Friday, December 22, 2006

The world's ugliest bundt cake

The PTO I belong to hosts a crock pot soup / salad / dessert lunch for the teachers and staff at C's school as a holiday treat.

I volunteered to bring a dessert.

What I took instead was this monstrosity of baked futility.


I used one of those new silicone baking pan gizmos, thinking I could avoid all that "greasing and flouring" the pan before pouring in the mixed ingredients.

The directions say otherwise.

I didn't bother to read the directions. I figured, "hey silicone...nothing sticks to silicone, right?"

So much for better baking through technology and it's ability to make up for ignorant mistakes made by arrogant kitchen amateurs.

A friend once told me that there's no baking accident that a jar of frosting can't hide from the consuming public.

Maybe that only applies to those who are skilled in the art of frosting application. As I am not in possession of such skills, my frosting job only seemed to exaggerate the grotesque shape of my slowly cooling baked accident.

Next time, I'm bringing a salad.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Baking PAM...and sitting down and waiting as it slowly drops out of the pan and onto the plate...I hate the greasing cause I always miss a spot or two or ten and everything sticks (or at least used to when I baked)

Anonymous said...

Cake looks OK to me. Of course, my cake-baking skills are such that I just stick to cupcakes. But really, I'm more interested in that beautiful stove the cake is sitting on. How old is that thing? It looks like the one I'm always drooling over in the window of the Tulsa Stove Hospital....

OKDad said...

Our stove is a 1951 Tappan Electric, original and unrestored, in perfect working condition.

We did our kitchen as 40's vintage retro and have always jonez'd for a vintage stove. They're all the rage in the bohemian circles we ran around in back in LAla land.

However, the prices for refurbished stoves of this era were pretty daunting (even here in OK), so we were on the lookout for a beat up one we could restore ourselves.

Lo and behold, this one turned up on eBay, and we stole it for the bargain basement price of $305. The catch...we had to go and get it ourselves.

So, we borrowed my F-i-L's pickup and drove down to Dallas to get it. Made a nice day out of it and got to have some excellent road side food along the way.

Some history...the stove was bought new by a lady down in Dallas in '52. She used it sparingly until 1962, when a neighbor bought it to be used in his office as a conversation piece. There it sat, unused, until we bought it.

We rewired it for safetly reasons, but other than that, it's showroom new. The clock and timer work, front outlets and backlight all power up, and it even came with the OEM manual and ceramic salt and pepper shakers!

I'm normally a gas person, but I've been adjusting to cooking over Edison juice and so far so good.

We love eBay and we dig our stove.

Anonymous said...

I am wildly jealous. :)

I keep pestering Ron for a Waterford cookstove, but given the fact that my New Year's resolution involves testing my theory that it is possible for the average human being to subsist entirely on Slim-Fast and taquitos, I'm having a hard time convincing him that I need to spend several thousand dollars having a fancy woodburner shipped in from Ireland....

Anonymous said...

I stumbled on your blog while searching for info on my Tappan range. I am proud to say mine looks just like yours !! I bought it on eBay too but was fortunate and amazed that it was right here in my own city, Springfield, MO. It is surprising to me how many of these beauties are still around a look great. My kids think I have totally lost "it" as I named "her" Mildred !!! That name reminds me of an older, but elegant gal, very hard working, old fashioned, but going with her own style. I need to know how to ease the knobs into turning easier ? Have you had to do that yet on your stove ?
Karen in MO

OKDad said...

Hey Karen in Mo.,

Hope Mildred gives you the joy and cooking fabooness that our little eBay wonder has given us.

No problem with our knobs yet, but as I wrote, ours had very little use in it's lifetime, so that issue may be something we have to deal with in the future.

I recently cooked up some soup in the soup pot and I noticed my crock pot on the counter looking a little jealous.