Gingerbread Cookies - Semi Successful

Happy New Years Eve!
Since I am a sad soul and does not have anything to do on this exciting day, I will just write an update on a recent recipe I tried.

I know, I know, the holidays have already passed, but I just had to make cookies yesterday since I bought two new cookie cutters from Sur La Table in Newport. These cute little cookie cutters are probably my new  favorite! They even had rainbow whisks, unfortunately they were too expensive.

Onward to the baking!

Pros
+ cookies came out nicely
+ color was the same
+ nice and crunchy

Cons
- required golden syrup which I didn't want to use
- sugar burned
- not enough flavor
- pricey

From my previous post, I said that I had finally found Golden Syrup for about $8 which was pretty expensive for a small tin can. So for this recipe, I was a little cheater and only used 3Tbsp of Golden Syrup and 2Tbsp of corn syrup. This seemed okay, since the melted ingredients came out fine.

Yes, stupid me, burned the sugar. I have a bad habit of turning the fire on really high and just leaving it to heat up whatever is on the stove. I turned my back for just a few seconds to find a bowl and my brown sugar started to burn! I just had to work around it and fish out the burnt pieces. Also, not all the sugar melted...

The flavor may have been light since not all the sugar was incorporated into the mixture or there was just too little ground ginger. However, you could still taste the ginger in the cookies which is great!

Suggestions and solutions are always welcome 8)
Happy New Year!

Find the Recipe here: Gingerbread

FOUND IT!

Guys! I found Lyle's Golden Syrup at a market called "Bristol's Farms" in Newport. Quite a long drive from where I live. This tiny can is also quite expensive. About $8 for this beautiful can of goodness. Still worth it though!

Crunchy Honeycomb with Chocolate - Fail

Hi, sorry it's been forever since I've posted. It was finals week, blah blah blah, just didn't get the chance to post any of the recipes I've tested.
Anyway, long story short, I finally have time now!

Yesterday, I made the Honeycomb recipe. Unfortunately it didn't turn out the way it was supposed to... \:

Pros
+ color was similar to Sorted's
+ fizzing and bubbling was present
+ tasted good!

Cons
- didn't have castor sugar
- had to substitute Lyle's Golden Syrup with Karo Corn Syrup
- added honey
- probably added more sugar and syrup than I was supposed to..
- didn't harden
- stuck to the paper
- deflated a bit (is that supposed to happen?)

As for the sugar, I only had confectioner's sugar which, from online sources, is not the same as caster sugar. However, people suggested grinding up granulated sugar, which I did. Surprisingly, it actually worked! The sugar was half confectioner's and half grinded granulated sugar. Could that have been a problem?

WHY ISN'T THERE GOLDEN SYRUP IN THE US? I stood in the syrup section of a local Stater Bros. looking for a tin can that had a dead lion on it with bees surrounding it. No luck! I just had to settle for corn syrup. Isn't corn syrup supposed to be terrible for your body? Well, if anyone knows where I can get my hands on some Lyle's Golden Syrup, please let me know!

The color was looking a bit lighter than Sorted's so I added some honey. Being the genius that I am, I thought the honey could help with the color and taste. Wrong! It just made it more liquidy. So then I added more sugar which is probably the reason why it didn't harden.

Oh, and I left out the chocolate because I thought it would've been too sweet. ^u^

If ANYONE can help me out, that would be awesome! I would love to be able to make this treat to share with friends and family. Thanks! x

For the recipe: Sortedfood's Crunchy Honeycomb