It's baking - but not as we know it.

You know, I have had dark days in the kitchen.  Disasters of epic proportions have emerged from the cavernous filthy hole that is my oven from time to time, but this one really takes the biscuit.

Lacking a decent pudding/dessert to offer Oliver and his friend after tea last night, I had a mind to rustle up a batch of Hummingbird vanilla cupcakes with jet black icing, topped with little gold balls.  Oh yes,  it all looked so lovely in my mind's eye.

 

Er, no.
This is not how it was supposed to happen.  In fact, their physical appearance belies their appalling texture.  Oliver's friend kindly described them as 'alright, but a bit spongy.'  He wasn't kidding.  These could give Spontex a run for their money.

Thankfully we were spared the throat burning smell of freshly laid tarmac, but in every other respect the icing very closely resembled a road surface.  You could not separate the cake from the wrapper, so tightly the glue-like interior clung to the cheap folds.  Kim -  even these cannot be rescued by consuming with a cup of tea.  A cup of Rennies, maybe.

I apologised to the boys and threw them away.  I expect that it will take several days before the one they did manage to eat can clear their digestive system anyway.

I know where I went wrong.  I am too ashamed to tell you about it, but suffice to say, it involved a lack of patience and corner-cutting.  Tut tut.  I imagined myself knocking these out in a round of the Great British Bake Off, and felt quite faint at the awful prospect.

These can now sit in my Great Hall of Crap Baking, along with these gems:

This was supposed to be flapjack.

This was supposed to be a smooth ganache covering.

Meh.

If we lived in the days of Pioneers, my family would surely be the one to starve to death.