Kitchen Fail

I attempted to make Sandra Lee's spiced cranberries and almonds to include with some handmade Christmas gifts.

It seemed simple enough:

Ingredients

3/4 stick unsalted butter
1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
1 tablespoon maple syrup
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice
2 cups dried cranberries
3 cups almonds
1/2 cup unsweetened coconut flakes

Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Melt butter, brown sugar, and maple syrup in large pot over medium heat. Stir in cinnamon and pumpkin pie spice. Add cranberries, almonds, and coconut flakes and stir to combine.

Spread mixture on greased cookie sheet. Bake 20 minutes or until mixture is crunchy and lightly browned. Transfer to a bowl when cooled and serve.

It was a total kitchen fail.

Everything was going wonderfully. The whole house smelled like delicious Christmas time. The almonds and cranberries looked beautiful on the cookie sheet. I popped them in my 350 degree oven for 20 minutes. 20 minutes? Lies! I walked into the kitchen after 10 minutes and found smoke billowing out of my  oven. I immediately took the cookie sheet out only to find a burnt, gooey, awful mess. I ran around the apartment like a crazy woman, opening doors and windows to get rid of the smoke as to not set off the fire alarm. No longer are the days where a set off smoke detector simply means pulling it off the wall and waiting for the smoke to clear. Living in a residence hall means one piece of burnt toast, one unattended bag of microwave popcorn could set off the smoke detector, thus setting off the entire fire alarm system and dispatching approximately 2 fire trucks and 1 cop car to my front door.

Anyway, even though it was a kitchen fail, I'm excited to try it again. Sandra made it look so easy (and truly it is). I managed to salvage a couple almonds that escaped the oven's wrath and boy were they tasty!!