Crack is Wack

As my previous roommates can attest, I am not a big baker. I was fortunate enough to live with talented ones who would churn out things like this:

this:

this:

and this:

on a weekly basis. While I snapped shots, it was Dorothy and JLo, and occasionally Kelly who would tie up the aprons and bust out the baking pans.

And I love to read cooking blogs. Smitten Kitchen, Bakerella, and of course, Dessert Obsessed are among some of my must-reads in my Google Reader.

So blame the holiday season - maybe I downed one too many eggnogs or got hit with a Christmas CD or got tangled up in Christmas lights or something- but I decided to volunteer to bake something for my church bake sale. I planned on making my safe go-to of "crack," which is normally a big hit among friends and strangers. (But if I told you the recipe, I'd have to kill you.)

I went to Costco and bought giant portions of all the ingredients, thinking I could make a lot of crack for my friends and the various gatherings I was to attend during the weekend. One late evening, I rolled up my sleeves and made like Betty Crocker. I tossed all the ingredients in, blended, baked, topped and then let the masterpiece cool for the night. I thought everything looked really fine and dandy and went to bed wondering how I was going to fight off the masses who would obviously be clamoring for my sweets.

Don't let this shot fool you, it looks better than it tastes.

Well, the next morning, I found, to my dismay, that I had not done as marvelously as I had presumed. Okay-looking was the crack but it tasted pretty wack. I must have poured too much caramel onto the crackers because in one pan, the caramel had burnt through the entire piece of crack and in another pan, the caramel had not hardened and left that batch a soggy mess. It was a nightmare. I panicked momentarily and cursed myself for volunteering to bake.

Burn victims

"What were you thinking?" I blasted out loud. Then I wondered whether Dorothy could express-ship me some peanut butter cheesecake or something. Then I wondered if I could just run out to Albertson's and purchase a cake or something. Then I wondered if I could just find a future husband who can either bake really well himself or has the means to hire me a personal baker so I will never have to touch the oven again. Then I wondered why the oven hated me so much.

As I continued scraping off the unfortunate crack, my despair spontaneously turned into inspiration.

"Wait! I shan't give up! I've always wanted to make oatmeal cookies! I'll use the rest of the ingredients and make oatmeal cookies with it!"

I then promptly proceeded to look up the yummiest oatmeal chocolate chip recipe I could find.

The next evening, I braved this new recipe timidly. I'm not going to lie, I spent roughly 3 hours making batches of this cookie (also probably because I didn't have enough baking pans) and when the first batch came out, I thought, "Oh no! It looks too dry! I'd done gone and messed up again!" But I decided to taste-test it anyway and once the cookie hit my mouth, I was surprised to find that the it actually tasted really good! The crunchy oatmeal texture mixed with the nuts and chocolate chip made it taste more like a granola bar rather than a cookie but it was totally yummy. I heaved a sigh of relief and proceeded to finish making the rest.

Hey batter, batter.

I'm so glad I wasn't stymied by the failed first attempt. I'm so glad I didn't just decide to make another batch of "crack." (One batch of crack gone wack was enough, thank you very much.) Life won't always turn out the way you plan and it's often up to you to decide how you will view the situation, how much you will let it affect your mood and what you can do to resolve it. I turned my "crack" into some crunchy oatmeal chocolate chip pecan bars. What would you do?