Farewell Baking

Recently, I left my job as a creative writer/editor at Marshall Cavendish Education to try something else. It's a tradition in Hong Kong to bring cakes on your last day of work, usually small individual ones from a local bakery. However, I was encouraged to bring homemade goodies, as I am usually pretty good at making them.

I decided to make two desserts, one old and one new. First, I baked coconut oatmeal bars, which I'd never had or made before. They turned out really well, with a nice buttery coconut flavor, despite some comments on the recipe which say it is boring.

I also made my standard fudge brownie recipe. But, I wanted to make it a bit fancier by adding a layer of caramel in the middle. I found some reference recipes and melted a package of caramels together with a can of sweetened condensed milk.

However, my caramel mixture was runnier than it should have been I think. It also was meant for a 9 by 13 brownie pan, and mine is smaller. Needless to say, I had a bit of a brownie disaster, though they still tasted quite good.