Happy Little Accidents-Or the Surprise Lump Loaf I Cooked Up

I thought the start of a new week would be a good time to write about turning life’s mishaps into fun adventures!  A shout out to one of my first painting mentors, Bob Ross, who called these “Happy Little Accidents”!  Living Inspired people…these things are a big part of that.  It’s all in the attitude and what we do with the curveballs.

My last mishap happened in the kitchen a few days ago.  Have you ever started a recipe assuming you had all the ingredients you needed on hand, only to find part way through that you are missing several things?  Do you say “Oh crap!” and abandon ship (wasting all those ingredients you have already mixed)?  Or do you say “Well now, let’s see what kind of concoction we can make out of this!”?  This determined cook did the later.

First off I hate wasting ingredients.  Secondly, I like a challenge.  When I am on a mission, I tend to get very determined to make something out of seemingly nothing.  This is just what I did last week.  A friend was coming over for tea at our new home for the first time, and I wanted to make something to go along with the little bits of leftover fudge and sugar cookies I had in the freezer from Christmas.   Last I knew we had dried cranberries on hand, so I decided on cranberry streusel muffins!  Don’t you think those would go well with a spot of tea?

Let me tell you folks…what I actually ended up with by the end of my “Baking Adventure” was far from a cranberry muffin!  LOL.  Keep reading and you will see what recipe I invented as I went along…

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And by the way, they make Bob Ross T-shirts with this saying for those of you who are like this saying.  You can get them HERE.  (I am NOT an affiliate & do not get paid to share this..just thought you may want to know 😉 ).

I started beating the eggs, sugar and vanilla in a bowl and was about to add the oil when I realize that there is none.  Mishap number one.  This NEVER happens!  There is always cooking oil on hand.  Hmm, what could I use instead?  Thinking of my moist coffee cake recipe (which you can get HERE), I used the last of the Spectrum Organic vegetable shortening.

Lah ti dah…mixing mixing along and it’s time to throw in some orange juice and peel.  Wait!  What happened to the oranges I saw in there the other day?  Ugh!  Hmm…well now.  How about some NuNaturals Orange NuStevia that I had won in a blog giveaway awhile back?  I had never tried baking with it before, but figured if one doesn’t have orange juice or orange extract, this will do!

Time for the cranberries we bought recently!  OOPS!  You mean we are magically out of those too?!  Can you see where this is going guys?  At this point I was beginning to realize there would be no cranberry muffins.  I thought , “Well I can still have my muffins and eat them too, but what other fruit could I substitute?”.  I decided NO to raisins.  I found just enough frozen blueberries in the freezer to suffice.

Well, I guess blueberry orange NuStevia muffins with shortening will be ok.  Feeling a bit like a mad scientist, my concoction was now mixed and it was time to put the stuff in to muffin cups.  Muffin cups and cooking oil/spray oil.  2 things we always have on hand.  For once in years, there were no paper muffin cups, and no oil or shortening left to grease the pans with either!

Eek!  So I decided this would be a bread.  I plopped the lump of batter into a loaf pan.  When I say plopped, I am not exaggerating.  The frozen blueberries made the dough (which was already thick from using shortening instead of oil) hard and not spreadable.  It was like a thick cookie dough after being chilled in the fridge.  I had a heck of a time folding the blueberries in (they started to burst and make a blue mess) and was forced to give up on that for a bit.  Oy, what’s a girl to do with a messy, massive lump?

Well, she puts that puppy in the preheated oven-that’s what!  I figure that lump would be spreadable after it heated a bit (and now I am singing the song LUMP by the Presidents of the USA (which by the way is a quirky band NOT comprised of any actual presidents)…”Is this Lump out of my head, I think so!”  ←song lyrics.  Just the sort of ridiculous nonsense song one needs for such kitchen mishaps anyway 😉 ).  Pardon my silly rant.

What happened to that crappy loaf?

Did it ever become spreadable, or was I forced to serve my guests an unappealing massive lump?

 

 

These are important life questions folks!!  The person who guesses correctly will get a free lump of something delivered to their door ;).  Just kidding.. Well, the lump did melt down enough to where I could mash it in the pan with my trusty spatula. Now I was able to put on the piece de resistance-thick streusel topping!  The loaf actually looked normal covered up with that gorgeous streusel and all.

But was it good enough to serve at tea time?  The picture tells all:

As you can see more than half the loaf was gone!

It turned out a bit too dense, but it was moist!  They even asked me for my recipe…to which I chuckled.  At some point, the recipe will either end up in my blog or cookbook. However, it needs to be tested more so it will be the right consistency for spreading.

Now wasn’t that fun?  Oh yes, there were a few hair pulling moments.  All in all it was fun though, because I made it so.  For not giving up, I was rewarded with a new, original recipe that I can add to my cookbook.  There are no mishaps or mistakes…just happy little accidents.  😀

Remember, -when life hands you lemons, make lemon-aid! 

~Rebekah

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