3 Strikes You're Out? Hells No! Get me a new bat....

You know the old saying "When it rains, it pours"? This has never meant a whole lot to me until today, as I sit typing this entry with a BandAid on one of my typing fingers.
This morning started out grey and by 2pm it was full on raining outside and hasn't stopped in hours. With the rain has come some stormy weather in my kitchen as well and rain drops pouring from my frustrated eye balls.
Butter cream requires that you boil sugar until it reaches exactly 115 degrees Celsius. Boiling sugar with a candy thermometer that isn't working...blah. Cleaning rock hard, boiled sugar off of the pot, thermometer and beaters three times....double blah. Cutting yourself on hardened sugar (you bet there was blood)....triple blah.
What did all this teach me? Well for one, i need a new candy thermometer and secondly that sugar can be a real asshole sometimes (maybe the folks who avoid refined white sugar like the plague are on to something?). Despite this, the cupcakes I also made today (banana with peanut butter frosting) turned out beautifully. They'll go well with banana butter cream (that worked on the fourth try) filling for the macarons.
Notice I didn't even touch on the macaron shells themselves yet. They were okay. First batch was perfection, second and third I over macaroner-ed (over mixed) so they were somewhat unsuccessful. Frankly after this butter cream trouble, the shells are off the hook this time around.

It all made me long for simpler times when baking just required measuring with cups and spoons rather than scales. And meant turning on the oven, tossing the pans in and forgetting about it for 20 or so minutes. And knowing that as long as you didn't forget an important ingredient, things would turn out just fine.  Sigh*