My grandma turned 87 yesterday, and her favorite cake is angel food, so it's a tradition that I bake her one every year. We pretend it's a surprise, but I'm sure by now she knows it's coming.
This year I forgot to bake it until about an hour before we had to leave for a comedy show (Michael Jr.) the night before. I didn't want to bake it when I came home (I value sleep), so I rushed it.
Since we were in such a hurry, Mom helped me bake it. We put the egg whites and beginning ingredients in the mixer and turned it on high to form the "stiff peaks". We have one of those lovely mixers that stands on its own, so we both walked away as it worked its magic.
A minute or two later, the mixer walked its way right off the counter!
It wasn't (very) funny at the time.
After cleaning ourselves, the floor, and the mixer, we started over. This time we held onto the mixer, and there were no more batter-inclusive accidents. Yay!
Around the time the cake was coming out of the oven, I started to smell something burning. The cake had risen so high it was touching the upper burner. The top was black (and even glowing a little!); the bottom was wiggly.
I took it out and removed the top shelf, then put the cake back in and hoped for the best. When the timer beeped again, the cake looked done. The top looked bad, but the rest seemed salvageable. I tipped it upside down on a bottle.
It wasn't done. Gooey hunks of half-cooked batter spilled onto the counter. Mom and I gathered it together the best we could and returned it to the oven.
We had to leave soon after, so we left the oven on until the last minute, then turned it off and left the cake inside.
Here's the end result:
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| Happy Birthday, Grandma! I hope you enjoy your sticky blob! |
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| This looks much more like a cake. |
What's the most "fun" you've had in the kitchen?
I've had plenty of kitchen adventures, but my worst was when I forget to put the sweetener in a batch of muffins until it was in the oven. It's quite the chore to pull it back out, empty the pans, and mix the sugar in the batter and then put it back in the oven, all before the batter loses its fluff!
ReplyDeleteBy the way, your second cake looks lovely! :)
Oh no! Did they turn out okay?
DeleteThank you! We had a good laugh about the first, too. :)
More or less, they were a little flat!
DeleteI had a mishap with a pudding the other week... and I also usually have good success with cooking. Must be the weather...
ReplyDeleteWhat happened?
DeleteHaha, yes. Our fingers are too cold to cook or bake well. :)
for me, the most 'fun' kitchen experience has to be the time the butter caught fire.
ReplyDeleteWe don't have a microwave, and I needed two sticks of butter melted, so I put it in a sauce pan, and turned it way down to simmer. Before it was melted, however, I had to take a phone call, so I told one of my younger sisters to sit with the butter.
five minutes I came back to the kitchen, the stove's heat was turned to a boiling point 'HI' and the sister was no where to be found.
and two foot high pillars of flames were crowning the small simmer pot.
My dad is an ex-firefighter, and has taught us all how to handle grease fires, but I couldn't find the baking soda, and that caused all knowledge of how to properly handle a kitchen fire to fly far from me. In my attempts to put it out, I picked up the pot (with pot holders, but still managed to be burning my hands) and ran to the sink with it before remembering the golden rule about grease fires (never apply water. it only makes it worse), and that rule was proved by the flames dripping into the sink, and growing larger as the wit the water remaining in the sink. I was freaking out, I couldn't feel my hands being singed, and I thought, "I need to get this out of the house".
I started for the back door, and then there was the carpet, and the flaming liqued dripping each step I took, and I managed to create 5 decent burn marks on the carpet before rushing back into the kitchen, setting the pot BACK on the stove, and finally realizing that flour (which we had plenty of right at hand) works just as well as baking soda.
I think I emptied 3 whole pounds on to the little pot.
after the fire was successfully put out, I realized that my hands were throbbing, and I basically just curled up on the floor and cried until my mom got home and found me, and got the whole story out.
I'm still nervous about butter, and the burn marks on the carpet remain.
Oh my goodness - that's awful! Sending you a big, huge hug. I hope your hands healed quickly and you never have to deal with something like that again.
DeleteI created a few of those carpet burns when I was younger, too, but my story isn't as terrifying. I was putting string into a candle and decided to try out a Kleenex. Those burn a lot more quickly than string. ;) I tried bringing it to the bathroom, but pieces dropped (carpet burns) and my hand was hurting, so I threw it in my (wicker) wastebasket, which naturally also caught on fire. My screams brought my dad to the rescue. Nothing was hurt beyond the carpet and the garbage, but I haven't played with fire since.
This has happened to me twice but I was making mint squares for something on two different occasions and I forgot to put the flour in the bottom brownie part and I only remembered the flour right as I was putting the batter into the oven to back. The first time the pan had already made it into the oven but the second time I caught myself right before I put it in.
ReplyDeleteAnd a couple months I was making the cake for one of my siblings birthday parties and I almost forgot to put the eggs into the second cake. I only remembered when I turned away from the mixer and saw the eggs sitting on the opposite side of the kitchen. There might have been something else that I forgot about besides the eggs, but I can't remember if there was or not.....
Hehe! Those mint squares sound yummy, though. Did they turn out okay without the flour? (Or were you able to add it before they cooked?)
DeleteThat could have been an interesting cake!