I thought I knew how to cook...

So, Sunday night Jason and I were both really hungry for something sweet. So, I found this recipe on foodnetwork.com by Paula Dean:

Popcorn Balls

2 cups sugar

1 1/3 cups water

1/2 cup light corn syrup

1 teaspoon white vinegar

1/2 teaspoon salt 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

18 cups popped corn

In a medium saucepan, combine sugar, water, syrup, vinegar, and salt. Cook over high heat until mixture reaches 255 degrees F (hard-ball stage) on a candy thermometer. Stir in vanilla. Pour over popped corn, tossing gently to coat. When mixture is cool enough to handle, press popcorn into 3-inch balls with lightly greased hands. Cool completely on waxed paper.

This is what they are supposed to look like.

So, I thought hey...we have all those ingredients, let's do it. The only problem was that we had microwave popcorn instead of air popped popcorn, but I didn't think that was a big deal. And, we didn't have a candy thermometer, so I just guessed what 255 degrees was. So, I get this all made and go to pour the boiling mixture over the big bowl of popcorn, and this is what I got:

A big old mess! It melted all the popcorn and turned into this soupy mess. (You need to click on the picture to get the full affect).

Oh, well. At least we tried. I guess the moral of the story is don't use microwave popcorn and get a candy thermometer. We ended up having sugar free butterscotch pudding, which was horrible, b/c it had no sugar. It was just not meant for us to have a good treat tonight.

Do you have any cooking mishaps to share?