So I fail as a baker.....or the uber-long post of WTFery
So one of my roomies Zip-chan had a crappy day today and to cheer her up (or at least keep her from imitating Mt. Vesuvius when she got home) I was going to make dinner and bake a cake. Cooking dinner worked pretty well. I basically played around with what we had available and apparently it didn't suck to badly. But on to the main event.
So, I mentioned that I was going to bake a cake. Well, I already know my baking skills leave much to be desired so I wasn't going to even attempt making a cake from scratch. I went the "easy" route and used a premade mix. So I followed the directions step by step then put it in the oven. By this time Zip had gotten home and we were eating dinner. Zip asked how long the cake had been in the oven. When I replied 'about 10 or 15 minutes' she opened the oven to check on it. After a few seconds of silence she stood back up and said "Your cake is overflowing somehow. Its dripping all over the oven." Of course after hearing that I had to go look. ............. It looked like someone had stuck a bunch of pink peeps in the oven and let them explode. There was pink goo dripping from the top rack onto the floor of the oven like some kind of bakery horror scene. The best part was that somehow the top of the cake was burning. But when we pulled it out to keep it from turning into strawberry cake with charcoal frosting the top of it nearly slid out of the pan. Apparently the top of the cake and a few centimeters down had baked but everything underneath that was still liquid. So we pulled it out and shut of the oven and after poking it a few times just to watch it slide around, Zip and I had the brilliant idea to pull off what had baked and eat that. Easier said than done. You might be interested to know that when one is trying to seperate a piece of baked cake from severely underbaked cake is a trick task to accomplish as the baked cake isn't really thick enough to withstand being picked up. And when you drop it back onto the liquid cake goo underneath it, it sinks slightly then bobs back up to the top similar to throwing a small piece of wood into a pond. So here we are fishing cake chunks out of what is essentially a cake smoothie when I get the idea to grab a plate and attempt to slide the whole thing onto the plate. Good idea right? Wrong. I got about an inch onto the plate when I realized 'shit if I try to slide this plate under any more it is either going to A) capsize the pan and release a cake mud-slide onto our stove or B) get the remaining cake on the plate while simultaneously covering the bottome of the plate with cake goo.' So instead of proceding I asked Zip for a spatula. Fortunately I am used to cooking spatula required foods such as quesadillas and omelets so one easy flick and we had a plateful of pink semi-solid pancake..... which we then consumed. We even convinced our third roomie Artikgato to try some. It actually wasn't that bad and Zip seemed amused by the whole thing so mission accomplished I guess.
After consuming the fail cake as it was dubbed, I spent around 20 minutes cleaning out the oven while trying to block out the suggestive comments being thrown around by the roomies involving Imagin, sex and bodily fluids. Since it was still liquidy (and that sounds so wrong given the previous sentence) the batter actually cleaned up fairly easily. So after cleaning the oven I took another look at the scalped remnants of cake goo in the pan and though 'What the hell, let's try this again.' I cranked the oven back on and after it heated I stuck the cake in again. After that I felt the need to inform the roomies that Fail Cake Mach Two was underway. That being said I started playing around on my laptop. After about ten minutes I went to check the cake. It didn't look very different than when I put it in so I called Zip over to asked her opinion. Again the top of the cake was browning but everytheing else wasn't cooking. I suggested maybe turning the oven to broil so that both coils would be on. Zip said that both coils were already on which I refuted saying that the bottom one wasn't. I even stuck my hand out to touch it (which thinking back on it was probably my most shining moment of absolute stupidity to date.) Needless to say the coil wasn't on since I am typing this post with full use of all ten digits from the comfort of my living room and not the local ER. Anyway back the the fail cake. We just decided to leave it alone and see if letting it bake longer would help, and by this point it needed all the help it could get.
So after leaving the Fail Cake (and yes it deserves capitalization) to its own pastry devices while I began typing this much longer than intended post I got up to see if it had actually managed to bake properly the second time. Or if it had, I don't know, mutated into some giant pink amoeba-like spawn from hell that was going to consume our entire block a la The Blob. You can imagine my relief that upon opening the oven to find an innocuos looking cake instead of a pink mass preparing to projectile vomit itself out of the appliance. Since the earlier attempt taught me not to judge by appearances I followed the tried and true method of determining if something is safe or not. I poked it. And in return it made a rather disturbing sound not unlike the sound of someone stepping on a wet sponge; somewhere between a squish and a poof. And I swear my first thought was 'What the hell have I created,' followed by ' I wonder if it will happen if I poke it again.' After poking and prodding my creation I againg called in Zip to help me decide if the cake was done yet. After performing the same test as I did, only with a fork instead of a finger, she declared it finished. That is, until I demonstrated my discovery to which Zip stated "I've heard cake make that sound before. I'm trying to remember if that was a good thing or not."
After letting it cool we attempted to remove FCM2 (Fail Cake Mach 2) from the pan with limited success. We managed to pry up one point which promptly broke off. Zip then got an evil look on her face and went for the cupboard where we keep the icing for Hissatsu coffee (Don't ask. It would take too long to explain and this post is already reaching novel proportions) I claimed the broken bit before retreating from the kitchen leaving Zip with her victim. A short time later I heard "This looks like a Dr. Suess cake.......or a cake with measles I'm not sure." coming from the kitchen, followed by "It looks like a bunch of tomatoes floating in water....Italy would be proud." So after FCM2 was beautified and turned all manner of technicolor we all nabbed a piece and chowed down. Other than being slightly denser than a normal cake, the reason for which I am most assuredly not thinking about, it wasn't half bad.
