Bake Wrecks

Friday night I baked a disaster. I did. I take full responsibility. I have an issue with timely baking. The days start and I plan to create a most fabulous baked work of art in glorious daylight so that

a) I have perfect natural light to photograph the process.

b) I’m doing it for creative purposes and not a desperate craving; hence, more elaborate, interesting baked goods.

c) I’m less tired/cranky/impatient to be done so I can go back to my very important previously scheduled activity which involves watching tv with my husband and laughing at many things we find insanely funny and others may not.

So Friday came and went and so did the perfect photo lighting, creative energy and energetic mood. 8 PM and hubby and I started chatting about dessert. He is blessed to have a controllable sweet tooth that appears occasionally, I on the other hand am slave to mine. So we chatted dessert banter. You know, “So what do we have for dessert?” My mind did a quick memory once over of what was crammed into my freezer that was sweet and waiting. Fat free, sugar free, flavor free ice cream sandwiches. No. Remnants of an a la mode half gallon of vanilla ice cream that beautifully adorned my undocumented Apple Crumb Pie from a bit too long ago. As much as I’m a huge fan of Breyer’s Vanilla (little bean specks and all), that hint (read roar) of freezer burn flavor kills it. Just kills it. But really I’m not a plain scoop of vanilla ice cream kind of girl. My ice cream needs stuff in it. Lotsa stuff; cookie dough, pieces, choco hunks. Stuff. You get it. And… if the stuff is not in it it must then be served a la stuff. Like a Hulk sized scoop of ice cream smothering some fudgie brownies or blanketing sweet flaky peach cobbler. That kind of stuff.

So we were fresh out of stuff and it was time to create some. I was too kvetchy to traipse through my gazillions of gorgeously delicious recipes in my stacks of cookbooks. I needed insta-dessert. “Chocolate chip cake!!! ” I turned to hubby in a Tourette like outburst. We need chocolate chip cake! I wasn’t in the mood for anything overly sweet but needed the density and sustenance of a cake and occasional shots of velvety chocolate morsels melting in my mouth (in my hands would have been OK too). So it was time to hit the www. I paid a visit to my dear friend Google and entered the info, “Chocolate chip cake”.  Mr. Google led me to this place.

“By: JEB

Jul 1, 2002

A super easy no frosting cake that is delicious warm from the oven. One of my family’s favorite cakes of all time.”

So JEB (I guess some former state governors are into baking, not so much a fan of the ones into hunting) got me.

Super Easy + Delicious Warm From the Oven = Insta-Dessert!!

I read the reviews and saw some more of my most important key words; moist, fantastic, delicious. I like the idea of a cinnamon and sugar touch to it and whatever I made I HAD to be able to eat it “warm from the oven”. I noted the comments to go with mini-chips to avoid undesirable chip sinking and got my ingredients together.

Ingredients

2 cups flour
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/4 cups sour cream
3/4 cup margarine or butter, softened
1 teaspoon vanilla
3 eggs
1/2 cup sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 (6 ounce) package chocolate chips (mini or regular)

I keep a shelf in my pantry stocked at all times with assorted chips, nuts and crumbles and happily had the minis ready and waiting. Since my manic baking went into full swing several months ago I also have sour cream, buttermilk, whole milk and heavy whipping cream and lots ‘n lots o’ packs of unsalted butter filling my fridge. Paula Deen has some major competition in the dairy fat department here in the CA desert. Before my scratch baking days began and all I needed was a box of mix, a couple of eggs and some oil the dairy department of the The Cook Apprentice household consisted of said eggs, Dannon Light Yogurt, “I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter” and skim milk. Sad, wasn’t it? Anyway, I digress. So I took the ingredients from ?up there and got the directions ready:

Directions

Heat oven to 350 degrees.
Grease (not oil) a 13 x 9 pan.
In large bowl, combine first 9 ingredients.
Mix well by hand or use a mixer at medium speed for about 3 minutes.
Pour half of the batter (about 2 1/2 cups) into the prepared pan.
In separate small bowl, combine the sugar and cinnamon.
Sprinkle half of the sugar mixture and chocolate chips (1/2 cup) over batter.
Repeat with remaining batter, sugar mixture, and chocolate chips.
Bake at 350 degrees for 30-35 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.

OK, so it was 8 PM like I said before and I have already admitted to being tired, impatient and suffering from debilitating cravings but I did have enough sense to pre-heat my oven and get it all out and together. George’s younger brother didn’t get to elaborate in the directions. I don’t know about you but I found #3 to be slightly limited, “Combine first 9 ingredients”. My mind immediately swirled back to the directions for some of my more complicated baking creations where instructions were so strict it was like Julia Child was in my kitchen, holding my hand and telling me “OK…now add the first of the 4 eggs…” *hand slap* by imaginary Julia “NOT 2!!!! I said add 1, 1, 1!!!Mix it thoroughly and then it’s number 2’s turn to join in!!!” So I kind of gobbed some dry and wet ingredients in together and then stopped myself and went back to the tried and true. Creamed my butter and sugar, added my eggs, vanilla, dry ingredients (previously sifted together) and ignored JEB’s need to take a nap and leave me to my own devices.

