When you try your best, but don't succeed...

Happy Sunday everyone!

This week has been a week of failed culinary experiments.

First of all, my dear friends, I tried to make a nice festive cocktail to serve on Christmas day. We are all non-drinkers in my family (which is rather odd considering British drinking culture) so I rather enjoy the challenge of making a tasty tipple that’s booze-free. The problem is that a lot of non-alcoholic drinks taste very sweet and lack complexity. I assume it’s because people try to replicate alcohol. For example, using red grape juice to replace red wine is good but unless something is done to add depth and acidity, it’s just sweet juice. Saying that, everything I know about alcohol tastes like is based on what friends have told me since I’ve never touched the stuff. (I would like to use this time to say being a sober fresher in a crowded nightclub is an experience you never forget).

Therefore, I ventured into the world of virgin drinks with some confidence. I wanted to make a mulled wine/mulled cider/sangria-esque chilled cocktail. In hindsight, not having a completely clear idea of what I wanted to make may have contributed to my downfall. However, I was hoping that the formula for a decent drink would come to me as I threw stuff into a pot. And yes, I said pot because I thought sweet tea would be a good base for my drink despite it going against everything that I said about non-alcoholic cocktails tasting sweet. Essentially, all I did was throw a lot of teabags and a lot of sugar with some whole spices into a pot of boiling water. I let it steep overnight and then experimented with different liquids to dilute it — ranging from plain water to red grape juice. (Again, going against everything I’ve ever said about cocktails). In my defence, my train of thought was inspired by a recipe that I saw on the Kitchn where black tea was used to replicate the tannins usually found in red wine. I may have taken her use of tea a tad too far but you live and you learn! The drink didn't go down too well because it was very sweet and the spices were too strong but I do have an idea for how I want to fix it. I think if I reduced the amount of tea and sugar and up the amount of fruit juice and fresh sour fruit that I could make something pretty tasty. If not, I’ll just make the same cocktail that I made for my mum on her birthday because who doesn’t love exotic fruit and elderflower cordial? (This recipe is actually on my blog here!).

My second failed culinary adventure was monkey bread. This was the last thing that I thought I would slip up on because I quite enjoy making bread. I was also using the same base recipe that I used for my Maple Pecan Cinnamon Buns (recipe here) so I knew the recipe worked. What I didn’t account for was dead yeast. Yep, you read that right – dead yeast. Do you remember when I need my doughnuts for bake along and I said that my refrigerated dough didn’t really rise? I thought it was because my fridge was too cold, however, I used the same yeast from that bake to make my monkey bread dough and guess what? My dough didn’t rise. Not an inch. I honestly thought I was losing it because I knew I didn’t kill the yeast in my hot milk and it was left to rise in a warm place. It wasn’t until my second prove (because I decided to carry on baking regardless) that I checked the expiry date on the yeast and realised that it had gone off two months ago. Oh well! On the bright side, at least I know my dense doughnuts and may now dense monkey bread had nothing to do with my ability as a baker. I can still call myself a star baker!

Ignore the foil centre - I tried to mimic a bundt tin
 shape but the foil got stuck...

Now all that is left is Christmas dinner! I have finally narrowed down what items are going to grace the dinner table and nipped into Aldi this week to get some pretty tablecloths and napkins. I hope to get some decent photos of what’s made and post them here on the blog or on Instagram (@iwe_ounje) on Boxing Day. Have any of you guys sorted out your Christmas dinner shopping yet? Or more importantly, have any of you royally messed up in the kitchen in the lead up to Christmas? Please comment down below if you have so that I feel less lonely in my epic failures. Besides that, have a very merry week and I’ll speak to you soon!

See you next Sunday

Mary