Tuesday, October 13, 2009

No, I'm not a Professional Chef, but Thanks for Asking...

I'm working on a long, informative type post about the new HPV vaccine, Gardasil for tomorrow. But in the mean time I have a baking story. Well, two baking stories.

Over the weekend I helped the girls bake a cake. They both helped with the various labor intensive tasks, such as opening the box, etc. We frosted the cake with their favorite confetti frosting. Everything was good the first day.

The next day I decided to put the cake out of sight so that Marin didn't get in it. I can still remember clearly the time her big brothers decided to get into a chocolate meringue pie without the benefit of adult supervision. It looked like there had been raccoons in the house.

In the interest of heading off trouble, I hid the cake in the oven. Then I promptly forgot about the hidden cake and pre-heated the oven. When I heard the beep signaling that it had arrived at the correct temperature I opened the oven and discovered that I had re-baked the cake. I thought the kids would be upset but they just ate it anyway.

I don't bake a lot but sometimes I get in a mood and make a pie, home-made cookies or even the day-long project of cinnamon rolls. Since these tend to be infrequent events I somehow end up with stockpiles of powdered sugar. My friend Andrea is the same height as me but has freakishly long arms. This means that Andrea is the one I talk into doing the things that would require me to get a chair and drag it into the kitchen.

Andrea was organizing the cabinet over the sink that holds my baking supplies a few months ago. She pulled everything out and we discovered the powdered sugar stockpile. I had over six packages which would probably be enough to last for the next decade. Then she pulled out a bag containing crystallized brown sugar that was only identified by the label on the bag. It had about half-a-cup. Clearly I always think that I need powdered sugar but it's really brown sugar.

So far not that interesting, right? Then my mom called me a few days ago and started talking about powdered sugar.

Mom- "When your dad comes to visit, I'm sending a couple of bags of powdered sugar."

Me- "Are you kidding? Didn't I tell you about the embarrassing supply we found in my cabinet?"

Mom- "No, what do you mean?"

Me- "Well, apparently I always think we're out but we're not. In fact, we're never out."

Mom- "I do that too! That's why I'm sending you the extra."

I had to call my sister after that and find out if this is a dysfunction that runs in our family.

Me- "So, do you have more than one bag of powdered sugar at your house?"

Lynne- "No, but I need to get some. I want to do some baking."

Me- "You mean you don't have any? I have a ton because I keep thinking I'm out."

Lynne- "Well, I used to. But I had to throw all that stuff out because of the arsen*ic."

I should have seen that one coming. Just recently she called her insurance agent to try and turn in a claim for a missing shoe.

6 comments:

bernthis said...

May I just say that that oven moment is my life in a nutshell

AnnQ said...

LOL - I love how you re-cooked the cake! (and how they ate it anyway!) :-)

Jack said...

Twice-cooked cake. Very original. You should have sprinkled a little powdered sugar over the top - that is, if you have any around . . . :o}

If your girls ever get a hankering for apple pie, give this a try:

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/b.-smith/b-smiths-skillet-apple-pie-recipe/index.html

Skillet apple pie is a variation of the old apple pandowdy recipe. The bad news is that it doesn't require powdered sugar.

S said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Andrea said...

The way you talk, you'd think I was an orangutan...just because my arms are longer than yours. ; )

Lisa said...

Not just longer. Freakishly.