cookies they would bring to your door.  

Almond flavor.  

Almond grounds.  

Almond chunks.  

Knock, knock.  Who's there?  Not orange, that's for sure.  

And to top it off - these were sweet.  Sticky sweet.  Taste buds exploding off your tongue sweet.  

Hmmmmm...

Let's go through the checklist, shall we?

Taste: Fail

Ease: Fail

Martha: Fail

Fail + Fail + Fail = Win?

I don't think so, Tim. 

Undercooked: donut shaped cookies.  Overcooked: browned bricks.  The difference between the two? About a minute.

I'm putting this recipe on the naughty list.

It's okay to admit you dropped the ball Momma M.  No one is demanding that you relinquish your domestic pearls. Just gimme this one, okay?

If you are looking for an orange cookie recipe that is actually good see my earlier post on Orange Sugar Biscuits.  Make them chocolatey or use poppy seeds as called for in the recipe. Either way these are delicious.  Not too sweet.  The perfect tea cookie.

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Sidebar: These were not a total waste.

After throwing away the slightly burned cookies (These do not hold up well to temperature.  A slightly overcooked chocolate chip cookie?  No biggie.  These?....oHoHOHO no.  Lick the bottom of your toaster oven for a pretty accurate rendition), I didn't know what to do with the gapping hole ones.

They were ugly, but perfectly fine otherwise.

Enter: Vanilla Ice Cream.

I am a genius.

Crumbled up pieces of these cookies make a rah-dic-cuh-lous ice cream topping.  So, so, so, so, so, so good.

Martha, your recipe has been salvaged.

Girl, I gotchu.

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Fail: Red, White, & Blue - Cake In A Jar (★ ★ ☆ ☆ ☆)

Oh, the creative ideas you find on the web.  They're so adorable.  So simple.  

That's pure genius!  Why didn't I think of that myself?

And yet so often I find myself piled high in flour, hair disheveled, cursing the very mind I just idolized...the Betty Homemaker who is incapable of anything but perfection...while I dump yet another "experiment" in the garbage.  

Well, this week I had one of those days.  

Don't let this picture fool you.  This is a fail post remember?

Cake In A Jar.  Sounds intriguing, right?  I found out about this idea after following a trail of Pinterest recipes -- funny how those things work out. 

I couldn't believe I hadn't heard of this sooner.  Suddenly fragile baked goods were portable.

Rainbow Cake. S'more Cake. Lemon Meringue Pie Cake.  All conveniently packaged in their own individual jar.  (Okay that last one I made up, but if you were a real Betty Homemaker you could find a way to whip up a pie/cake combo!)

I had to do it.  And Memorial Day was just the occasion I needed.  

It was all planned out.  The red, white, and blue layers.  The quart sized jars for the gloriously large servings.  And the pièce de résistance...a Marine to send one to.

Oh, the patriotism!  (This same Marine heinously charged me with exploitation and I took great offense.  But that is besides the point.)

I wanted to make each layer a distinct flavor:

Red Layer: Red Velvet Cake
White Layer: Golden Vanilla Cake.
Blue Layer: Blueberry Cake (white cake with strained blueberry pie filling, and blue gel food color)

I must say, the flavors were great.  Especially, the blueberry.  Very unique.  

Alas, that's where the happy part of this post ends...

Little did I know that my trouble actually began weeks before, when I was enticed by the quart sized mason jars at Ace Hardware.  They were so glisten-y and voluptuous.   Who wants a pint, when you can have the pleasure of digging into a mound of delicious cake?  You don't have to finish it...just having the option is reason enough.

These are the things I think about, guys.

Well, I should've thought a little harder.  The recipe I used had instructions for cakes half this size.  I figured I would just cook them longer.

Wrong.

The outside and tops were overcooked before the red velvet layer had even begun to set.

I tried to compensate for this by lowering the temperature and increasing the time on the oven.  After an hour, the kabob skewer I was using to test the cakes came up relatively clean.  It wasn't perfect, but I was so worried about the tops (they were almost crunchy...and overflowing) that I made an executive decision to take them out and hope the very bottom layer would continue to cook a little longer.

