The Baking Curse

So it's not that I'm NORMALLY the best baker in the world or anything, but it seems like recently I just can't get a break. I don't know if I'm nesting or what but I've been wanting to bake a lot recently (I'm better at cooking... I can throw anything together off the top of my head and somehow it usually turns out. Baking, usually I can do at least the basics...ahhh). But it seems that something always goes a little wrong these days.

Here's where it all started, pictured above. I decided to try to be a nice wife and bake Tony some snickerdoodles last Sunday. The dough was a little sugary, but tasted good, so I wasn't too suspicious. Well, when the little nuggets came out of the oven, they were uber-flat and really crispy. SO MUCH SO that you could barely scrape them off the tray and if you could, they would just fall apart. Some time later that evening, I suddenly realized that I had only put in about half of the flour that the recipe called for. No reason, I just got distracted. What a waste!

Number two. I was trying to make these mint brownies that taste like the BYU brownies from a recipe I just got from a friend at church. I thought I understood everything but when I went to spread the batter in the jelly roll pan it was barely enough to cover the bottom. I thought, well, I followed it to a T so they must just rise a lot or something (mistake!). Um, yeah. Turns out, as I found out the next day from my friend, that I was supposed to double the recipe. Yeah, the recipe said to double it, but my pregnancy mind (that's what I'm deciding to blame it on) thought it meant that it was already a double recipe (hence why I was so confused that it didn't spread out so well). I was supposed to take the brownies to an Enrichment activity the next night, but deemed them an embarrassment. They were just this super thin sheet of what looked like chocolate crackers/ginger snaps or something. Turns out Tony decided to cut them up and serve them at guys' night while we gals were at RS. Sorry, Matt and Brandon, if you read this- those were NOT intended to leave our apartment!!

Number three. I made an apple pie last night because my friend from work had recommended using this one type of apple she had found at Wegmans, a somewhat specialty grocery store in town. I don't know if I waited too long to use the apples, or if I just really like the way granny smith apples turn out in pie, but this filling ended up just kind of mushy, watery, and a little tasteless.

Number four. Tonight I made chili for dinner because it's sooo cold out, it's cheap, I haven't been grocery shopping yet for the week and we always have everything for chili, and it can last another meal or two during the week. So I found this cornbread mix in the pantry that my mom had gotten for us from a while ago, and decided oh what the heck I'll throw it in the oven to go with the chili. I swear I followed the directions and all I got was a cornbread version of my mint brownies.

Note that these are all pathetic baking attempts made within 8 days of each other. This is either an omen that I will be a terrible mom and baker or that I'm just not thinking clearly and am totally preoccupied with who knows what these days... Hopefully it's the latter...