The Week in which I became a Horrible Cook

The title of this post is only a little bit dramatic and only slightly exaggerating but I laugh about it all so it's ok. I hope you'll laugh with me.

Let me explain.

I have been getting ready for a party for the past week because that's just how I am. I love to plan; that's half the fun for me when I host a gathering. So I've been busy, busy, busy. And of course because my mother's blood runs though me thick, I also took on additional projects this week because JUST getting ready for a party wasn't enough. I created a gallery wall (something I've been wanting to do for a long time), I painted a frame because the color has been bugging me every time I look at it, I took down winter decorations since I wanted my house to be "springy" and the list goes on.

Well along with all this springtime atmosphere, I started craving carrot cake with yum, cream cheese frosting. Oh man, doesn't that just sound so good? I found a recipe on PW's site for carrot cake and decided to try it out since she tends to have very delicious looking food and often delicious tasting food as well (I've already tried several of her recipes). It was a tried and true recipe that PW had found in her mother's old cookbook.

And that's when I started re-evaluating my baking skills and my life in general. It seemed all of a sudden that everything I touched, rather than turning to gold (as in the mythical Midas touch), turned to goobers.

Again, let me explain.

Oh, wait you are. Well let me get to the point...

I decided to double the carrot cake recipe because (first mistake) I read the recipe as saying that it made 12 servings.

Because I was planning on making cupcakes, I thought that meant 12 cupcakes (duh, it meant it made one cake that would serve 12!) and I wanted to have more than 12 cupcakes.

Well, in doubling the recipe, here's what the first batch looked like when the timer went off...

I had filled 4, count 'em, FOUR muffin tins with cake batter and I do believe, my cup doth runneth over.

Here's another shot. They're hard to see, I know, but in a minute I'll explain why I was taking the pictures through the door.

Now, you can see in the background (kind of), the back tins have started IMPLODING.

(I guess I should be grateful they didn't EXplode since that would have surely made more of a mess.)

But one more picture before I get to the real doozy.

I really could hardly believe my eyes when I looked in on the results of my efforts only to find a gooey monster taking over my ENTIRE oven. At that point, I decided I would open the oven door to, well I don't even remember why I opened the door. Maybe to take a closer look at the horror but as soon as I opened the door I slammed it shut because smoke billowed out.

I raced to the doors and opened them wide, as DJ and I are unsure what would ever happen if the smoke detectors went off. We're not sure how the fire sprinklers are wired (yes, we have fire sprinklers in our house) so we're deathly afraid that if the fire alarms ever go off, so will the fire sprinklers and then all will be ruined.

So as soon as I open the doors

(I should add here that there was a high wind warning in effect and the gusts were in full force at that moment but read: deathly afraid of fire sprinklers above),

I raced back to the oven to keep looking.

You know how you pass an accident on the road and you can't help but look? That's what was happening in my kitchen. I couldn't NOT look!

This whole time Jayden is in his bouncer watching me rush around, gasp in horror repeatedly as I peer into the oven watching the cake drip off the sides and then listen as things start falling off shelves because the wind is whipping through our house.

He then began wailing.

I had scared him.

Or maybe the wind scared him.

I don't know but I rushed over to him, picked him up and brought him back to the scene of the accident so we could continue staring, yes that's right, in horror.

And now for the grand finale of all pictures...

Oh yes, it's hilarious. (I've already cleaned off one of the tins so that's why there's only 3 in the picture.) I laughed and laughed.

And then a friend stopped by and I ushered her into the kitchen so she could laugh too.

And then we discussed how on earth this could possibly have happened.

I'm still flabbergasted because I honestly didn't know such things could happen. I've been baking for 20 years and this has never happened. Ever. Granted I've never lived this high in the sky but still, I had never even heard of his happening. Things like this usually get around.

But anyway, my friend and I discussed it and we decided that doubling the recipe was the culprit. We knew that doubling recipes often doesn't work for certain types of foods and cake is one of them. So with that resolution in mind, I decided to try again.

I cleaned my oven...

And got to work again.

I figured it was fate of some sort that I had bought an extra bag of carrots and had all the ingredients for another batch. You've gotta at least pat me on the back for my determination right?

Well, maybe not.

I went for a bundt this time. I figured that's what the recipe was for so why deviate? I really didn't go into this to fail again. And the picture above may not look so bad but I pulled this out of the oven after 20 minutes.

It was supposed to bake for 50 minutes.

Once I saw the side start to spill out, I hung up on my mom who I was relaying my story to and pulled out that bundt. I didn't want to have to scrape my oven again. It was hardly cooked at all and it was rising so fast that I just know the end result would have looked like this...only in bundt shape.

It's just too funny not to look at again.

After that, I resigned myself to buy Walmart cupcakes. I know, ick. But actually they turned out being pretty good and when people asked me if I made them (God bless you sweet souls who assumed I made dessert, so sweet, although, a little like salt being rubbed in a wound since I would have LOVED to say yes, yes, I did make that yummy dessert...), I then went on to share my ridiculously funny story about imploding cupcakes.

Tomorrow I will try to share some pictures from the party. It was last night and it was so much fun. Although I will tell you that there is another mystery to be solved and it has to do with rice.