Baking Blunders

On Saturday I devoted my whole day to Christmas baking. After spending two hours at choir practice, I came home and got to work. I wanted to try two new recipes this year but I was confident they would work out fine. The first one I started was a recipe of Martha Stewart's that she makes for her own family every year-- Noel Nut Balls. Sound yummy right? I followed the recipe exactly and things were going along great. However, when I got to the part that said "form dough into a ball, wrap in plastic wrap, and refrigerate for three hours", I ran into some problems.

The dough was so crumbly it was extremely difficult to get into a ball. It stuck way more to my hands than it did to itself! Finally, after much effort, I got it to mostly stick together. After its three hours in the refrigerator, I was supposed to take the dough out and roll it into balls to prepare it for baking. There was just one problem... the dough was literally as hard as a rock! I couldn't even press my thumb into it at all! I finally ended up putting the whole ball of dough, bowl and all, into the preheated oven to soften it a bit. It worked and I was able to bake them, and roll them in sugar.

Here's the final result. And after all that?? I found them to be not very tasty. They tasted like a ball of crunchy butter with sugar on top. Martha Stewart, where did I go wrong?

The other new recipe I tried was called St. Nick's Dove Sticks. I saw the recipe on the back of the holiday peanut M&M's bag and thought they looked so yummy and easy. First, I had to made a graham cracker crust with peanut butter and margarine. I was to press it into the pan. Slight problem though-- the crust was so sticky it would not press! It did get all over my hands though. I finally got it down using a rubber scraper and proceeded to melt the hundred Dove chocolates (okay, okay, so maybe it wasn't that many but after unwrapping them all it seemed like it!) and pour them over the crust. That part went smoothly and I felt my confidence returning! Finally, I placed M&M's on top of the chocolate and refrigerated it to let it set.

Now, the picture on the back of the bag shows the sticks in perfect little rectangles. However, when I tried to cut them this is what happened:

They were not cooperative. The crust was still very sticky, the chocolate broke into pieces, and everything fell apart, including me! I was so tired after working on these things (plus chocolate covered pretzels) and so bummed that they didn't turn out the way I expected them to.

I was feeling a little teary and so my husband came over, wrapped his arms around me, and said, "Don't worry. We get a lot of Christmas goodies from people that look yucky but they always end up tasting good." Hmmm, thanks?

Next year I am going back to my old stand-bys: Peanut Butter Kiss Cookies, Rachael Ray's Five Minute Fudge, and Chocolate Covered Pretzels. I'm good at those ones and they always look pretty too. And if you were one of the people who were so unfortunate as to get my goodies this year, I'm sorry. Try the Dove sticks though. They may not look pretty but they taste like a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup. :)