Bake me a cake as fast as you can

Rob turned a big birthday last week. He’s never really been keen on celebrating birthdays so it wasn’t terribly uncharacteristic that we spent his Big Birthday Ending in Zero wedged in small seats munching on peanuts and pretzels. We had places to go and people to see.

Nevertheless, I didn’t want his birthday to go completely unfeted. So yesterday I decided I would make him dinner AND his favorite cake in belated celebration.

After a full day of book study, haircut, gym, grocery shopping, and being on call for a friend having outpatient fun, I finally flopped home and decided I could get a cake in the oven before collapsing on the couch for a spell.

Now since you know me and my kitchen prowess, you don’t need to ask if the cake was from scratch. You might instead ask me which brand of boxed cake mix I bought. To which I would answer I invited Betty Crocker to the party.

Knowing better than to try to do a layer cake (hahahaha!), I reached into the dark depths of our Baking Cupboard and finally scrounged up a 9x13 pan suitable for both baking AND serving.  It may not be pretty but it's efficient.  Yay efficient baking!

I honestly can’t remember the last time I used the cake pan (sorry, Rob) so I’m not sure when the rust splotches dotting the bottom and sides of the pan appeared. After trying to scrub them for a bit, I decided maybe 25 years was a good life for a pan and perhaps I should toss it and buy an unrusty one.

I read the mix instructions again and noticed that there was an oven temperature option for using a glass dish. I have glass dishes! A 9x13 one even! Without rust! My well-stocked but oft-avoided kitchen saved the day!

I whisked right along, dumping in oil and water and three newly-purchased eggs. I dirtied a spatula and a measuring cup and the counter. I was baking!

While the cake baked at 350, I busied myself cracking and disposaling 10 eggs that reportedly expired on Feb 2. Of this year, thankfully, but still. I was just grateful they were still mostly liquid. And that I had thought to purchase their replacements earlier in the day.

When the timer rang, I was on the phone discussing the outpatient fun, so Rob kindly offered to do the toothpick test. He set the timer for a few more minutes and motioned that when it rang again, the cake would be ready.

When I took the cake out 3 minutes later, it looked so pretty! Yellow cakey goodness just waiting for chocolate frosting. I went back to the couch for more flopping while the cake cooled and I summoned the energy to start dinner.

Sometime later, Rob observed from the kitchen, “I don’t think it was done after all.”

“What?”

“The cake. I don’t think it cooked long enough.”

Wondering why he was already digging in with knife and fork without the icing on the cake, I unpeeled myself from the couch and arrived in the kitchen without my camera. I should have known better.

The center of the cake had deflated. Like the entire center. Like it looked like I had cooked the cake with a brick artfully placed in the center so as to leave an impressively symmetric divot. Actually, my cake looked suspiciously like the Pineapple Upside Down Danish of a few years ago. I may be inept in the kitchen but at least I’m consistent?

I stared at it, thinking maybe the divot would be a great place to put lots of frosting to even everything out. I then grabbed a toothpick and performed voodoo all over the cake. Gooeyness. Oops.

Rob… an incredibly supportive and highly experienced good sport when it comes to my “cooking”… suggested with enthusiasm that we could just cut out the center part and turn the cake into a Bundt cake. Brilliant! I know what a Bundt cake is! Plus, he loves cake batter (it’s his favorite ice cream flavor), so he could just eat the gooey center part as an appetizer. Is he awesome or what?

I got a knife and glopped the liquidish yellow confection onto a plate and handed Rob a fork. Two bites in, he dabbed his tongue with his finger and produced an egg shell.

Two more bites and some rooting around and it was clear…that one shell fragment wasn’t an anomaly.

You’ve got to be kidding me.

I am 48 years old and somehow I managed to ruin a cake…from a cake mix…with just three added ingredients…not just one but TWO ways. I should just hang up my mixing bowl right now. Please? Good Lord!

Looking at the clock and insistent on baking a cake for Rob, I decided that I still had time to run to the store for another box AND a new baking pan and still have dinner in prime time. Barely.

40 minutes later, I was washing my new pan. Rob, the prophetic man that he is, cautioned, “Please don’t rush.” How does that man read my mind?!

Going in slo-mo, I opened the second box of mix and realized I had gotten a different brand. Why do the two biggest brands of cake mix use the same two primary colors on their boxes? Without meaning to, I had thrown Betty out of the party and invited Duncan instead. Whatever. Cake mix is cake mix, right? As long as it isn’t crunchy?

Mix, oil, and water were in the bowl, along with my first of three eggs. Being ever so careful not to add any texture to the cake this time, I apparently was a little too focused and did something I have never ever done with an egg in my life. Not even when I was five years old and my grandma was teaching me how to make scrambled eggs.

I cracked the second egg on the counter and it fell completely out of the shell all over the faux granite. As I tried to scoop it all up and keep salmonella from hitting the floor, I started to laugh. Not quite crying laughter but close. Rob appeared as if on command.

“Do you have any more eggs?”

“Of course not. I only bought a half-pack.” Still laughing.

A spatula and plate later, we had scooped up most of the free-range pre-chicken off the counter and into the bowl.

I am relieved to report that 27 minutes later I was victorious over the second attempt at the cake. It baked just as promised without crunch or goo.  I even managed to get the frosting applied without cutting my tongue on the unnecessarily sharp Cutco spreader thingy afterwards (you don't do that twice, believe you me).

Undecorated victory is mine!  But the cake is Rob's

I also have completed an unintended taste-off between the two major cake mix brands. I can now proclaim Betty a better dessert guest than Duncan, despite the fact she is currently lounging in our trash can.  You'll be at our next party, Betty!  Crunch- and goo-free!  Hopefully.

Salvaged from our recycling bin just in time