Follies of Baking in China

As Christmas approaches the disparity between the frenzied shopping, the egg nog bought at Kroger and spiked with Kraken rum, and other holiday traditions becomes more and more clear.
One thing that I have held on to, with the help of my coworker, Zach, was Baking Cookies.
Zach is cat sitting for a friend who has, miracle of all miracles and wonder of all wonders, a REAL OVEN.
So, of course, we had a cats and cookies party. Which consisted of Zach, his friend Caroline from some sport (dodge ball? softball? I dunno, he plays a lot of sports), and me.
I looked up some cookie recipes on Pinterest that morning, and found one that is called "HolyCrapTheseAreAmazing Cookies". It looked easy enough, and yummy, so I thought we'd give it a try, along with some cream cheese brownie bites, chocolate chip cookies, and peanut butter chip cookies.
We got all the ingredients together, and Zach measured out the sugar for me so that I could begin making the corn syrup substitute (because corn syrup is ungodly expensive here... so is most western stuff, but corn syrup was stupidly so, seeing as you can boil up a substitute in five minutes).
Corn syrup substitute is just simple syrup, or water and sugar boiled together for a little while.
Except this simple syrup wasn't acting the way any simple syrup has ever acted in my entire history of cooking/baking.
As soon as I reduced the heat to take it from a full boil to a slow simmer the top of the mixture crystalized.
At this point I'm really regretting not having taken photos, but really, I had no idea.
So, it crystalized. I thought "Whaaaaaat?", turned the heat back up, stirred furiously, turned the heat back down and watched it happen again... only worse.
I was dealing with a weird, white mass, and a little liquid.
Here's where I made a big mistake:
I poured the liquid into the peanut butter (because you're supposed to combine your peanut butter and your sweet liquid) and I stirred, and I stirred, and I stirred.
And then I did a smart thing... Only, it was too late:
I tasted the weird white mass, expecting nothing more than a mild sugar rush from a piece of basically pure sugar.
What I received instead was a literal salt lick.
It was salt.
And I had already mixed some of it into my peanut butter.
Perfect.
Zach and I decided "No big deal. Peanut butter is really sweet anyway..." So, I got real sugar out, the sugar that said sugar in English on the package, instead of the sugar that we just thought was sugar, and I tasted it.
Then I poured it into a pan and started making a new batch of simple syrup, which acted exactly the way simple syrup is supposed to.
So, I mixed that in with my peanut butter, threw in the corn flakes, and attempted to coat them.
I followed the recipe EXACTLY... Well, except for that salt bit... but there were WAY too many cornflakes. And then, I tasted a bit of the cornflakes that were covered. And it was a peanuty salt lick.
So, I threw them all away, made a cup of tea, and cuddled with cats until I deemed myself recovered enough to make my brownie bites.
The lesson here is, obviously, taste things before you add large quantities of them to foods you are preparing.
But, my brownie bites came out really, really well. I enjoyed them immensely.
And, I've found out that WuMart sells dried lemon slices, so now my morning mug of steaming water has a lemony zing to it. Hurrah!
It was good to be able to bake again, even if one creation did turn out... wrong.
I do think, however, that I will attempt them again. You don't need an oven for them, so I could whip some up in the comfort of my own home, no problem.

Now, it's Christmas Eve.
Super Husband is diligently slaving away at his studies, and I spent most of my lunch break at the market hunting for presents for my students, and the teachers. My kids are each getting a puzzle, and the teachers are getting these cheesy snake animal things, because they were cute, cheap, and next year is the year of the Snake.

Adieu