Disaster!!!

Have you ever tried to accomplish something only to have everything completely fall apart? That was me this morning as I was trying to bake one of the wedding cakes for my cousin's wedding. It started out with me not being able to find my specific recipe (after I have already ordered enough ingredients to make 20 of these cakes). . . I solved that by borrowing the special wedding cake bible from my friend (who just happens to be the person who is going to be making the large wedding cake for them). After that, it seemed as though I couldn't find the chocolate and the butter, and I was having a terrible time with the eggs. Eventually everything sorted itself out and I got the cake mixed and put into the oven.

The wedding cakes that I am making are actually two layered chocolate tortes. A chocolate torte has no flour, baking powder and baking soda in it. Because of this, I assumed that it would not rise. . . . guess what, I was wrong. I filled the springform pans right to the rim because I need these cakes to be 3" tall and that is the height of the pans. Well, while I was baking the cakes I started to smell this wonderful aroma of chocolate cake. So, of course I went to the oven to check it out. I gasped as I saw that my cakes were actually two inches taller than the cake pans, and had started to bake onto the rack above them. Knowing that there was nothing I could do at this point, I shut the oven and prayed for a miracle. . . . it didn't come!! When the cakes had finished baking, I determined that it would probably be easier for me to take the rack above them off than to try and slide the cakes out from underneath the racks. (Remember how I said that the cakes had baked onto the rack above them?) It was working pretty well until I got to the end of the rack where you have to dip the backside down in order to take it out of the oven. As I did this, it dipped right into the cakes and the cakes basically exploded all over the oven. Well, I also noticed that the middle of the cakes were completely not done, so using tongs I scraped out as much of the exploded cakes as I could and I continued to bake the cakes until the middles were done.

Apparently I hadn't gotten all of the pieces of cake out of the oven, so my house got completely covered in smoke! The kids came downstairs and asked what was wrong and I told them that it was no big deal, mommy was just burning some wedding cakes. They seemed to accept this with no argument and went on their merry ways. Well, finally the cakes finished and I pulled them out of the oven. They look great, and hopefully they won't taste like burnt cake.

Because all of this happened right before we left for church this morning, all during church I could smell burnt cake. It must have gotten into my hair and our clothing. As I am sitting here writing this, I have asked myself what I have learned through this experience. . . . and the answer is. . . NEVER UNDERESTIMATE THE POWER OF A LITTLE CAKE!!