Baking a cake

Despite my dislike for cooking and the fact I almost always was horrible at it, I like chocolate cake. So, one morning around ten I decided to make myself a gluten free one. Thinking that it would be done by “Official lunch time”, 11:00. I got out the recipe and looked at it. It called for a 8”x 8” inch pan. “Well,” I reasoned with myself, “It isn‘t 9”x 13” so I need to double it,” and I did.

I measured every ingredient carefully so I wouldn’t ruin it as I so often do. Then mixed it and poured it into a 9”x 13” pan and put it in the oven. I was sure my cake had no errors and left the kitchen after setting the timer.

If you can remember the story on skiing that I wrote then you will know what I was doing during the waiting process. I was done in plenty of time and went to check on the cake which should have been perfect according to my calculations. My calculations were wrong. Instead of the half way full pan of cake that is normal for a gluten free cake it was to the very brim. I felt it and it wasn’t done. I looked at it and decided that it probably wouldn’t rise anymore and left the kitchen to let it bake some more. That is, until Missy said it smelled like something was burning but it wasn’t my cake, not the cake that was in the pan at least. It was the cake in the bottom of the oven. “Easy fix.” I told myself in my not so expert knowledge. I decided not to call the real expert. I took a specula and scrapped the cake towards me. All was fine until it caught fire and the oven started to blaze. I decided it was now time to call in the expert, and screamed, “Rose!”

She came out of the study where she had been reading my book and looked at my overflowing cake. She shook her head, laughed, stared at the oven fire and got the baking soda. She put it out. I was then ordered to empty the smoking oven of the cake. She then, still laughing, told me to take out some of the batter and switch pans. I did, all the time being laughed at by the “expert“. Julie was more than happy to eat the top layer of half way cooked cake since her motto is, “If it’s sweet, eat it if it’s cooked or not!”