Tuesday, December 1, 2015

Well, That Sucks

Broken arm (not mine!) and defective cookies
Thanksgiving weekend is always busy.  I get the Christmas card photos done, bake holiday cookies, start decorating and plan my month.  Lots done this weekend!  Pigs were successfully photographed on Friday.  I finished the ornament on Saturday.  I baked like crazy on Sunday afternoon:  four batches of cookies and a batch and a half of toffee.  Success!

But it wasn't without its failures.  The photo contains exhibits A and B.

Exhibit A.  I finished this year's ornament, pulled it out of the oven, and found I hadn't supported one arm properly.  The little dude's arm had bent way out of shape.  I quickly tried to bend it back into place before it hardened.  I broke off the arm - ripped it right out from his shoulder.  Ack!  I had been so relieved and excited to complete this thing after spending weeks floundering and an entire afternoon putting it together.  And there it was, in pieces.  I was too heartbroken to even swear at it.

Luckily, I still had a little of the customized grey and flesh color left.  I attached (and properly braced!) a new arm before the oven cooled.  I checked on him like five times during the 10 minutes it took to re-bake the arm, just to make sure nothing moved out of place.  I was so relieved when he came out whole.  Whew!

Exhibit B.  I make these awesome chocolate cookies with peanut butter centers.  They're very time consuming, so I make them only for Christmas.  I heard something snap as I was food-processing the peanut butter mixture and noticed the shaft pin had pulled out.  It's done this before and, although annoying, can be fastened back in place.  I finished the cookies and baked them.  The next morning I discovered the shaft had not pulled loose - the base had snapped.  A little piece of plastic was missing.  Out of a batch of 60 cookies, how many do you think have plastic shards in them? 

Sadness.

I thought all I had left was to dip the toffee, but it looks like I need to make another batch of cookies as well.  And get a new food processor.  And throw out this batch of cookies (they smelled so good when I took this photo).

Damn.  No more holiday failures.  Please.


1 comment :

  1. Well, on the plus side, it was the ornament's arm that broke, not yours! My blog reader had your photo caption without the photo, looking like the first line of text - I thought you broke your arm for the Holidays! Too bad about the cookies :( It's a shame to have to throw out something that looks and sounds so good. Good luck with the next batch!

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