third time's (almost) a charm

A couple weekends ago, my friend Brooke and I threw a well-deserved birthday party celebration of Charlotte. As with any plan, party, or project, I was way excited and had grand visions of how it would turn out. A key aspect of my vision involved having a giant cupcake-shaped birthday cake on my aqua cake plate, surrounded by smaller plates of regular-sized cupcakes. It was a beautiful image, but my hopes were shattered as soon as I attempted making it a reality.

Cake #1: The first cake I mixed up was a chocolate pound cake using this recipe that came with my giant cupcake pan. (I leave out the coffee grounds and chocolate chips, though) It's a delicious cake, and I was so so so excited to make it all on my own with all my new kitchen supplies. The batter seemed a little off while I was mixing it, but I passed it off, thinking that maybe the different elevation made it a little different than at home, and that it would still turn out okay. False. I realized there was a problem when I smelled the smoke. Opening up the over revealed that a good deal of the batter had exploded out of the pan and landed on the bottom of the over, where it continued baking and burning. "Explode!" you say? "Cake can't actually explode." Well, I'm here to testify that some of the batter was indeed projected from the pan. The cake batter crater is visible in the photograph below.

As one who aspires to have a bakery someday, you can imagine how discouraging this was for me. It was only when the pathetic cake cooled enough for me to inspect it that I realized what I had done. While measuring out the butter in the initial stages of mixing, I had been on the phone with my Grandma, asking about the leavening. The house-brand butter I had purchased for my cake-baking came in the form of one-pound bricks, and was marked accordingly in 1/4 pound increments. I really did know that 1/4 lb butter is equal to 1/2 cup, but my brain couldn't handle the conversation and conversion at the same time, and instead of putting in 1 1/2 cups (or 3/4 lb) I put in 1 1/2 pounds. of. butter. Yes, POUNDS. !*#@&@!*$*#* The cake was greasy to the touch. It was disgusting. It was a failure.

Cake #2: I started mixing up the batter for my cupcakes right after Cake #1 hit the oven, and everything went smoothly until started beating in the eggs, which is when I was forced to attend to the disaster happening in my oven. I spent a good deal of time beating smoke away from the smoke alarm, opening windows, and scraping burned batter off the bottom of the oven before I could return to my cupcakes. By the time I was able to distribute the batter into cupcake pans and get them into my neighbors' oven, (because anytime my I heated mine, smoke would pour from all openings) the leavening had been active for too long, and the cupcakes fell. !@#@*#$&@&%@#&*&*$!

This is how I felt. If you can see past the blurry quality of the photo, you can see the green mixing bowl full of slowly dying cupcake batter and the black fan I pointed at the oven opening to clear the smoke. (Fashion detour: note the Susan cast-off necklace, cardigan, and earrings. Cast-offs make my heart soar, even while beating smoke away from a greasy cake.)

Above you can see the burnt crumbs I scraped from the oven bottom. Is that a wisp of smoke I see?

Cake #3: When I realized my buttery mistake, I had just enough time before a date to mix up one last cake. The batter was delicious, it baked perfectly, and I left my apartment at 8 feeling excited to have at least one decent cake for Charlotte's party the next day. However (yes, after all this tragedy, there is still a "however") since the cake was too hot to take out of the pan before I left, it ended up sitting in the pan for too long and came out in more pieces than it should have. At this point, I was totally dejected. It was 11:30 at night, I was splattered with cake batter, the kitchen was splattered with cake batter, I had a sink full of dishes to to, I was hungry because the only food I'd had time to eat all afternoon was licked off a spatula or drunk out of a chilled aluminum can, and my last attempt at birthday cake greatness didn't want to come out of the pan. *&%$#@*#$&@!#!@%&%$@$#&@&#!!&%@#

In the end, it all worked out. I froze Cake #3 in four pieces (as opposed to the two it should be in) and reconstructed it with the help of some delicious, yellow-tinted powdered sugar frosting. It served nicely and was enjoyed by all, and I have learned my lesson to never converse and measure butter simultaneously.

Have you ever blown up anything?
Do you have a hard time letting go of your plans and visions?