Sometimes I'm a mess!

Today was both a bad and good day in my world of baking. Bad because I broke some things. Good because I have a wonderful friend who only wants me to be happy. :)

Usually I like to hear bad news first because then I get to save the good, but lately I've been realizing that might not be the best way to think, so I'll start off differently today.

The good is that a very amazing friend of mine gave me a surprise present, for no reason at all whatsoever! It was really sweet and really made my day.

The bad is that when I got home I decided I wanted some dessert (yes we do need to eat dessert after breakfast), so I got ready to make some brownies (box mix...mint - yum!) & use my new toy. :)

Now there was the remnants of some cake I made Tim earlier in the week sitting on the stove on top of one of the rear burners. After I turn the oven on, Tim moves it away & informs me that there is a vent in that burner & (surprise) it gets really hot back there so we shouldn't keep anything on it. Now, I knew that the back of the stove got hot, but somehow, honest to god, I never knew there was a vent back there. So Tim goes outside to shovel some snow, & what do I do? I put a PLASTIC LID from a tupperware container RIGHT ON THE BURNER.

Ok, not my most shining moment. It melted all over the burner. So I pull the burner off the oven & run to ask Tim what to do. He assures me it's ok, at which point I return to the mixing bowl. Contentedly mixing, suddenly the head of my spatula breaks in half. The wood pops through the rubber part. GREAT. I loved that spatula. Yeah, silly, I know, but it was one of the first tools I bought for my kitchen in my new apt & it was GREEN! And it had a bamboo handle. And I broke it. *tear*

Just not one of my best days in the kitchen. This day topped off my week which consisted of me showcasing my cake baking skills. I guess the cake itself was ok (though I didn't love the taste of it) but when I tried to make lemon curd to put between the layers, I mixed together all 8 egg yolks, 3 lemons juiced & zested, & proceeded to boil the eggs. Yum. Everyone loves boiled egg in their lemon curd. Determined to not waste 20 minutes of zesting, juicing, and separating, I tried to strain out the egg. Yes, I know, illogical, but it made sense at the time. I figured even if I didn't get the lemon curd to work out (even though that was the whole point of making the cake), I could make some excellent icing. So what do I do? I manage to somehow beat the sides of the pan into the icing. Little black flecks of teflon. Needless to say, I won't be adding a post about that one (although you can read how to make it properly here).

So the brownies were yummy after all, I broke up some spare junior mints & put some extra chocolate chips in it to make it ultra-not-so-good-for-me.

Haha, you thought you were going to get a recipe for brownies today, but instead all you get is the knowledge that I make my brownies from a box! :)

Here's to a great start to your week!