As you can deduce from the second picture in this post, it seemed like I had made the right decision.  I assumed the cakes would settle back into the jars as they cooled and I could just slice off what little of the tops were still protruding out.

Thinking of nothing but sunbeams and butterflies, I left for the day.

What I found when I returned were pathetic, deflated versions of the cakes I had made.

Apparently, what I considered "cooked" clearly wasn't.

They could've used at least another half hour in the oven, but at grave risk to the blueberry layer.

Epic Fail.

What little I was able to taste was SUPER moist.  Too moist, if that's a legitimate problem for a cake to have.  The undercooked batter probably didn't help this situation much.  No frosting needed.

It's frustrating that these didn't work out.  They have so much potential.  I know what I can improve upon for the next time, but getting past all this wasted effort and wanting to try again is going to take some time.

Insert situation appropriate idiom here:

• Don't bite off more than you can chew.
• If at first you don't succeed, try, try again.
• Don't cry over spilled milk.
• Gluttony is one of the seven deadly sins

Feel free to message me with suggestions.

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And Happy Memorial Day!  I am so grateful for all the men and women who were willing to give up time with their families, the luxury of an unregulated lifestyle and, ultimately, their lives for me and for you...for us.

Fail: Cake Pop (★ ★ ☆ ☆ ☆)

Ah, the wonder that is cake pops.

How can you not love them?  At the very least, if you don't like cake you have to find little spheres of Cookie Monster's head with a mini chocolate chip in his mouth absolutely adorable.

Right?!

Sadly, this story does not actually involve the sugared king.  No, this story is more akin to a tragedy.  A tragedy on so many levels.  Read on with me...

Once there was a baketress.  

She liked creating tasty treats, especially if they were chocolate.  

And she was also not afraid of a challenge.  

There was a spreading trend throughout the land.

One where mini cake bites were served on sticks.

And often reminiscent of childhood characters or of Han Solo in Carbonite. 

This baketress found herself called to the little treats.

Not wanting to miss this cultural phenomenon, 

she scoured high and low for a worthy recipe.

How to Make Cake Pops

She followed the details to a tee.

For a dutiful baketress she certainly was.

Painstakingly dipping each stick into various forms of chocolate...

Insuring that each pop would would remain intact against the evil forces of gravity.

Carefully molding each morsel...

                        And chilling to the proper temperature...

                               

                          to prevent crumbling.

Our heroine assembled the sweets,

one by one.

But alas, when her enticing neon green became a shade of infant food,

She should have taken this as an awful foreshadowing.

...A baking curse, if you will...

The pops she had so carefully fashioned suddenly turned to mush.

The blobs became too heavy and fell off the sicks.

She tried to make the best of the situation by changing tactics.

Maybe rounded cake bites would fare better?

But these turned out no more worthy than the rest.

As the last remnants lay wasted on the perfectly placed parchment paper, 

our unrelenting baketress had to admit that she was no match for the angered forces at hand.

Yellow beaded sugar crystals slid to the ground like defeated tears. 

---

But this story doesn't end there...

Flash forward to Christmas one year later, the little baketress was bestowed a cake pop making kit.  

She was apprehensive at first - the sheer thought stirred up old resentments,

But with the help of her benefactor, together they perfected the confectionary treat. 

It appeared as if the spell had been broken! 

And cake pops were enjoyed by all. 

The End.

Fail: French Toast and Bacon Cupcakes (★ ★ ☆ ☆ ☆)

French Toast is good. Bacon is good. French Toast with bacon is good. So why wouldn't a french toast and bacon cupcake be good? These were...well, let's just say...weird.

I still think the concept could be successful, but not the way I went about it.

These I made on a whim. My friend was having a little get together, so what a better way to be able to try a new recipe, AND get a good chunk of them out of my house ASAP.

A couple of things I did wrong:

1) Used a box mix. If it's not chocolate...don't do it!

2) I used veggie bacon. The things you will do when your bestie is a vegetarian. Not only did

they taste like crunchy salt sticks; they looked like dog treats. Do yourself a favor and tell

your veggie bff to pick off her bacon...or better yet, just don't put one on hers.

