I don't know what's going on, but I've contracted some sort of disease that's fatal to baking efforts. By this I mean that I've suddenly become unable to bake. By this I mean that everytime I bake something lately, it goes horribly wrong. And I'm following the recipe on stuff I've made successfully before!
How does that happen?
I mean, I've made this stuff before - in the kitchen I currently use, with my current oven, etc. Yet, a batch of my favorite cookies, instead of baking into perfect little rounds of lemony citrus heaven melted all over the cookie sheet, burning on the edges and just barely cooking in the center. It was embarrassing, but I figured I'd just tried to make them too big or something. An anomaly! A one-time screw-up! But I was wrong.
This weeked, I tried to make a cake. Again, this is a cake I've made before. It's simple - just your basic vanilla cake. Nothing fancy or complicated. I followed the recipe, and when I looked at the batter, it was all soupy. Hmmmm. That ain't right. I double-checked the portions listed in the cookbook. I double-checked the utensils I'd used ("I did put in a CUP of that, right?"). All was as indicated. Okay. Well. Maybe it's...supposed to be...soupy.
It wasn't. What came out of the oven looked okay on the surface, but when you cut into it, it was a dense, vanilla cake-brick. With lemon icing. Because I iced it before cutting into it to make sure it was okay. It all went down the garbage disposal when even my starving-artist musician boyfriend said he couldn't eat it. I'm pretty sure hobos would've turned up their noses.
So, I ask you: what the hell? Someone asked me if the temperature could be screwed up on my oven, but if I'm cooking something like a main dish, it works just fine. It's just baking - cookies and cakes.
Do you think it's voodoo? And if so, who is doing it and why? If it's you, I'm sorry for whatever I did to offend you - really I am. The fact that I don't know what I did is in no way an indication that I'm not sorry for it. So will you please give me back my crazy pastry chef skillz?
1 comment:
Get a thermometer and run your oven at different temps to double-check the accuracy of the oven. Meat is somewhat forgiving. Cake? Not so much.
If the temps are all okay, then babe, you gots problems. Maybe bad flour? Mismeasurement? Karma in that you need to SHARE such delicacies with those of us who simply CAN'T do stuff like that? Where's Betty Crocker? IN MY PANTRY!
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