I poured layer 1 and didn’t have a whole lot of layer 2 left. Shook some of the sugar/cinnamon combo and took what I had left of the (ultra-thick and goopy) layer 2 and did my best to smush it around in an unsuccessful attempt to cover the entire pan. JEB said I should use a whole “6 oz. bag of chips” I don’t think I’ve ever seen a 6 ounce bag of chocolate chips, but I could be wrong. Mine was a 12 ouncer and while my pan was looking all too full and my confidence in the former maybe leader of the Sunshine State was waning, I decided to take a canonball dive into the deep end and spread ‘em all over the whole non-sinking mini-chip bag. I was done. I was over the recipe. I threw caution to the wind and ignored the anxious voice in my head telling me, “This just can’t be right. That pan might be too small. Maybe you should try to put it all into a larger one. You’re either doing something wrong or it’s time for JEB to get back into politics”.  I slid that heeeeeavy pan into the oven, set the kitchen timer on my microwave and went back to join my waiting hubby in some necessary DVR catch up time.

Beep beep.

Left my tv watching bedroom some 30 minutes later and walked towards my kitchen which I could have easily done with my eyes closed following the aroma of burnt flour, sugar, chocolate, eggs, etc. Shane, my American Eskimo sadly looked up at me with his eyes asking “What have you done???”. Once in the kitchen I opened the stove (was that really necessary?) and added to the stifling odor clouds of smoke to give my kitchen the surreal foggy effect needed for such an outcome. My poor bird (OK my daughter’s bird) Zoe clung to the sides of her cage looking for a quick escape route.

Once the smoke left the oven and I could see inside I found cake vomit all over the bottom (let me clarify, burning cake vomit) of it as well as mounds of said cake vomit dripping like lava from the rack. Could this wreck be rescued??? I took the two ton pan of cake slobber coated in mini unsinkable (as well as unmeltable) chips and put it on a cooling rack to cool. For what reason I was not sure. Most likely for safety and not future enjoyment and decided to leave the remnants in their resting place within the oven. I looked at it all in disgust and quit. I quit that cake once and for all fed up with my attempts of trying to accept it as cake challenged and deeming it a complete finished disaster. Went back to my freezer and to my utter unadulterated delight found a quietly hiding box of theee most delicious morsels of ice cream surrounded by stuff empathetically finding me in my moment of need. If you’ve got a Trader Joe’s in your area and have not yet discovered their Chocolate Ice Cream Bon Bons (chocolate ice cream center resting atop and yummy cookie layer and coated in the most delicious chocolate), RUN IMMEDIATELY to your local TJs and stock up. A must have for desperate times like hurricanes, snow storms and BAKE WRECKS!!!

Oven innards.

Cake?????? Blechhh!!! Ignore the fact the there is an entire section that is undone. I simply couldn’t take the volcanic action any longer.

So the next day after chocolate bon bon bliss had subsided, I looked at the chip covered slab and felt sad. It broke my heart to think that 3 eggs, dollops of sour cream, my expensive, wonderful Mexican vanilla and other assorted ingredients gave their lives in the name of this ‘cake’, I felt there should at least be a bit more of a purpose for their demise. It was time for a photo shoot. A photo shoot to give new found meaning to the birth of this flour, egg, butter, sugar creation. So, if it couldn’t make it’s sole purpose in life that of being a luscious dessert there were other routes to be taken. Why must it be eaten why not a more utilitarian purpose I thought. Like what you ask? Well I thought about my daughter and her love of Breyer horses and how she could lose herself for extended periods enjoying fantasy play with them and here’s what I thought might work.

I call this “Horses on a Rocky Path”. What a wonderful, realistic addition this made to her playset I thought.

Nope, nope. They don’t like it either.

OK, maybe these guys will.

I call this “Out of the Oven and Into Africa”. OK, probably not that either. So I went back to my original idea of utilitarian and thought about how we can never find these in my house when we need them

You know what it’s like when the phone rings and you’re  all, “Just a minute, I can’t find a pen here anywhere…”

And…if that doesn’t work for you, perhaps what worked for me will be a better choice. After all, it’s a most special time of year and why not do all that I can to make my poor Bake Wreck feel (yes I humanize my baked goods) like it’s time here in my kitchen built meaning and unforgettable memories for myself, my husband and my children? So here I now introduce you to a most beautiful use for my “Chocolate Chip Cake”.

This is it. This is my perfect use of a wreck for 2009. My menorah or should I say Cakeorah? To all those who celebrate, a very Happy Hanukkah to you from my family (and cake) to yours!

***No plastic horses, elephants, pens or candles were harmed in the process of this baking or blog. The cake…well, that’s another story.