When I was composing this post, my first thought was to title it “In a muffin mood…” because I was, indeed, in the mood for muffins (both banana and blueberry), then I thought about “Chemistry in the kitchen” (since Sweet Thing” likes to tease me by remindiing me that cooking is basically “chemistry” because he knows that chemistry is definitely NOT one of my strengths). Ultimately, I decided that “Epic fail…” OR more accurately, “Epic FAILS”.. was a more appropriate title, given the results of yesterday’s baking!
I attempted to make a batch of banana muffins to use up the VERY RIPE bananas that were sitting on my kitchen counter (attracting fruit flies, I might add). As I often do, I went to my beloved Betty Crocker cookbook and followed the variation for banana muffins, which involved decreasing the milk, adding the mashed bananas, and substituting packed brown sugar for the sugar called for in the original recipe. Unfortunately, I missed the part of the original directions that read “stir in remaining ingredients”. So… I didn’t add the last two (KEY) ingredients: the baking powder and the salt. As you can probably imagine, the resulting banana muffins were an epic fail…
The FIRST of TWO, actually!
The second one came when I attempted to follow the recipe for “Popovers”, which was right next to my “Muffins” recipe AND had the following note:
“Yorkshire Pudding: The traditional English accompaniment for roast beef is simply a popover batter baked in the meat drippings. Directions for preparing it with the meat are… (in my previous vanity post, #135).”
So, yeah… Since yesterday was National Yorkshire Pudding Day, I was bound and determined to make myself some Yorkshire Pudding. Except for cutting the recipe for Popovers in half, I followed the directions exactly, especially with regards to the amount of time in the oven. Sadly, this lead to the SECOND epic fail of the day! Instead of puffing up and turning golden brown like Dad’s Yorkshire Pudding always did, mine remained flat (much like my attempt at making banana muffins), and (again, like the muffins), stuck to the muffin tins. Had to pry the well-cooked popovers/Yorkshire Pudding out with tongs! In addition, one of my thoughts as I was prying ’em out of the muffin tins was Dad’s motto when it came to Mom’s cooking at times: “Brown it’s cooking; black it’s done.” My popovers/Yorkshire Pudding were definitely “done” — so “done” that I couldn’t even eat much of ’em! I ended up scooping out the soft center from the burnt shells and eating ’em that way.
Yesterday was definitely NOT one of my best days in the kitchen! I failed “Chemistry in the Kitchen” TWICE!
However, I have NOT given up on making muffins! Since I’ve got some fresh blueberries in the fridge, I’m going to attempt to make a batch of blueberry muffins — AFTER I toss the botched banana muffins. This time, I’m going to make sure that I “stir in the remaining ingredients”. PLEASE LET ME PASS MY NEXT “CHEMISTRY IN THE KITCHEN” LESSON!
Please help me feel better about these two EPIC FAILS of mine by sharing some of your failed “Chemistry in the kitchen” experiments and/or kitchen mishaps. I can’t be the only one who has experienced mishaps in the room that’s often referred to as the heart of the home! Looking forward to hearing from you!!