An experimental cook in the kitchen isn't doing everything right if all the dishes are amazing and everything turns out the way you imagine it to be or the way its supposed to be; without the mistakes and little booboo's here and there, its never a complete experience is it? Well not for me at least... and this is the story of how my wrong (which i can't really pin point.. I really don't know the science behind baking but I will assume that not reading the book properly had a huge part to play) turned out into something that was forgiving to say the least; quite forgiving if I may boast, colleagues at work were trying to breathe it in. So I wanted to get my hands dirty, and by that I mean.. I was taking a leap of faith into the baking side of things... deep breath in.. and deep breath ...yeah never mind...I just can't... I still choke at the thought of baking. I will keep testing its boundaries though and hopefully my '50{27bcc782c53bd5bf5debe5bcee3ec2146fdff40b0ebc14ff8a326c92eeb450f8} chance of turning out the way it needs' to will eventually at least rise to an '80{27bcc782c53bd5bf5debe5bcee3ec2146fdff40b0ebc14ff8a326c92eeb450f8} chance of success'.. an 80{27bcc782c53bd5bf5debe5bcee3ec2146fdff40b0ebc14ff8a326c92eeb450f8} will be enough for me. I popped open a tiny little recipe book "BBC GoodFood 101 cakes and bakes"... and I just couldn't seemed to get my eyes off those raspberry bars.... I simply had to have them. I quickly glimpsed at the recipe and other similar recipes and got an "idea" of how it needs to be. And yeah I do know that when it comes to baking an "idea" of measurements is not going to help.. HAH! tell that to the crazy in me...  my alter-ego decided to go with it (will need to do some serious talking to if I do see her). Roughly got the right measurements (I think)... tossed all ingredients into the food processor to make some delicious goop and then layered it into a LOAF tin... instead of the 'baking tray' that was specifically mentioned, oh what else did I do... the book said it needs to be no thicker than a couple centimeters, and my goop sat in the loaf tin at a good towering height of 5 centimeters... I tried to get it to sit down and drop a centimeter or two... I had spread it evenly with my spatula filling out every pocket (but... the fine print: it specifically says, don't press it down filling airy pockets.. sigh!). I popped it into the oven and through the mesh glass I sat staring at the dimly lit loaf tin for a good 15 minutes... praying pretty hard I must say, praying that it was going to turn out. I hopped back to the book to try and reassure myself that I had done something right in the least and that I would be cutting up gorgeous one inch thick bars oozing some delicious raspberry mush with every bite.. haha! yeah I felt the book pointing and laughing at me as I noticed all the flaws one by one... oh well too late.... Whatever was going to come out of the oven was bound to be edible in the least, how can flour, butter, sugar and raspberries go wrong? Like I hadn't done enough harm with my 'idea' of how this needs to bake.. I decided to bake it for an additional 10 minutes... Humph! So finally I pull it out and try to cut it into bars with my spatula; hahaha fat chance, yeah that didn't happen... DUH! the bars just disintegrated. Were they raspberry bars? NOPE! I decided to have a bite; it's the only way to give a name to this fine looking thing... oh good heavens it tasted delicious, warm, not overly sweet and a lovely raspberry tang that hit the roof of my mouth... I had to move away from it - FAST, a few bites of anything delicious is all it takes to convince me that half a loaf tin is a good serving portion for ONE! But I had to figure out what was this I created. Was it cake? most definitely not! The texture was way too... "crumbly and crisp" I thought to myself. EUREKA! That was it! A Raspberry Crumble. (I'm guessing this is how crumbles were invented to begin with.. hahaha!) I quickly popped a dollop of ice-cream over the warm crumbly grains hiding raspberry goo in between and my alter-ego had soothed my seething disappointment of not following a recipe down to the bone. I still do want to make those raspberry bars; I'm just going to have to hope really hard it doesn't come out looking like cake the next time around! [gmc_recipe 1894] Enjoy! Eaternally Yours, Drina C.