Unfortunate Tales of Cake

Dear Diary,

So, I tried baking again. It has been years, but I’m taking a chance. Who knows, maybe somewhere deep down inside me there is a baker waiting to break free. I know that if I keep trying eventually I can bake something that won’t be reported as a failed experiment that miraculously created a new type of fungus.

This time around, I was pleasantly surprised when I managed to bake a rather flat but still tasty chocolate cake. But as I sit here, wondering if the cake would have been bigger if I hadn’t forgotten to add baking powder, I started to re-live my top 3 baking catastrophes:

1.       

1.       THE CAKE THAT WOULDN’T BAKE

I wanted to be cool in High School. I don’t know why I thought baking was cool. I mean, it certainly made you popular, because who doesn’t love the kid with a Tupperware full of brownies? So in my attempt to be the cool baker I went home one afternoon and pulled up my mum’s trusted recipe book. Now you must know – my mum bakes the yummiest cakes, so naturally her recipe book must contain some decent recipes.

After a quick read through I thought I was ready. I mean cool kids only need to glance at something and then be amazing. I mean, I read The Secret enough times to know that projecting the image that you wish to see yourself as, is what will attract said image. I put the book away, the recipe book that is, and started to “bake”.

Apparently, ingredients need to be at room temperature when you start baking. I did not know this – not that it made much of a difference. I just went about pulling sugar, eggs, milk and flour from all over and plopping them into a large dish. I can’t even remember half the things I thought I read in the recipe – or the quantity.

By the time I was done, the batter was a strange yellowish brown colour. But it didn’t have any lumps so I was pleased. I didn’t know if the batter was supposed to be that colour. I didn’t know its life story or how it felt – I wasn’t going to judge it for being more yellow than brown, for a chocolate cake. So I greased a baking container and put it in the oven to bake.

Bake it did. It baked and baked and baked for more than one and half hours but it refused to stop giggling in the center. Eventually I called a friend and together we pulled out the terrific disaster steaming at us. It was gloomy looking - all shiny and yellowness now had a tinge of grey. It didn’t smell like cake, but in the delusional state of coolness that I was in, I promptly declared that the cake was self-saucing.

Still hopeful, I waited for it to cool before cutting myself a slice. My friend refused, in case of food poisoning. Relentlessly - I would not be discouraged – I dug in. The cooling had turned the liquid spots to a jelly like texture. So I chewed it – and chewed, until it felt like my stomach was trying to kick me in the chin for trying to swallow. I spat it out, brushed my teeth and then went about removing all evidence of that “cake”.

I’ve settled to never try to be cool in that way, ever again.

2.      2. THE MISTAKEN IDENTITY

A few weeks passed since the cake that did not bake. I plucked up my courage, or may be my stupidity and went forth towards my next baking mishap.

This time I thought I would try something simple. After searching through my mother’s faithful recipe book, I finally decided to bake some biscuits. This time I made sure to read the ingredients lists, pick them out and let them get to room temperature. I was determined that this would be it. I was finally on my way to baking something edible.

Unfortunately, my life never goes as I expect it too.

This time I accidentally pulled out gram flour, instead of corn flour. The end result was yellow. Again. It was too salty, and too nutty. Too weird. On the plus side, at least this time I could eat it without gagging.

3.       SAVOURY CAKE

Savoury cakes are awesome! It’s the best of both worlds. The yummy soft texture of a moist cake, combined with the satisfying saltiness of it all. I will, however, tell you want is not so nice – an accidental salty cake.

I suppose this is one of the most clichéd things I’ve ever done. Picking up salt instead of sugar isn’t all that hard to believe – except in my house it really was an astonishing task to complete. You see, Diary, the salt and sugar resided in two completely different containers. Different colours, different sizes and worse still – they lived in two different cupboards, so that this mistake should have never happened.

Should have, would have, could have. In the end, this cake was still not half as bad as the one that would not bake, nor is it the worst of all my endeavours. The reason it makes top 3 is purely on the difficulty level.
 
At the end of all this, I can officially say one thing that I know for sure:
My mother’s recipe book hates me.
 
That’s all I have for this week.

Love

A. Star