Baking disasters - aka doing too much!

I had hoped never to have to report on a cooking disaster! But last night was a disaster. Once again a case of me trying to do too much!!! We had our work Christmas lunch yesterday (at the Hunting Lodge which was just divine!!). I was so full of food I didn’t feel like dinner, but I quickly cooked some fresh fish (smeared it with a cashew nut and coriander pesto I had made last week and hot roasted it), roasted some asparagus and cooked some jersey benne potatoes for my husband. I also made the cupcake part of my recipe for the December cupcake hero challenge (more about that tomorrow), then decided that I also should make some wee treats as gifts for people I am seeing in the next few days.

Disaster number 1 is easily fixed as I can make some more, but I had made the mint syrup for my cupcakes and had left it sitting on the stove. My husband kindly tidied up from dinner, and threw out my mint syrup!!!!! Hmm, I won’t write what I said (or yelled!!!!).

Disaster number 2. I had seen a recipe in a book for macaroon angels – shortbread style biscuits cut into the shape of angels and then topped with a macaroon topping. They looked beautiful in the book, but what a disaster!!! After I put the macaroon topping on my angels, they looked more like large blobs than angels. I was so disappointed!!! They tasted delicious and my husband said he was happy to have the deformed angels in the cookie tin for his lunches. Sadly, I felt defeated, so quickly whipped up another batch of my Christmas fudge, this time flavouring it with a good slosh of baileys, leaving out the fruit and nuts and topping it with silver dragees.



I then did the dishes and was about to put the deformed angels in the tin, when I had a thought that maybe I could use a little round cutter to make little round macaroon biscuits. So, that’s I what I did. Unfortunately all my hard work only made 12 little rounds (all the scraps went into the cookie tin), but at least that is one gift I can give. I think I will give them to some elderly clients I am going to see tomorrow.



I’ve just realised too that I gave the person who I made the baileys fudge for (my hairdresser!), baileys fudge last year! So I may have to whip up some white chocolate and cointreau truffles for her tonight before I go to yet another function!!!