Baking Disaster

I LOVE cooking and baking. I smile every time I pull out a batch of perfectly round, perfectly moist cookies, my heart skips a beat when I taste the batter of cinnamon coffee cake and I wonder at the pretty little mountain peaks whipped egg whites make. I could write poetry about food, boiled honey’s golden bubbles, the smell of pot roast swirling through my kitchen. I may be coming off very gluttonous at the moment, but I assure you it is the art of food that fascinates me. However, I am not what you would call a master chief. While my experimenting sometimes comes out beautifully, there is usually a weekly disaster.

This brings me to my most recent catastrophe. This year my husband and I were delighted to host Thanksgiving in our little house, our first time ever hosting a holiday and we were both scandalously excited. My parents and brother came, and a few good friends as well. I wanted to make something amazing, something unique, something that would require socks to be strapped on for fear of their being rocked off – corny as that sounds. To put simply, I wanted perfection in a cake. So I opted for a recipe I found on a reliable recipe blog. The ingredients sounded scrumptious, and the cream cheese and cinnamon frosting… need I say more? So I made it, and I gloated over it. Yes, there was definitely some gloating, and when I finally took my first bite of cake I wanted to cry. It was terribly, horrendously bitter. For a few awful minutes I was most assuredly in “the depths of despair” as our favorite Anne Shirley would say. Later I realized that I had made a very rookie mistake, I cut the walnuts it required into almost powdery smithereens, which as most avid bakers understand, makes things too bitter.

I moved on, the day was much to fun to cry over a bad cake. But it’s a story I find rather amusing now, and I thought others would too.

- RS