As improbable as it sounds, my video game-playing, baseball cap-wearing husband is a dyed-in-the-wool Anglophile. On the weekends, we order pizza and watch old BBC sitcoms on DVD. On his lunch break, he surfs internet real estate websites for just the right English country house – something involving thatch.

So for Valentine’s Day, by far my favorite holiday of the year, I decided to surprise him with custard tarts. His favorite character on his favorite BBC sitcom is forever wanting a custard tart, and the look on my husband’s face during these scenes quite clearly states, “Yes, a custard tart. Quite sensible.” So off I went.

Here’s the thing. I’ve never eaten a custard tart. Never even seen a custard tart because although there is plenty of talk of these things on the show, we never actually see a character consume one. Although, I do have reason to believe that in London they can be purchased in tins. If I could’ve purchased one of these tins, I assure you, I would have. Then I could’ve avoided this: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ahream/2266162486/

The only recipe I could find for what shall now and forever be known as The Custard Tarts of Doom was from Chef Jamie Oliver, himself a spry British chap. “Well,” I thought. “He should know. He has the accent and everything. What could possibly go wrong?”

Lesson: Never trust a people who boil meat.

The instructions said I should sprinkle my tart shell dough with cinnamon and egg and roll it up as though I were making sticky buns, cutting the roll into slices and forming these discs into cup shapes over upturned oven-proof glasses.

Obvious Problem Number One: We have made ourselves a coil. A coil which will not stick to itself worth a darn because between the layers is slippery egg goo. Laying this coiled disc over an upturned anything is quite predictably going to cause the coil to separate. Nothing you do can stop this. No rolling or pinching or screaming will stop your pastry snake from unraveling. This will be extra fun later when the instructions tell you to fill these “cups,” which look like sprung Slinkies, with LIQUID.

Fun visual aid: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ahream/2266162422/

Still, damn it, I had started down this path of misery, and I was going to finish it. (Long time readers may have noticed this stubborn streak, this refusal to throw in the towel even when faced with clear and unavoidable disaster, is becoming a theme. I should probably be examining this in therapy.) So I put my pastry snakes in the oven and went about making a custard.

Obvious Problem Number Two: Many T.V. chefs will tell you that it is possible to apply heat to an egg mixture without cooking the eggs if you just whisk fast enough. This is horse shit. If you pour boiling cream into eggs then pour all that back into a hot pan, the damn eggs are going to cook. They just ARE. I whisked and stirred for all I was worth. I was a crazy person. And you know what? LUMPS! Lumps that I am almost certain are tiny bits of scrambled egg.

Damn it.

Now, I have to take my f-ing scrambled egg goop – into which I’ve surrendered ten dollars’ worth of vanilla bean – and, defying all laws of physics, get it to stay in my Slinky cups.

Not that Mr. Oliver was helping me on this. He’d moved on to the caramel I was supposed to be browning on the stove top, leaving me with leaky cups and scrambled egg floating in curdled cream. Jack ass.

So here’s hoping your Valentine’s Day plans go more smoothly than mine. And if anyone needs a mangled vanilla pod and some pastry snakes, just holler.