Lemon Bars

Oh, no. It was coming up again, word vomit... no, wait a minute...

                        -- Cady

Editor's Note: Has anyone else noticed that I apparently only make tan or yellow food?

The Gaggle's main objection to these lemon bars was that they caused loose bowels. But Dorian and Miss Marple are whiners, so what are ya' gonna do? Personally I didn't experience this problem. My mother's genetics and a diet based mostly on sucrose have left me rather impervious to the dangers of my own cooking. So if you eat junk food and like lemons, this recipe is very close to perfection, but if you have a delicate gastrointestinal system or eat vegetables, this recipe is apparently like firing a cannon through your colon. Also Miss Marple threw up or something.

Apple Pie

"It's called the South Beach Fat Flush and all you drink is cranberry juice for 72 hours... I really want to lose three pounds."

                        -- Regina

Absolute Yums.

I promise I'm actually good at baking. For reals. I can throw together cookies, brownies and cakes without trying, but those are boring. So I keep attempting things I'm not good at or haven't done before, which most recently produced a saccharine eldritch horror.

I know an apple pie seems straightforward enough, but I've failed miserably before (something Miss Marple loves to reference). I have as much experience cooking/consuming fruit as I do with cooking/consuming crystal meth, Breaking Bad not withstanding. My previous attempt at apple pie was both watery, gummy, crunchy (in all the wrong ways) and bland. I think I'm going to start taking pride in not just failing but failing spectacularly. Anyway, this attempt was supposed to be different because I: one, followed the recipe; and two, had the assistance of my aunt, MFK Fisher. She's an experienced home baker and in the past we've formed a symbiotic partnership cemented with butter and chocolate. It seems that even her skilled hands cannot salvage the utter meh that this pie became.

Sponge Candy

“First you bloat, and then you drop pounds like that… It explains it all on the label.”

                        -- Cady

Julia Child was popular less for her culinary excellence and more for her tendency to fail. Omelets were lost mid flip, fingers were burnt, and as - Dan Aykroyd has pointed out - small cuts were sustained. I’m grandiose enough to fancy myself a future pioneer in culinary education, so I will now compare myself to Julia Child. This post is dedicated to recipes that fail spectacularly. There. I’ve spun this. I’m not admitting to making a hot mess; I have intentionally ruined this dessert as part of a “teachable moment.”

Sponge candy is delicious. As Wikipedia points out, it goes by many names, but the premise is simple and directly related to 3^rd grade science class. Make a dark, toasty sugar syrup (that always goes well) and then add vinegar and baking soda. The mixture foams like crazy and then hardens, trapping millions of crunchy bubbles into a honeycomb.

This is the recipe I used. I cannot recommend it. Sure that opening photo looks okay, but photos can be very flattering taken out of context (i.e., eHarmony profile photos). Let’s take a journey…