this here's baking day

We're having a party on Saturday. I'm attempting to get things done ahead of time since hubby is gone for the three days beforehand. How convenient for him....

I declared today my baking day. (Because I did not heed our own advice from last year.) I couldn't have been more wrong because what today turned into was a big giant baking mess. (You saw that coming, right?) There should be a disclaimer on recipes. "Do not attempt this recipe if you don't have full concentration and/or your children are either asleep, with a sitter or locked away."

I attempted one of my favorite holiday cookies: Florentines. This recipe was given to me by fellow Baby Buncher Andrea of Andrea's Recipes. I have made this recipe three times and the last time--the fourth--was when major disaster struck! (They really are the yummiest cookies when made right.)

First of all, I had almond meal instead of almonds. This required about 15-20 minutes online to find out the ratio of nuts to meal. I was interrupted about four times during that hunt so I'm pretty sure I printed out the wrong page. Then I realized my heavy cream had turned solid on the top. Realizing there was no way it could be bad after a few days, went ahead and used the non-solid part. Then surmised that the point of cream is the fatty part that turned solid. Hmmmmm.....this could affect the outcome. Planned to look that up, too, but kids were screaming for help in the other room. Forgot to look it up.

As I'm mixing it, I noticed it didn't look right--at least not like the past few times I had made this recipe. Went ahead since now I had all my kids in the kitchen happily sitting and playing PlayDoh. Put first batch in the oven only to be assured that I had indeed messed up so many steps of the recipe including leaving it in too long that I couldn't serve this to anyone other than my family. 

After three batches and a sad phone call to Cara to relay my disgust towards this endeavor, I decided to give up. All while my children were handing me their beautifully done PlayDoh cookies.

Note to self: Baking often requires precision, including keeping track of the right amount of ingredients. Baking and Baby Bunching may be hazardous to your kitchen and your spirit. Next year I'll try to take a bit of our own advice.

Comments

[Rachel O.]

So sad! This was me too yesterday! I was baking twelve loaves of pumpkin bread to give out as thank yous to volunteers at the community center I work for. It was going to be perfect, stuffing them in stockings instead of time-consuming wrapping...
About half of the loaves ended up burned on the bottom. I hope the volunteers are understanding, because I just cut the bottoms off and am giving them out anyways.
Am unable to watch the oven like I used to with my 6-month-old and my 23-month-old.

[Andrea Meyers]

I've had so many mishaps in the kitchen due to my boys and their shenanigans that I stopped keeping track long ago. These days I'm pretty happy if I can get food on the table without burning it! :-)