Green Shortbread and Exploding Chick Peas

I am a whizz in the kitchen; nothing ever, ever goes wrong. I never ever tell fibs either.  Just this week I decided I would make a batch of shortbread as shown on the BBC recipe website:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/shortbread_1290

Now I don't know about you but when a recipe calls for butter I just look to see what I have in the fridge. I don't normally buy butter as it doesn't spread easily and it rips the sandwiches to pieces. I did have some value spreadable butter in the fridge though. I thought this would make a good substitute as it would be easier to beat to a fluffy mixture with golden caster sugar. The recipe called for caster sugar but I only had golden caster. Are you starting to get the idea now?

So I beat the sugar and butter together using the electric mixer, not the spoon as recommended in the recipe. The mixture didn't go white and fluffy, it went yellow and curdled, but I figured once the flour was tipped in no-one would know the difference. So I sieved the flour, stirred, and formed a soft crumbly dough. I then cut out approximate shortbread finger shapes. They all came out different sizes and a bit wobbly but other than that they looked really shortbread-y.

The raw mixture left in the bowl tasted really good, so I was looking forward to bringing out my tray of crisp golden biscuits.  Oh, and the recipe said to sprinkle with icing sugar, so I opened the box and chucked liberally. So here comes the science bit. I put them in the oven on the top shelf (should probably have chosen the middle shelf) at gas mark 5 for 10 - 15 mins.

Two things went wrong.  Firstly the shortbread fingers decided they didn't like being segregated, so like that old Pepsi advert where everyone stands on a hill holding hands and singing, they joined hands with neighbours above and below. They were also oozing more excess oil than Jimmy Carr's hair. All of that by the way counts as the first thing that went wrong.

Secondly, and this is quite inexplicable, they came out of the oven a peculiar shade of blue/green mould. I thought I must have sprinkled them with black pepper or some other dark powder. I placed the hot baking tray on the kitchen worktop and in my usual mature fashion I set to scooping the whole lot up into a pile and chucking into a carrier bag. Hissy fits R us.  To this day I cannot work out where the blue/green hue came from. I did wash my hands before preparation, I promise.

So now exploding chick peas. This takes real skill. I boiled up some chick peas thinking I'd make a good wholesome curry. I heated up some oil before gently adding onions and thin raw carrot slices, assuming this would make a great base. Doh. The carrots refused to soften while the onions turned black and crisp. Never mind, I figured the chick peas would transform the whole thing into a uniform brown and I'd add some yogurt for extra flavour and creamy texture. Nah. The mixture turned a nasty shade of diarrhoea tan; the kind you see after eating a bad curry funny enough.

For my piece de resistance I transferred it to a ceramic mixing bowl and into the poor unsuspecting microwave. After a few minutes of pinging and popping I opened to find what looked like horse dung spattered over the interior. The microwave door looked like a Tracy Emin exhibit.

So who's for dinner? Bring your own chickpeas.