When nothing else will do

Have you ever had an inclination to want something in particular and nothing else will do? That was me in the kitchen on Sunday afternoon.

I was preparing my breakfasts and lunches for the working week ahead – this week its biscoff pancakes for brekkie and thai chicken salad for lunches – and I remembered that there was a little homemade lemon curd and some buttercream in the fridge. I was set on making a good ole Victoria Sandwich cake but lemony.

When I took the lemon curd out it had set solid. I thought it would loosen up a bit to a more spreadable consistency once it had warmed up a little so left it on the side whilst I made pancakes and salads. I went back to it half an hour later and it was still solid. It wasn’t going to spread at all. In fact when I ran a spoon around the bowl, it came away in one solid disc.

Now I have jam of different flavours and biscoff spread in the cupboard that would have made a more than adequate alternative, but I had in my head that it would be lemon. And nothing was going to change my mind.

Rather disillusioned I didn’t bake anything in the end. That meant we had no treat to go with our afternoon cup of tea.

I need to get my baking a**e back into gear. I keep looking at cake designs thinking that I could actually do some of them but haven’t got the motivation to do them. It seems a bit of a waste to spend ages making an awesome cake only for the two of us.

I’ve been looking through my baking books and cake magazines and thinking yes, I’ll do that but then never get round to it. More forward planning required to make sure I have all the ingredients in ready to go when the bug bites.

For now, there will be no lemon cake. Maybe something next weekend.

Baking fails

I don’t very often fail completely when I’m baking but today’s BakedIn Brookies just didn’t work. There has been much comment on their social media page as to people having problems with the cookie and brownie elements somehow mixing and there not being such a definitive line, as per their picture.

I thought I’d try and be clever so decided I was going to part bake the cookie base before adding the brownie mixture neatly atop. Well, that was a stupid idea.

All that happened was the cookie dough was very soft because it was hot so the brownie mix, instead of spreading nicely on top, just plopped in the middle then sank to the bottom. I couldn’t spread it at all. So mine ended up with mostly cookie at the edges and mostly brownie in the centre and a slightly marbled effect where they met.

They tasted ok though so that’s the main thing, right?