Sometimes, burnt sugar smells really yummy--like in a brulee or even a meringue. Burnt sugar on a heating element on your stove doesn't--especially after it catches fire... and I let it happen. My choices were--buy a new element for my stove or just burn the crap off the element and save the money. Clearing everything out of the way... by this, I mean clearing my stove, counters and everything in and around the stove, I purposefully turned on the burner to high heat. In one hand, I had baking soda... in the other, an extinguisher. It didn't take long before *poof* a huge lick of flame shot up from the stove about 10 inches. Being the queen of the over-react, I did the oh-shit dance. I wasn't expecting that. After ignition though, the fire remained only about 2-3 inches above the burner. Even though I did a thorough preemptive explanation of what I was doing, Jill saw this, picked up my home phone and tried to call 911. Might have made the call had the phone been charged. It freaked her out a bit. After a couple of minutes, the source of fuel burnt away--leaving only the charcoal remnants--a much easier mess to clean. Alas, my entire house has been smelling like burnt sugar... and not in a good way.
Once everything was cleaned up and things put back into order, Jill and I sat down to work on putting some gingerbread sleighs together. I'd purchased a kit containing 4 sleighs while grocery shopping awhile back and saved it for when Jill and myself were home alone. (picture + link on left Note: not trying to get anyone to buy anything--this item is not available at Amazon. It's just to show which kit I was using.)
It was super easy and a lot of fun--but if you should choose to do such a craft with this kit, plan on having some brightly colored candy on hand and plan on needing more royal icing to finish the project up.
Use A LOT of icing to hold the sleigh together. Once the sleighs are put together, allow the icing to cure for 24 hours for maximum hold.
As always, never a dull moment at your house!!
ReplyDeleteI may have told you but the year Amanda was about 8, I made 10 gingerbread houses for a b-day part. Gave the girls frosting, chocolate chips, red-hot canides, mini marshmallows and the silver candies. They had a blast decorating those houses! Have never had the same luck since decorating anything. Sigh....that must have been a one shot wonder?