Amelia Bedelia in the kitchen

This weekend, I spent a lot of time in the kitchen.  It was fun, and I really did enjoy it.  However, before I go off sounding like the wife who made homemade this and homemade that for her husband's birthday, I thought I'd share with you a few of the moments where I just had to laugh, because it was either that, or get frustrated.  And I've decided life's too short for that. 

First, I made a marble cake to take to the station when Adam was on duty.  I made a bundt cake, from a box, and that was all fine and good.  I let it cool and waited until after work to ice it.  I don't know about you, but I'm not very good at icing things.  I want it to look smooth and pretty, but it never does when you just use a knife.   The only way I know how to do that is to melt the can of icing in the microwave so you can drizzle it over the top.

It works pretty well for chocolate, but I've found that vanilla is not as forgiving.  I heated it up a bit too much, so in order to thicken it, I added powdered sugar.  It worked, but when I poured it on the cake, you could still see lumps of sugar, despite my attempts to stir it.  Awesome. 

I'd like to note that the guys ate it all, even though my icing was a bit lumpy.  Note to self: firemen eat anything in the kitchen.

As a backup, I bought a can of chocolate icing, but I ended up not using it.  I also brought with me "Happy Birthday" plates and napkins.  I kept them in the bag, thankfully, and when AMP asked me what was in there, I showed him.  He got this really funny thanks so much for doing this, but please don't use those and embarrass me in front of the guys look on his face.  So we served cake and ice cream on boring plastic cream colored plates.  Problem averted.  We also didn't take any photos for that celebration.  (Again with the embarrassment thing.)

I came home and cooked my little tail off after that.  Adam's other favorite cake, besides marble, is Angel Food cake, and thanks to Pinterest, I'd found an Angel Food trifle cake to try.  (Layers of angel food cake, vanilla pudding, strawberries and cool whip)  It required store bought cake, but I couldn't find one in the store that was pre-made, so I got a mix and put it in the oven.




Never having made this cake before, I didn't account for how much more it rises than a regular cake.  (Just so you know, it rises A LOT.)  And it ended up rising up into the oven shelf right above it.  When I tried to take it out, half-baked cake got all over the oven.  I added oven cleaner to the grocery list for the next day.

I found a simple bread recipe to use for French Toast, which is what I made Adam for his birthday breakfast.  He usually uses a loaf of french bread, but I saw in Pinterest a heart-shaped piece of bread, and I thought if I made a loaf, I could cut it out and it would be so cute.  Well the bread tasted great, but it wasn't quite tall enough for a heart.  Nevermind that I couldn't find a heart shaped cookie cutter to save my life, either.

All was going fine and well (well?  good?  I can't decide...) as I made the French Toast.  I was about to serve it up, and Adam walks in the kitchen and looks at the stove.  He says, "Bear, you've started a fire."  The dishtowel I'd used to cover & keep warm the already made french toast had caught on the gas burner.  We had a small fire in the kitchen that morning. 

A lot of cooking made for a lot of dirty dishes, but it was so fun, and I gained quite a bit of knowledge.

Here's a recap, just for my future reference:
1.  "Happy Birthday" plates and napkins are not cool at the fire station.
2.  Vanilla icing is not as forgiving as chocoloate.  When appropriate, use chocolate.
3.  Angel Food cake rises way above the cake pan.  Plan accordingly--then you won't also have a line on the to do list that says "clean oven!"
4.  Don't put the dishtowel near the gas burners.  Just don't.
5.  Baking is fun, and hopefully I'll improve with time.  I think I can only go up from here!