A Bad Day of Baking

 

   Yesterday I got a welcome surprise phone call from my friend Dana. She's been working nights for quite awhile so I don't get to see or hear from her much. We spent some time catching up on what each of us was doing which wasn't that hard because neither of us has done anything  interesting. We've both been working and not much else. Fifteen minutes after the call ended I realized I had forgotten to tell her a funny story about some baking I had done recently. I thought I'd share it with the rest of you as well.

   It is my custom to bake my tech, Chrys, a birthday cake each year. Normally she prefers carrot cake, but this year she asked for chocolate or carrot. I decided to do two small cakes, one chocolate and one carrot. I bought some carrots and cream cheese. Then I started to bake.

   The carrot cake went together easily. For once I managed to grate the carrots without scraping my knuckles. It went into the oven to bake. Then I mixed together the chocolate cake. Everything was buzzing along smoothly. C and I had to practice some music with another person later in the evening. At the rate I was moving, I might have extra time to practice a little alone. As I cleaned up the counter so I could wash the dishes I noticed the bottle of oil sitting on the counter. A sick feeling came over me. I used the oil in the carrot cake, but not in the chocolate cake. Did the chocolate cake have oil in it? The answer turned out to be yes.

   I quickly mixed up another cake for Chrys. I didn't want to give her a bad cake. I had put the first chocolate cake in the oven and it was baking. I'd keep it for us. Maybe it would be good. When it was done baking I noticed that it looked all right. I set it aside to cool.

   After the dishes were washed, it was time to make the frosting. I got down the recipe book. I was going to make one batch of cream cheese frosting and put cocoa powder in half of it for the chocolate cake. The cream cheese was nice and soft. I got out the powder sugar. Another problem had just come up. I needed three cups of sugar and only had two. I checked the storeroom downstairs. No sugar there. I did not have time to go to the store and buy more. I'd just use what I had which was a bit more than two cups.

   It looked fine. I frosted the carrot cake with a thin layer. I wanted to make sure I had enough for the chocolate cake. When I was done I set my nicely frosted carrot cake aside. I put two spoonsful of cocoa powder into the frosting bowl. I plunged my spoon in to begin mixing. Some of the powder floated out of my bowl and landed gently on the newly frosted carrot cake.

   I tried to coved up the powder with frosting, but it didn't work. The was a small dark area where the powder had landed. I took some pastel sprinkles out of the cupboard and put it on the cake. Hopefully no one would notice the cocoa powder. The  I moved the cake out of the way to prevent more accidents.

   Once the cocoa powder was mixed in, I frosted the good chocolate cake which was still warm from the oven. Normally you don't frost a warm cake, but I was starting to run out of time. After I had generously frosted it, I still had frosting left. I couldn't just throw it out. I decided to frost the bad chocolate cake.

   Another dilemma presented itself. How would I know which was the good cake and which was the bad cake. The good cake had risen higher, but that might not be enough to keep me from mixing them up. Out came the sprinkles. I put them over the good chocolate cake. Problem solved. The cakes with sprinkles where Chrys's.

   I cleaned up the kitchen and made sure to put cocoa powder and powder sugar on my grocery list. I had just enough time to eat dinner before C and I had practice.

  A few days later I sampled the bad cake. It was more dense and a bit dry as expected but not too bad. The frosting was perfect. I might use cream cheese more often for frosting. It was creamy without being too sweet. Maybe my bad baking day wasn't so bad after all.