Wednesday, August 13, 2008

Oops! I did it again

It all started last Wednesday when I received this stress inducing phrase in an email...

ok! Our table has been asked to bring something sweet for Thursday night.
Ashley
(this would be for our Thursday night Bible study that I wrote about here.)


It took everything in me not to click delete and pretend like this email never happened.


Whenever I get a request for food service, I have to think about it for like three days and then come up with a reasonable excuse. I would rather go into the kitchen, take everything out of my cabinets, re-organize everything and put it all back. I don't enjoy making desserts/meals/food products for public consumption. You could say that I'm lacking self confidence in the area of cooking, and I have no desire to kick it up a notch. And nothing I make is Yum-O. Let's just say that I've had a failure or two in the past.

What will I make? What will I buy? I didn't have much time so it needed to be quick. And easy. It really needed to be easy. Oh, I also didn't want to go to the store to buy ingredients. So I looked in my organized pantry and found this...




The only difference was my mix was butter recipe fudge. So it was a chocolate cake mix and it was going to have chocolate frosting. How could I go wrong with cake mix from a box. I'll just whip that right up.

So around 4:30 on Thursday I threw my ingredients in my fancy Kitchenaid mixer. Here is my ingredient list:

  • cake mix
  • 3 eggs
  • water
  • 1 stick of butter

Pop in a 350 oven for 30 minutes or so. I even had Lawnmower Man listen for the beep while I went to take a shower. No way was I taking a burnt cake. And I didn't want to have to run to Publix and cut up one of those bundt cakes into pieces and place it on my own platter. Not that anyone would do that.

So it was all good. I came into the kitchen at 5:50 and my cake had been cooling for a few minutes. I was taking a nice, fresh, warm, cake to Bible study. The Lil'Nanny helped me frost it and I was good to go.

I arrived at Bible study with my cake in hand. I placed it on the food table and realized that I forgot to cut it. I didn't have a knife but I had brought my mini Pampered Chef spatula thingy and went to cuttin'. Or sawin' was more like it. By the time I was finished it looked like Kids on the Korner Pre-K cooking project. Seriously. And I had gotten frosting all over the white tablecloth and my shirt. It's okay though because I covered up the tablecloth spot with some one's plate of Chex Mix. Talk about taking the easy way out.

Anyhoo, I made my plate which included a piece of my cake and sat down with my table group. I will tell you that I was sitting at a table with Ashley C and Heather. Ashley is a baking snob. She will not eat store bought baked goods and Heather likes to make fancy recipes that are shown on the Food Network. Even Giatta's recipes. I know, I thought Heather had standards too but I guess not. I wasn't worried though because my cake was chocolate and it was fresh. I took a bite or two and I kinda thought it was a little dry, considering the recipe called for a whole stick of butter. I wasn't really into the cake because I was trying all of the other offerings so I didn't give it a second thought.

After Bible study, I went over to the food table and I had trouble finding my cake. Why?

Because my cake pan was empty. (Insert applause here!)

I'm not used to seeing an empty pan when I bake 'n' take. I usually go back to the table and I've got two pieces taken out. One time I went to a New Year's Eve Party and no one even touched my homemade brownies. Not. one. person. Oh, they tried to cover it up with the ol' we had so many chocolate things to choose from. I think Lawnmower Man is ashamed of me when this happens. He was quite surprised when he woke up the next morning and saw my empty cake pan. Wow, they ate all of the cake. Yep, they sure did. (insert smugness here)

And then this happened...

Lawnmower Man opens microwave and says:

Why is there a whole stick of butter in the microwave?

post signature

12 comments:

Alicia (dna) said...

Thanks for the laugh my friend!

Your dry chocolate cake could've remained a secret, but now all of blogworld will know.

We all have different gifts...
From The Message Romans 12
So since we find ourselves fashioned into all these excellently formed and marvelously functioning parts in Christ's body, let's just go ahead and be what we were made to be, without enviously or pridefully comparing ourselves with each other, or trying to be something we aren't.

Seriously, you and I will never be Paula Deen, Rachel Ray, Heather or Ashley. So let's not dwell on our weaknesses! :-) After all, you can write a hot dog review like no other!

Milk & Cookie Party said...

Big Nanny- you are such a blessing. You saved your cooking snob friends a whole stick of butter's worth of calories and they loved it. (insert pride and resourcefulness)

It was butter flavored already, right?

Sumer said...

I can't believe you called me out like that. I mean I have three small children for goodness sake (please ignore the fact that Heather and Ashley do too).

What is really funny is that I would have brought it in the Publix container had Ashley not told me that was 'janky'.

Shawn said...

Reasons why Big Nanny doesn't need to know how to bake/cook:

1. Ashley and Heather are her friends and will cook her anything she desires (cause we're loving and relational like that). We'll even let you say that you cooked it.

2. You are the organization queen and who cares if you forget butter in your microwave while making a butter cake.

3. You are a fast runner and can fend off creepy homeless men at the crack of dawn.

4. You do the foot thing when you drive which allows your fruit bowl to drive you everywhere. You're a money saver.

5. You're the Big Nanny, the baby whisperer, the pseudo mommy who gives our granola eating babies cheetos.

6. (Insert from Ashley) You have good hair.

7. (Insert from Ashley) You are skinny and skinny people don't need to know how to cook.

Becky said...

H - I - larious!!

We have all done it!! I'm supposed to be a professional and completely left 4 eggs out of a cake once. Looked in on it, thought it looked funny, then noticed the 4 eggs in the bowl on the counter!! :)

Let me know how the chicken and dumplins turn out!!

Teresa said...

I am currently sitting completely alone in a school computer lab surrounded by windows where teachers and students are peering in to find me laughing my head off. Thanks for that.

And, correct me if I'm wrong but you attended the New Year's Eve party as well so that means even YOU opted to eat Trisha's brownies instead of your own. Right?

Nicole @ Four Real said...

You are too funny! We are such kindred spirits!

Wags said...

Way to go Big Nanny! I can tell you I'd be laughing a lot harder if the organic baby wasn't sleeping soundly.

Kudos to you!

Ashley said...

Only you, my friend, only you.

Tammy said...

That is way too funny. However, my mother is absolutely the queen of leaving things in the microwave. She's done it since we got our first microwave back in the 70's!

And empty dish is the sign of delight, so good for you Chef BigNanny!

Sonja said...

At least it was the butter and not the cake mix you left out. That would have been a TOTAL disaster.........

Lisa said...

I am so glad I am not the only one that hates to bake or cook for the public masses. The stress... At least you did everyone a favor by not adding all that butter that would have clogged their arteries and caused them an early death. You are a true friend! (and the chocolate didn't hurt)