Thursday 21 June 2012

Saved By Cake Challenge - June



I have decided to challenge myself to bake a different cake/biscuit from Marian Keyes' book, Saved By Cake, each month, between March and December. I am a beginner at baking and use the same recipes over and over again so it'll be nice to try something new. I will take photos and post them on here each month - the good, the bad and the ugly.


Millionaire's Shortbread


This month I gave Millionaire's Shortbread a go. I've never made shortbread or caramel before so it was going to be a bit of a challenge. A challenge, I'm afraid to say, I lost.

I ran into my first problem while making the shortbread (you know, the very first bit). I measured out the ingredients and started to rub in the butter but it went a bit wrong somehow and all the butter stuck to my hands - I looked like I'd been involved in a chemical spill with melty hands. So I thought I'd add a bit more flour and sugar and it seemed to work. The butter stopped sticking to me and I carried on with the recipe.

After the shortbread came the caramel layer, which I'd been a bit scared of. And, as it turns out, rightly so. I didn't just burn the caramel - I burned it to smithereens. I couldn't use it and I didn't have another tin of condensed milk to make more. Oh, crap.

Like my old friend Stephanie from Lazy Town says, there's always a way. So I scrapped the caramel (straight into the wheelie bin) and made chocolate covered shortbread instead. To cheer it up a bit, I added the sprinkles left over from my Jubilee Cupcakes.



Then, when I took the shortbread out of the tin, it turned out parts of it weren't cooked through. So all in all, it was a bit of a disaster. I hope I have better luck next month!

For more Saved by Cake Challenges click here



2 comments:

  1. Caramel is pretty hard to get right, but with a bit of practice it gets so much easier! The few bits of shortbread you salvaged look quite tasty though!

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  2. I might give it another go some time. The recipe was really straight forward so, like you said, I might just need a bit more practice.

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