Sweet Swap (or Miss Piggy's Meltdown)

Firstly let me start off by apologizing to the three people who drew me as the person to make them a sweetie as part of the inaugural Sweet Swap.

I am pretty much the worst cook in the world when it comes to sweet things. When I first decided to sign up to the Sweet Swap I thought that I’d be able to make biscuits. Actually, I had The Boy (our households “master baker”) all lined up to make Snickerdoodle Cookies. I know that's kind of cheating to get him to make my Sweet Swap treat but he really is a great baker!  Of course, all of that cheating aside  my main reason for signing up to the Sweet Swap was because it was a fundraiser for Child Fund Australia - a good cause I'd say.

Alas, biscuits were not allowed so I tried my hand at what I was told is a FAIL PROOF sweetie, Rocky Road. It wasn’t fail proof.  My first attempt at melting the chocolate was a disaster and after a trip to the supermarket (and some tears) to buy new chocolate The Boy was put in charge of melting duties!

My Rocky Road (which I’m now calling Miss Piggy’s Meltdown) is a little bit different to traditional Rocky Road.  It contains dark chocolate, crystallised ginger, toasted almonds, cranberries and tears (and maybe one of my fingernails, but let's not talk about that).


Miss Piggy's "Meltdown"

Ingredients

• 2 x bags of milk chocolate "things" for melting
• Tissues (for when you start crying at above burnt chocolate)
• Car (for unplanned trip to the supermarket)
• 2 more bags of dark chocolate "things" (for melting after you burn the first lot)
• 1 x packet of mini marshmallows (though in hindsight I think bigger ones would be better)
• 1 x packet of crystallised ginger
• 1 x packet of toasted almonds
• 1 x packet of craisins

Steps

1. Install visiting cat in the MOST inconvenient place in the kitchen. 
2. Trip over aforementioned cat. 
3. Swear.
4. Chop up crystallised ginger into smaller chunks.
5. Mix chopped up crystallised ginger in a bowl with marshmallows, toasted almonds and craisins.
6. Melt chocolate.
7. Comment to the cat that "things" don't seem to be going according to the plan.
8. Burn chocolate (or just basically render it totally inedible).
9. Swear.
10. Swear (again).
11. Husband comes in to try and rectify the damage stating "I KNEW this would happen" (yes, so did I).
12. Depart kitchen (trip over cat).
13. Have an epic thrown-down tantrum in the hall way (yes, that REALLY happened).
14. Cry.
15. Consult twitter for what the heck has gone wrong with the chocolate (everything it seems).
16. Force husband to come to Coles to buy MORE chocolate, dark this time cos why the heck not?
17. Return home with emergency chocolate supplies.
18. Have husband melt chocolate whilst being told to get out of the kitchen (but hovering close by with camera annoyingly in hand).
19. Allowed back into the kitchen to supervise mixing of melted chocolate and dry ingredients.
20. Place chocolate mix into a shallow pan and place in the fridge overnight.
21. Remove chocolate from the pan (surely this should be easier than it was).
22. Attempt to chop chocolate into quarters (three for them and one for me).
23. Nearly severe finger.
24. Swear.
25. Husband comes in to do the cutting as he doesn't want to spend the day in the emergency room.
26. Tell husband he rocks.
27. Wrap the buggers up + post them out of your life FOREVER!
28. Cat goes back to napping in the lounge room now that his annoyance factor is no longer required. 

Let's review that in pictures shall we?

 

 

 

 

The end (do not try this at home)!

Oh, so do you want to know what I received from my fellow sweet swappers? So far I've received two sweet parcels (one has gone M.I.A somewhere along the way). My first treat was from Rachel at TLC and she made me Lavender "Twix". My second treat was "popping candy" Brownies from the lovely Flick at Flick your Food.

Thanks for my treats Flick + Rachel - very yummy!