Day Six: Cinnamon Blobs

Well, you win some, you lose some, right?  That's what they say?  These gluten free bakery favorites just did NOT turn out for me, even though I tried twice!!  They may not be pretty, but they taste - well, okay.  I guess they taste okay.

                                                             Cinnamon Blobs

I started out strong:

 8 oz of blanched almonds, ready to be ground.

 My handy-dandy little grinder.

 Lemon grater with lemon zest and leftover lemon.  Poor lemon - I didn't a particular use for the fruit this time!

First you mix the ground almonds with cinnamon and lemon zest.

 Next, you froth up some eggs, add some salt, and keep on frothing.  This is where chaos set in.  I got the eggs to stiff peaks as required, but adding the sugar made it this ooey, gooey mess.  Steve said just to keep beating but it kept being gooey.  Not stiff.  so I started over again.  The next batch was headed in the same direction, and after reading up on meringues, it said that you really should only use about 1/4 c sugar for each egg white.  But this recipe called for 2 egg whites and 1 1/2 cups of sugar!  So I just added less sugar.  The mixture wasn't perfect but it wasn't gooey. 

 I then added the nut mixture and instantly knew this was not right. You were supposed to be able to roll it out and use a star cookie cutter, but the dough was far too wet and wouldn't stick together the right way, so after I sat on the couch and pouted for about 20 minutes (it was 11:00 at night after all) I went back and just made blobs of dough on the baking sheet. 

 After baking 10 minutes, you add some of the meringue and bake for 5 additional minutes.

They aren't pretty, they taste "ok" but not great, but at least they're made.  I learned a lot from this, too.  That is true of all baking disasters!  Looking back on it, I'm thinking that one thing I could have done differently is grind the almonds even more, so it would act more like flour. 

Oh well!  Live and learn and keep on baking.