The next time I hear somebody use the axiom "It�s a piece of cake", I�m going to kick them in the crotch so hard I�ll leave a footprint on their grandchildren. It�s not that I have anything against cake itself -- I mean, you guys already know about my fondness for sugar -- but just yesterday, I met a cake that really had something against me.
It was May Day�s birthday, you see, and so I endeavored to put together a birthday cake, as you do. And I wasn�t going all Iron Chef on this or anything -- I didn�t have any ingredients to make one from scratch, which was probably a good thing, because if I�d complicated matters any more, I might have blown up the entire building -- I just got a trusty store-bought mix and some frosting, and set about making a very simple, but tasty, confection.
And God laughed.
To begin with, when I was mixing the stupid batter, I somehow managed to lose control of the beaters. What followed was an extremely exhilarating thirty seconds during which time I christened the countertops, the wall, and the carpet with Betty Crocker�s finest. Cursing modern technology (as you do), I wiped down the kitchen immediately, but sorta kinda accidentally didn�t notice the carpet problem until much later, at which point the muck had solidified, and I practically had to chisel the dried slop out of the shag.
Then, after a rousing game of "Whoops -- I shouldn�t have greased the sides of the cake pans, only the bottoms", I went to the put the thing in the pre-heated oven�only to discover that the oven wasn�t pre-heated. Or heated at all. In fact, it was actually just hissing angrily, releasing poisonous gas into the air. Which might explain my malfunctioning motor skills. At least, that�s what I�m going to tell people.
Anyway, I spent the next half-hour trying to get the oven to fire up. I checked the pilot light, which was on, and I even flipped the stove burners on and off a few times as an example for the oven. "See? Do you see? The stove has its shit together! Maybe I should just be cooking on the stove! Maybe we don�t even need an oven! What do you think about that? You�re practically obsolete anyway, now that we have a microwave! How do you like them apples?" Then I waited a little while, and tried it again, nearly gassing myself to death. As I stuck my face into the broiler to triple-check the pilot, it occurred to me that many a scene in Final Destination began that way.
Eventually -- and on the Last Time Before I Just Give Up And Cook This Shit In The Microwave After All -- the oven finally turned over, and we were in business! �And then we were out of business twenty minutes later when I pulled the cake rounds out of the oven to discover that they were still practically soup. It would seem that despite getting the oven to work, I still managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory by setting the temperature too low. So I spent another half-hour checking the damn cake every five minutes to make sure it didn�t burn or turn into cake jerky. Finally, it hit the right consistency, with minimal scarring, and I pulled it out to cool.
Then, when I was turning the rounds out to frost them, a chunk stuck to the bottom of the pan, leaving a crater in the first layer of the cake. Of course. So I pasted the chunk back on with frosting, which I had to apply with a butter knife, and then I discovered I�d forgotten to buy candles�well, in short, it was not exactly smooth sailing.
I�m not sure what the hell was going on with my baking karma yesterday. I mean, I may not be Sarah Moulton, Executive Chef of Gourmet magazine, but my culinary expeditions are usually less Lewis & Clark-y than that.
Oh well -- I may not be winning any competitions, but as long as it tastes good, that�s what counts, right?
Someone Got Here By Searching For: "lick the baby" pussy I�m Watching: Arrested Development, which is too good a show to not get cancelled, if history is any example. And: Alias, in which Michael Vartan removed his shirt. Hooray!