So yeah, this is probably the last time I'll attempt baking, which is undoubtadedly a good thing. Although according to Zip whenever I fail I fail spectacularly......... I'm not sure if that was a compliment or not.
So, I mentioned that I was going to bake a cake. Well, I already know my baking skills leave much to be desired so I wasn't going to even attempt making a cake from scratch. I went the "easy" route and used a premade mix. So I followed the directions step by step then put it in the oven. By this time Zip had gotten home and we were eating dinner. Zip asked how long the cake had been in the oven. When I replied 'about 10 or 15 minutes' she opened the oven to check on it. After a few seconds of silence she stood back up and said "Your cake is overflowing somehow. Its dripping all over the oven." Of course after hearing that I had to go look. ............. It looked like someone had stuck a bunch of pink peeps in the oven and let them explode. There was pink goo dripping from the top rack onto the floor of the oven like some kind of bakery horror scene. The best part was that somehow the top of the cake was burning. But when we pulled it out to keep it from turning into strawberry cake with charcoal frosting the top of it nearly slid out of the pan. Apparently the top of the cake and a few centimeters down had baked but everything underneath that was still liquid. So we pulled it out and shut of the oven and after poking it a few times just to watch it slide around, Zip and I had the brilliant idea to pull off what had baked and eat that. Easier said than done. You might be interested to know that when one is trying to seperate a piece of baked cake from severely underbaked cake is a trick task to accomplish as the baked cake isn't really thick enough to withstand being picked up. And when you drop it back onto the liquid cake goo underneath it, it sinks slightly then bobs back up to the top similar to throwing a small piece of wood into a pond. So here we are fishing cake chunks out of what is essentially a cake smoothie when I get the idea to grab a plate and attempt to slide the whole thing onto the plate. Good idea right? Wrong. I got about an inch onto the plate when I realized 'shit if I try to slide this plate under any more it is either going to A) capsize the pan and release a cake mud-slide onto our stove or B) get the remaining cake on the plate while simultaneously covering the bottome of the plate with cake goo.' So instead of proceding I asked Zip for a spatula. Fortunately I am used to cooking spatula required foods such as quesadillas and omelets so one easy flick and we had a plateful of pink semi-solid pancake..... which we then consumed. We even convinced our third roomie Artikgato to try some. It actually wasn't that bad and Zip seemed amused by the whole thing so mission accomplished I guess.
After consuming the fail cake as it was dubbed, I spent around 20 minutes cleaning out the oven while trying to block out the suggestive comments being thrown around by the roomies involving Imagin, sex and bodily fluids. Since it was still liquidy (and that sounds so wrong given the previous sentence) the batter actually cleaned up fairly easily. So after cleaning the oven I took another look at the scalped remnants of cake goo in the pan and though 'What the hell, let's try this again.' I cranked the oven back on and after it heated I stuck the cake in again. After that I felt the need to inform the roomies that Fail Cake Mach Two was underway. That being said I started playing around on my laptop. After about ten minutes I went to check the cake. It didn't look very different than when I put it in so I called Zip over to asked her opinion. Again the top of the cake was browning but everytheing else wasn't cooking. I suggested maybe turning the oven to broil so that both coils would be on. Zip said that both coils were already on which I refuted saying that the bottom one wasn't. I even stuck my hand out to touch it (which thinking back on it was probably my most shining moment of absolute stupidity to date.) Needless to say the coil wasn't on since I am typing this post with full use of all ten digits from the comfort of my living room and not the local ER. Anyway back the the fail cake. We just decided to leave it alone and see if letting it bake longer would help, and by this point it needed all the help it could get.
So after leaving the Fail Cake (and yes it deserves capitalization) to its own pastry devices while I began typing this much longer than intended post I got up to see if it had actually managed to bake properly the second time. Or if it had, I don't know, mutated into some giant pink amoeba-like spawn from hell that was going to consume our entire block a la The Blob. You can imagine my relief that upon opening the oven to find an innocuos looking cake instead of a pink mass preparing to projectile vomit itself out of the appliance. Since the earlier attempt taught me not to judge by appearances I followed the tried and true method of determining if something is safe or not. I poked it. And in return it made a rather disturbing sound not unlike the sound of someone stepping on a wet sponge; somewhere between a squish and a poof. And I swear my first thought was 'What the hell have I created,' followed by ' I wonder if it will happen if I poke it again.' After poking and prodding my creation I againg called in Zip to help me decide if the cake was done yet. After performing the same test as I did, only with a fork instead of a finger, she declared it finished. That is, until I demonstrated my discovery to which Zip stated "I've heard cake make that sound before. I'm trying to remember if that was a good thing or not."
After letting it cool we attempted to remove FCM2 (Fail Cake Mach 2) from the pan with limited success. We managed to pry up one point which promptly broke off. Zip then got an evil look on her face and went for the cupboard where we keep the icing for Hissatsu coffee (Don't ask. It would take too long to explain and this post is already reaching novel proportions) I claimed the broken bit before retreating from the kitchen leaving Zip with her victim. A short time later I heard "This looks like a Dr. Suess cake.......or a cake with measles I'm not sure." coming from the kitchen, followed by "It looks like a bunch of tomatoes floating in water....Italy would be proud." So after FCM2 was beautified and turned all manner of technicolor we all nabbed a piece and chowed down. Other than being slightly denser than a normal cake, the reason for which I am most assuredly not thinking about, it wasn't half bad.
So yeah, this is probably the last time I'll attempt baking, which is undoubtadedly a good thing. Although according to Zip whenever I fail I fail spectacularly......... I'm not sure if that was a compliment or not.