Challenging My Taste Buds!

 

So today I thought I would invite you to play a little guessing game, there are two pictures that feature in todays post with an ingredient that works amazingly well in most sweet recipes and that I struggle to live without.

My attempt at Jamie Olivers Christmas bomb, tastes amazing great for a dinner party!

Super thick and super gorgeous 

This point is being mentioned here as I decided to divert from my usual home made chocolate brownies and make some caramel ones partly because I had received a Christmas gift containing Brownie mix from Minnesota from a company called Heavenly Bites and partly because I thought I needed to challenge my taste buds by trying something new.

 All I can say is looks are not everything! After cooing over the sweet patch work oven glove which I love! I faithfully followed the recipe which requires the addition of melted butter, water and one small egg and got ready to be amazed, always a bad idea! The smell of caramel wafting from my oven was gorgeous.So after leaving the brownies to cool and drooling, I prepared a stack with an espresso, bit in and yuck!The result? very salty, dense brownies which wiped out any taste of  caramel.

 Is the moral of the tale don't use packet cake mix? As a newbie in the area of short cut cake making I would love to know your thoughts, have you ever made a cake mix that was worth the cheat? Or Is there a special ingredient that you could not live without in your kitchen? 

Looks are not everything and neither is smell! :c