Last week it was my Dad’s birthday and since we’re on this “saving money” bent AND my Dad is the most difficult person in the world to buy for, I decided that I’d make something for him. But what to make? My Dad isn’t really into dolls, works on a building site so knitted goods would be nice but impractical, isn’t really a big cake fan and doesn’t watch much TV. ARGH!
In the end I decided to go with something I remember my Dad liking as a wee treat – the quintessential Scottish treat known as the Macaroon bar. Now, don’t mistake the Macaroon bar for a Macaron – these are polar opposites in the confection world. The Scottish macaroon bar is overwhelmingly sweet, traditionally made from mashed potato (seriously!) and coated in chocolate and toasted coconut. I’d been given a copy of the Maw Broon’s Cookbook
Unfortunately the recipe is extremely unspecific, calling for ‘medium-sized potatoes’. I mean, that in itself should have been a warning sign. How do you define a ‘medium-sized potato’?! Anyway, clearly my spuds were too big because despite using almost TRIPLE the amount of icing sugar called for in the recipe my mixture never turned into a dough. Ah well. Instead, we popped into Glickmans which is a fabulous wee shop. It’s the oldest sweetie shop in Glasgow and can be found just down from the Barras on the London Road side. The lovely lady behind the counter suggested that I try their technique which is to use a fondant centre instead of the traditional mashed potato so I shall give that a try next time. Luckily they supplied me with a box of Dad’s favourite chelsea whoppers and a macaroon bar that worked!
So tell me about your crafting or culinary failures! What have you tried that has been a dire mistake?
This post was written by Vonnie on January 26, 2010
We used to buy something called a macaroon bar, in Ireland in the 1980s – they were coconut and chocolate, but definitely didn’t have a fondant centre. I bet they were related.
I burnt the motor out on my hand mixer trying to make this recipe and ended up running out of icing sugar. Eventually gave up !
hah! I saw the picture on Flickr and was thinking ‘hmm, I thought the macaroons were a fail?’
I see what you did. sneaky.
I’m not very good at pastry … some years ago, a failed attempt was eaten (raw)by our spaniel … I’m sure you can imagine the ‘end’ result!!!
The worst thing I’ve done is exploded a jacket potato in the oven. What was left tasted good though!
I’ve had some cooking and baking failures but nothing that sticks out in my mind. I always thought macaroon was fondant anyway – we used to buy them from a wee guy that brought them round the doors.
I made potato scones from the Maw Broons cookbook (hilarious play on my name) and they were basically the same, except using flour instead of icing sugar. Very messy!
I made a butternut squash and almond cake yesterday – very excited, it looked beautiful, and light as air, unfortunatly it tastes beyond rank. BEYOND RANK,squash and almonds not a good idea!
There was this time I tried to re-make my grandmothers amazing cream puffs from her recipe which was…inexact. It’s one of those occasions best not discussed around the person who ended up cleaning the stove top…
Hmm…I quite enjoy the idiosyncracies of inexact recipes, and of recipes being being passed down. I have an amazing Apple Charlotte recipe from the sixteenth century that changes according to one’s station in life! Will try to hunt it down and post it up.