This was my inspiration: French Toast and Bacon Cupcakes

After my Black and White cupcake, I thought I had finally found a good white cake mix.

Nope. Still looking.

For the french toast flavor. Making use of my $$$$ vanilla bean paste.

We always have maple syrup on hand so I added that instead of maple extract.

There has to be better veggie bacon than this.

Cause even vegetarians don't want to eat doggy salt sticks.

The finished product.

Well, at least I can say they incited conversation even if they weren't the hit of the party. One day I'll try these again. I love breakfast foods, and I'm thoroughly convinced that with the proper ingredients they would make excellent cupcakes.

Fail: The Revenge of the Nutella Cupcakes (★ ★ ☆ ☆ ☆)

I'll try to make this one quick because unfortunately I have no pictures. And if you're anything like me a blog without pictures is most likely a blog that goes unread...

As I mentioned before, I had a beautiful vision for Nutella cupcakes for my dad's birthday, but my dad isn't quite as adventurous and prefers to stick to the tried and true. While this is not a horrible tactic, you end up being stuck eating chocolate on chocolate cake your whole life...it's not torture, but it's not necessarily exciting either.

Anyway, long story short...it's finally Father's Day. The day the kids get to decide what to do for the dads. Every year I try to broaden my dads horizons...a more fashionable shirt, maybe some dark wash jeans...but this year--this year, I decided that his taste buds could use a little "broadening." And it wasn't like I was going to feed him some dark chocolate lemon-pepper cupcakes...we're talking Nutella here. European, hazelnutty goodness. Stuff my mom has to buy for him by the carload.

Since I had no idea how to make these cupcakes, I did some research and I came across this blog "Sweetest Kitchen." She had taken her peanut butter cupcake recipe and tweaked it for Nutella. I liked her method because she decided to top the cupcakes with marshmallow frosting. I had never made that before and it looked delicious.

Find the official blog/recipe here: Nutella Cupcakes

The Results:

Cupcakes:

Unfortunately, the Nutella cupcakes we're exactly a success. I think the Nutella made the batter too runny or it prevented it from rising properly. In any case, the cupcakes came out looking like a flattened crisp cookie on top of a slightly undercooked brownie. Mind you...the cupcakes themselves tasted amazing, but they looked atrocious and they didn't have a cupcake texture. If you were hoping for cupcakes they were an ultimate fail, but if you were willing to eat them with an open mind they were really quite good.

Frosting:

I don't have a double boiler. So I shouldn't have even tried to make this frosting. For some reason I thought I could make do or cheat the system somehow. I'm an oldest child. It's what we do. Make things work. Anyway, I tried to boil water in a sauce pan while I whisked the ingredients in a glass boil over the top, but I just couldn't get the hang of it. No matter what I did the frosting was a goopy, runny mess. BUT it wasn't too devastating, because the recipe was AWFUL. I don't know what was so wrong about it...I mean you'd think sugar + eggs + vanilla couldn't equal anything but = delicious. I thought I was crazy so I made everyone taste it, but they agreed. Maybe if it had fluffed like it should've then it would've tasted better? In any case, I won't be making that frosting again...and I'm going to be getting a double boiler to settle this issue once and for all.

Post:

I've made a marshmallow frosting that tastes delicious if you want to try these cupcakes but have been deterred because of my strong-yet honest-critique. You can find the recipe here:

Marshmallow Creme Frosting

FYI, it's very sweet and a little runny...meaning you can't pipe it on or expect it to be fluffy. BUT it tastes good and frankly that's the most important thing when it comes to baking.

I'll chalk this up to one of my failures...but it serves a good purpose

1) As I've said before, baking is amazing because even when it's a disaster it's still edible.

2) Purchase a double boiler. If I'm gonna be a "hobby baker" and keep a blog, I'm going to have to stop avoiding the recipes that call for one.

3) And the big Kahuna...sometimes (although not always) it is better to stick with what you know. Plain chocolate is a sure thing and if it's your birthday and that's what you want...then risk be damned.