Hell's Kitchen

You may recall my battle with making the perfect brownies - well I have given up on trying to make them from scratch and started buying the "just add water and egg" mixes. Mainly because they have now found a way to not make me have to wash up after baking which is just freaking awesome. (In other words the brownie kits now come with an origami degree required to assemble the reflective card baking tray) so I am standing by the whole "if you heat it up at home it's home-made" rule.
I recently did some Cadbury Brownie's and of course, only half of the chocolate chips made it into the mix and the other half made it into my mouth.
 The brownies went well except I had to give them 10-15 minutes longer than it said as they were still runny in the middle. Whoever guessed my brownie cooking issues were caused by my oven temperature being wrong may just be right!

So I was dancing around the kitchen celebrating my awesomeness and sneaking the odd cooling brownie from the tray before D came home when I decided I would wash up a couple of items while I waited for him so we could eat brownies. (I know this seems counter-productive given my whole 'woohoo I don't HAVE to wash up deal' but it's different when it's a choice and not an expectation.)

Apparently my kitchen doesn't think I'm so awesome, as partway through running some water, a carving knife slid off the counter and landed on the floor. Right where my foot would have been had I not just performed a gymnastic twist and stretch to get my feet clear.
Okay, I hear you... that happens to everyone.
I then carried a milk pan in my LEFT hand over the the sink - as I got there the huge GLASS lid of our frying pan slid from a different worktop on my LEFT. If I'd have had this ruddy milk pan in my other hand I could have saved it - but as it is this huge glass lid fell, hit my ankles and then smashed into a gazillion pieces onto the floor.
Enter D.
I think I must have the "oh shit I can't move" face plastered on as he takes a concerned look at me and says - "can you move? are you okay?"
My ankle is hurting a hell'uve a lot and I wimper "It hit my ankle and it hurts and I don't know if there is glass in it..."
D took one look at my sock covered feet, surrounded by glass - he stepped toward me - told me to hold on - and lifted me up off the floor and carried me over to the other side of the kitchen.
Now I'm not a big girly girl, and I do like to save myself a lot, but after a lifetime of doing so this small act caused my heart to roll-over in my chest and my thoughts got positively liquid.
Once I'd recovered I got over the whole 'oh god I bet he thinks I'm really heavy' thought as I gingerly pulled my socks off to find - yes they were covered in glass bits but no my feet were fine.
D swept up all the glass - totally awesome - and then knowing me so well even though he'd cleared all the glass up and re-swept several times (with me shouting such helpful advice as; 'you've swept it under the table again' 'you missed a bit' 'the bags ripped so you'll have to start over') he walked over to me, took his shoes off, and laid them at my feet so I could wear them out of the room as he walked barefoot.
I know it sounds corny, but that small act of kindness of lifting me out of the glass and giving me his shoes - makes him my hero.

I can't help but imagine if the shoe was on the other foot (no pun intended) and I'd have walked in to him smashing the glass lid the situation would have involved me stood there arms crossed while he cleaned it up and I kept saying "How are we gonna cook sausages now then, eh? eh? how?
Yeah he wins the 'better person' award....for now anyway.

You're never too old to....

Today is my birthday - woot - and for the first time ever it's raining in August - I mean -WTH? So we're off to the seaside to go crabbing, eat some seafood and go on a boat ride as planned....but apparently all in the falling rain - woot?

So last night I baked myself a cake ('cause seriously, who else is gonna?) But since I'm a little "troubled" when it comes to baking I had a little bit of help from Barbie and Dr.Oetker, cause we're friends ya'll.
Because it's MY cake, what I say goes which is why I made it the way I did, full of sugar and all the things momma used to hide on the top-shelf of the baking cupboard...like sprinkles.....mmmmn...sprinkles.

Can you tell what is it yet?

So I figured I can't go too wrong with the pre-weighed help of two professionals....

I sure hope that batter rises and fills the tin up

Uh-oh doesn't look too hopeful..

Mmmmmmn brownies

Can you believe that I freaking MADE these, they look so yummy!!

Staging area for adding weird icing to the top of my cupcakes

Yes it looks like doggy doo-doo but it really isn't, I tried dying it blue but there isn't enough dye in the work to turn that yellow icing blue. Throw on everything sugar coated in the cupboard and ta-da.......

My Princess (brownie and cupcake) castle cake!! WOOOHOOOO!
See-ya all after my sugar coma!

Need a chef, or at least a half decent kitchen assistant

Today I suddenly decided, mid accounting and mid listings that I really fancied some cookies. But we don't have any in. So in an attempt to kill two birds with one stone (get cookies and clean kitchen) I decided to start baking.
Now I'm sure you all recall my secret cookie war. For some unknown reason I can make roast joints, bake cakes, serve rare delicacies and they are scrumptious, but try my hand at cookies, biscuits and brownies and it's a TOTAL fail.

Today I was SO hopeful.
The recipe was so basic that a child could do it, supposedly.
And I was comforted by other people's comments like;
"Hi Rachel, 
thank you so much for the recipe. i always thought cookie baking was the most complicated thing in the whole world. you made it soo easy, no baking powder and no eggs is the kind of cooking that we dig and now possible all because of you."
So I was pretty certain I couldn't mess up.

I was wrong.

I tell you now I FOLLOWED the RECIPE. I did honestly I did, it was so basic not even I could screw it up. But when I reached my 13-15 minutes cooking time.....they still weren't done. In fact a whole 45 minutes later they still weren't looking done either, they were squidgy still, so not being a quitter I flipped them over like pancakes and put them back in.

It's been an hour and they still don't look too great. I haven't tried one yet, and D's not around as a test subject so I keep poking them on the cooling rack and giving them dubious looks.

If anyone has a fool-proof (and trust me it needs to be fool-proof) recipe I can try leave it below. I'll try out every recipe I get and post all the results and who-ever can finally get me making a successful batch gets......um.....I don't know what, a trophy or something.
Help.