I attempted to make fudge this morning; this fudge, in fact, which looks so creamy and yummy in its picture. Needless to say, mine didn’t turn out looking remotely like that. I figured I was going to have grainy fudge after it boiled over all over the stove, but I finished the cooking process anyway, let it cool down, attempted to beat it until it lost its gloss (no mean feat, since at this point it had achieved the consistancy of silly putty), gave up on beating and poured it into the prepared pan.
Later, when I tried to cut it with a knife, it shattered like a sand castle hit with a mortar shell. Still tastes okay, though, if you don’t think of it as fudge. I haven’t decided what I should think of it as, but it ain’t fudge. It’s fudgy crumbles. Probably be good on ice cream, if I had any in the house. I think I’ll go back to my old standby fudge recipe, which came off the back of the marshmallow creme jar and makes 8 pounds and comes out perfect and creamy and delicious every time.
Marlitharn, did you let it boil for a while with the cover on the pot? You probably got a little water into the chocolate and it seized. Next time, try bringing it to a boil, covering for 3 minutes, then bringing up to temperature.
And I never have a kitchen failure. Nope, not me. I never grabbed the Rubbermaid container of Bisquick instead of flour when making chocolate chip cookies. That would have been silly.
I’m also kitchen failure free. Never made pizza crust with the last of the flour in the bag, only to top up the measuring cup with the “flour” in the tupperware container that turned out to be powdered sugar. Nope, not me.
Baking soda…baking powder…is there really a difference?
Apparently there is.
I actually know there is a difference, but it doesn’t stop me from reading a recipe too quickly and/or grabbing the wrong thing out of the cabinet. Ooops! Not the best brownies I ever made.
Ah, fudge. Speaking of the fluff recipe, you know you can really go wrong with the part where you’re waiting for it to boil. Is it boiling, or is it bubbling? Dicker too long, and your fudge has a smokey taste to it. Yuck!
I did, actually. I tried to do what His Awesomeness Alton Brown said to do, and put the cover on the pot for 2 minutes right after it started to boil. That’s when it boiled over. Molten chocolate makes funny noises when it hits a gas flame.
Anyone remember a cheesy 80s movie called The Stuff? It was about killer yogurt, or something, that grew and grew until it could ooze out of the fridge and begin its campaign of relentless terror? The one time my Mom tried to make divinity was just like that. Apparently I inherited her lousy candy-making genes.
I want to help you out because one night recently I saw the Good Eats fudge episode, the next day, I took a chocolate making class, and a few days after that I made fudge at home. I’m in a fudgy frame of mind!
Not me (really). But my sister-in-law left the shortening out of biscuits recently.
They were ok. Suprisingly chewy, but ok.
The second batch, which had the shortening, were incredible, and flaky rather than chewy.
Which just goes to show that “ok” is not exactly high praise.
We also told Sis-in-law about the time Mom used the same recipe to make flat biscuits–having left out either the baking powder or the cream of tartar (or something else, but those are the logical culprits.0
I never forgot to add eggs to the cake batter. Nor did I stare stupidly at the eggs sitting on the counter and swear when someone walked in and asked “Why are there eggs sitting out here?”
Perhaps the saddest kitchen katastrophe of my childhood was when I was maybe 11 or 12 and my mom and I were making candy buckeyes. We were making them at grandma’s house down the road and, not wanting to trouble grandma for some confectioner’s sugar, mom grabbed some from her kitchen. This was before my mother started marking the containers she put her ingredients into. It was a sad day when, upon tasting one of the delicious two-toned morsels, we discovered that we had inadvertently mixed into our pound of peanut butter a cup of corn starch.
Rewinding a few years to the age of 7 or 8, while watching my mother bake cookies (I’ve always enjoyed cooking!), my mother, pulling the baking sheet out of the oven, spun around and smacked me in the face with the hot sheet. My mom dropped the cookie sheet and rushed me to the sink, shoving my head under the running water. I think that traumatized me more than the burn did. When all was said and done, I had a nice red scar across my face and lips that was visible in yearbook photos for the next two years.
I guess it is good that I got all my cooking mishaps out of the way while I was young. Since adulthood I haven’t had any spectacular blunders. Just the usual little Oops-scorched-that and oops-undercooked-this events.
The fudge my parents made from scratch when I was a kid had a dry, crumbly texture. I’ve always thought that was the best fudge ever–“creamy” fudge just seems gooey to me.
Just today I let a pot of glaze for the candied yams boil over and coat 1/3 of my glass cooktop in sugar shellac.
I would have been watching it like a hawk, but mr. bot was outside putting up Christmas lights on the fencing. He started yelling and cussing “Get her off me!” I stepped out the front door to see what was what. “Her” was my pony, Stormy. She wanted to help mr. bot with his chore and was nuzzling him as he stapled lights onto the fencing by the paddocks.
I doubled over laughing when she ripped the hammer out of his hand and daintily deposited it over the fence, out of his reach. I had to trudge down to the gate, and up through the paddock to retrieve the accursed hammer. Muttering under my breath the whole while “I’ts too damn early to put up Christmas lights, you kringle-dork!!!”
I returned to the kitchen to find a right mess. At least there was still more than enough glaze for the yams.
