My Embarrassing Baking Disaster

For no apparent reason a thought forced itself into my brain. The thought: why not shock my partner by baking her a cake? I know what you're believing. I believed the same thing when this suggested itself to me. However, the more I considered it, the more delightfully tasty it sounded. How can anything go wrong if I am doing it for my better half? The only concern I needed to answer was what kind of cake I would bake.   After a long duration of ruminating, I chose a lemon sponge cake with butter cream icing. This was going to be the best surprise my partner has actually ever gotten from me. It didn’t matter that I didn’t bake and had no idea what butter cream icing really was.

Do I Really Need A Cookbook?

In the kitchen pantry is my wife's Betty Crocker Cookbook. I do not know the length of time she has actually had that book, it's been in our kitchen for as long as I can keep in mind-- which actually may not be that long when I concern think of it. I took the book, grabbed a beer and sat in my preferred chair, and opened it. How do you check out a cookbook? As I scanned it, it did not have any rhyme or factor to me. In musing on the book I stated to myself, how essential is it to follow instructions? Shoving book back in its revered area, I concluded that because this was my cake, I didn't require help from anybody else, especially Betty Crocker. This is the difference in between ladies and males. Women need a lot of instructions, while males delight in the liberty of doing their own thing. I knew exactly what I wanted. A lemon sponge cake, with butter cream icing. What could be simpler? Retrieving a big blending bowl, I assembled all the ingredients I needed; flour, sugar, eggs, milk and baking powder. Everyone understands you don’t bake without baking powder. I have no idea what baking powder is, other than when you bake you utilize baking powder. I put whatever in the mixing bowl. The only thing I wasn't rather sure of was the step, however how tough could that be anyway? Betty Crocker mentioned a cup of this and a cup of that, but never ever defined what she implied by a cup.

Measuring Takes So Much Time

I went to the cabinet and took a look at all the cups. There were all kinds and sizes of cups and I did not understand which one to utilize. I eyed a big coffee cup and stated to myself, this will do simply fine. Into the bowl went 4 or 9 cups of flour. I don’t really remember how much flour I used, I was getting another beer and got distracted. Then I broke a lots eggs and put them into the mixer’s bowl too. Putting a quart of milk into the blending bowl, I whipped whatever into a nice batter. Naturally I forgot all about the baking powder. This was to be a lemon sponge cake but I might discover nothing marked lemon in the cabinet. I opened the fridge, and as luck would have it, I discovered a quart of lemonade. I put this concoction into the biggest cake pan I might find. As I will put it into the oven, I remembered the baking powder. How is this cake going to bake if it doesn't have the baking powder? Setting the cake pan down, I grabbed the baking powder and liberally sprinkled it on top of my batter. I have no idea what baking powder does but I put enough on my cake so it would do a good job.

Do Bakers Really Pay Attention To The Oven?

Into the oven the cake went, and with much thought I turned the temperature level to 450 degrees. Remembering this was a big cake, I readjusted the temperature level to 650. The larger the cake the hotter the oven sounded like a smart motto to follow. Now all I required to do was wait for my cake to bake. As I was waiting, I heard rumblings originating from the oven but just chalked that as much as an excellent cake baking. I think I fell asleep, due to the fact that the next thing I understood there was an unusual odor penetrating the air. It smelled a little smoky and then it struck me. My cake, it's done. Baking sure is easy. What I pulled out of the oven did not look like any cake I had ever seen. It appeared like a scorched pancake, twice the size of the cake pan, with some sort of disease on the surface. No quantity of butter cream icing on the planet might camouflage this disaster. It had to do with this time I began reassessing the idea of checking out instructions. Possibly instructions have a purpose after all. To live right without getting burnt you need the ideal instructions. To bake right you need to follow the recipe.