I Have a Confession

I have something that I need to confess... 

I cannot bake to save my life. This breaks my heart. I have always loved to cook and bake and I dream of being the perfect little housewife. Ever since I was little I'd stand in the kitchen, pretend I was on a cooking show and whip up something delicious. 

Being at University, I only get home every 2 and a half months, this means that I don't get to spend as much time in the kitchen as I would like. My cooking is not all that bad and I know with practice it'll get better, but over the last couple of months I have noticed that everything I've baked has turned out completely crappy. I have always found an excuse as to why the cake rose in the middle and sunk on the sides, why the chocolate pudding over flowed and still managed to stay raw after an hour in the oven and why the scones are replicas of little rocks, but I think it is finally time to admit that I'm a terrible, terrible baker!

I finally admitted defeat on Monday, when my friend Dillyn came over and we spent the afternoon baking Brownies. 

He needed to get out the house for a while, I needed some company from a buddy and Clauds had invited Granny over for tea later that afternoon so baking a batch of delicious chocolate Brownies seemed like a fabulous idea. Well, if only we knew...

So I zipped off to our local grocery store and bought half a kilogram of chocolate while Dillyn drove over to our farm and we got ready to put MasterChef to shame!

Things were going really well and we were both working really hard together I was doing all the work while Dillyn read instructions from the Biscotti recipe instead of the Brownie recipe (he also didn't notice that anything was wrong or odd about this situation for about 10 minutes). The recipe called for me to melt butter and chocolate in a sauce pan (simple right? Yes. I got this part right!). It then instructed me to add the sugar to the chocolate and butter and wait for it to melt. Now this is where it all went wrong...

Instead of melting, the sugar began to clump and form into a hard lump of what Dillyn called 'diamonds'. It really was a terrible sight :( 

I turned to this boy who has been one of my closest friends for many years, looking for answers or a few words of comfort, a glimpse of hope maybe? ANYTHING! All I got from him was "I'm not even sure how to fix this. Shan, when someone marries you, it definitely won't be because of your cooking!" The saddest part is the fact that he is so right!

We carried on baking them in the hopes that when we placed them in the oven the sugar would melt. Let me tell you something, friends, it didn't! And despite Clauds' sweet encouraging words; "they're not too bad, Shan", I knew that they were terrible. In that moment, I knew that I'd never be a baker. So today, I'm linking up with another lovely lady, also named Shannon and I'm saying SO WHAT IF I'M A TERRIBLE BAKER?

I'd also like to take this moment to apologize to my future children - if you ever have bake sales at school, you'll be taking a pack of Oreos, sorry babies! xxx

I realize I might be over acting a tad (who am I kidding?), but you'd also be despondent if after tasting them, your family and friends responded in the following ways:

Me to my brother; "Nic, do you want to try one?" *followed by a side ways glare from Nic and no answer...

Dillyn; "Shan, I didn't know you put raisins in the batter."

Me; "I didn't... I'm really not sure what those hard, black bits are."

Do any of you have any idea what I'm doing wrong? Anybody got any tips or other recipes I could possibly try? Please, fellow bloggers, I'm in desperate need to redeem myself!