Day 187: you live, you learn
Immediately, the mid-90s hit ‘You Learn’ by Alanis Morissette belts through my head when I make a mistake and try to pacify my annoyance by telling myself that ‘You live, you learn - you know for next time not to do it again’. What’s worse: as I’m making the mistake, I know I’m doing it wrong, but I just keep going anyway. That’s even more of a kick yourself moment when the result fails, as you deep down knew it would. Anyway, lessons learned: follow instructions; and maybe don’t bake late at night after working for 10 hours when all you really want to be doing is sitting on the sofa, dunking chocolate hob knobs in a cup of tea, and watching veg-out TV on Netflix. Also, if I am ever fortunate enough to have the opportunity to partake in an in-person cookalong with Nigella, I think I’ll choose meringues: my attempts are never without flaws and they often collapse and spread quite significantly. This is a skill I’m keen to develop.
Nigella’s Forgotten Cookies
What I’m getting at here is: I made Nigella’s Forgotten Cookies last night, with a bag of egg whites that I’d left out of the freezer by accident after a little clear out, and seemed to totally neglect to tell myself to stop when I knew full well I was making the cookies - or Merookies, as they’re so fittingly named - too large. I’m sure this isn’t a crime, but cooking time and temp would surely need to be adjusted to suit. As a result, these pistachio-embellished clouds came out this morning looking like melted blobs - the meringue not cooked through and the cookies a little too soft to pick up easily. But! They look gorgeous and they taste lovely: like cookies made of soft, sweet marshmallow, studded with nuts and bittersweet dark chocolate (and a dusting of edible rose gold shimmer powder on top).
As far as disasters go, this definitely wasn’t the worse that could have happened; the post-it note on the oven saying ‘DO NOT USE! Or you won’t get any Merookies’ ensured that never happened. Thanks for the reminder to write myself that reminder, Nigella.
I’ll make these again very soon. I’m a proper little sulker when things don’t go my way, even when the fault is my own!
The recipe for Nigella’s Forgotten Cookies can be found on p266 of At My Table and on nigella.com (link below).
