Houston, Houston, We have a meltdown!

instead of

 

But that isn’t the end of this story.

I contacted two consultants, Thomson and Thompson, who specialize in saving lost-cause muffins for friends of Tintin. They got to work on the case right away.

First advice: Don’t give up on the recipe. Just accept that life in the oven has changed things.

RECIPE LINK

FIRST – JUST THE FACTS — DETOUR FACTS: I got a little too smart for my britches (in Texas talk).

1. I chose the wrong pan for muffining (tell your computer dictionary to learn that word) and thought I would do something really cool and it would turn out great. Nope. The pan in question is sometimes called a shortcake pan; it creates a kind of well in the bottom of the goodie to hold fillings. I just think it’s cool. It worked GREAT for the corn muffins (see #12 below). But NOT for this recipe. I greased and floured the pan, but it required strength and patience to coax the muffins out.
2. I thought I could put extra batter in the wells and that I would have a pretty puffy top. Hey! I’ve done it before! Nope. Not this time, Hodo. (Hodo is my Texas family nickname – well, one of my Texas family nicknames.)

WHAT EMERGED FROM THE OVEN?  The muffins (called “buns” by Magnolia this time) didn’t exactly rise. They just glooped out and over the top of the wells and flowed all together to create a single muffin top that spanned the entire muffin pan. I think they were weighed down a bit by the raspberry jam.

WHAT TO DO? Operate! Yep. My consultants said that all could be saved, but that saving meant transforming. So here’s what we did.

1. With a knife, separate all the grown-together muffin tops.
2. With a knife, carefully separate the jam-loaded tops from the pan and the muffin bodies.
   1. Place on a cookie rack to await further reconstructive surgery.
3. With a cheese spreading knife, coax the muffins out of the short-cake wells.
4. Construct the canapés.
   1. Turn the muffins upside down.
   2. Fill the short-cake wells with raspberry jam and a dollop of cream cheese. 
5. Construct the muffin-top sandwich cookie-ish things
   1. Muffin-top #1 – spread a thin layer of cream cheese
   2. Place muffin-top #2 against #1 to create a cream cheese sandwich cookie-ish-muffin-thing
      1. Both out-sides of this creation should have raspberry swirls all over.
      2. Cover both sides of the muffin-top sandwich cookie-ish thing with confectioners sugar.

Do this    to get this .

ALL’S WELL THAT ENDS WELL

Thompson and Thompson suggested delivering these goodies to the high school counseling department since they are always respectful and would never hurt anyone’s feelings on purpose.

But did it really end well?

We invite the HS counselors to give us some feedback on these treats — for our learning.

Merci!