Ten-Finger Exercises

Foolproof dessert

Tomorrow I am co-hostess for a women's group I joined last fall. Each time I go to a meeting I wonder, now why was it I wanted to be part of this? And I remind myself it is for the people, not the Roberts Rules of Order, or the standing to address Madame President, or the secret password. These are fine women, and it will do me good to have to be a little more socially responsible-- or maybe it's more responsibly social.

Since I live out of town, I didn't volunteer to have a meeting at my house, although they might not mind driving this far. I did put myself down to co-hostess, remembering that I used to entertain back in the old days when I was an Air Force officer's wife. I used to cook, and bake, and get the silver polished up and the linen tablecloths ironed, sliding them directly from ironing board to table to prevent making wrinkles even as I disposed of them.

I had a meeting last night, and expected to have another tonight, so I chose something easy to bake that actually comes from a box. Tasted it a couple weeks ago and was quite surprised to hear it was a mix. How hard can that be?

Remember the first rule of cooking? Read the whole recipe first, even if it's just on the outside of a box, dummy. After hasselling with pans and concluding I did not have an 8x8 any more, and deciding that a 7x11 would have to do, then I read the stupid packet wrong. I made the crust and baked it. Okay. Then combined the dark corn syrup, water and toffee chips and cooked them in the microwave, stirred, got ready to spread, and...oh, what's this? Oh, these are the toffee chips! Then what the heck were those? I fished the little plastic bag out of the trash. Oh-oh. That was the toffee topping.

So I ran to the store and bought a bag of toffee bits to finish up the recipe. I sincerely hope that the middle layer made of some of the wrong stuff (plus all of the right stuff, because I added that too after seeing my mistake) sets up properly. And I really hope I can cut it into decent squares without goo running out. Even if it's good goo, this is not a time I want goo.

I wonder how long I should wait before finding out....