Maple Marshmallow Fail

Maple Marshmallow Fail
7 July 2015

We are in week three of the school holidays and for the previous two weeks I have been promising the kids maple marshmallows. We’ve been preparing for this day by watching instructional YouTube videos, researching all available online recipes and finally by buying five billion dollars worth of maple syrup (two bottles).

I was a little hesitant about making the marshmallow, as I have seen how much you need to beat the bajoozies out of it. Normally this isn’t a problem, but for my currently unplugged kitchen, I was worried that my little hand beater wasn’t going to cut the mustard, or more to the point my muscles weren’t.

I started off as a multitasking wizard, my electric thermometer in one hand and holding a skype call with the other, I was basking in the glow of how capable I was.

But it all ended there. My lack of biceps truly let me down.

I took breaks, I got the kids to have a go, I used my other hand, which was a complete disaster. So much for thinking I was ambidextrous, that’s a fail within a fail.

But I like these little failures without any real consequences. Apart from the fact I spent half a week’s wages on bloody maple syrup, it’s ok. The kids got a laugh, a bittersweet one, because as much as mum’s fail was funny, it also meant there would be no maple marshmallows. But sometimes a total flop is hilarious. It pulls us together and makes us eat the stale popcorn leftover from yesterday’s afternoon tea instead, and we all giggle about how crap and soggy it is, and that the only reason we have to eat crap and soggy popcorn is because “mum doesn’t have any muscles”.