Nan's birthday
So here was my chance to impress the family. Carlene (Leigh's mom) was away with Sarah for soccer and wasn't able to make her mom a cake for her birthday. I proudly stepped up to bat, as I was certain that this was a sure-fire way to display my talents to Leigh's family.
On my first day in Australia, I had spent the day making pumpkin pies, not only to celebrate Canadian Thanksgiving, but also to keep myself occupied so as to combat jet-lag. Even after a few mismeasurements, ending with 6 pumpkin pies, instead of 1, I still accomplished my goals, and everyone loved the pie (except Leigh's brother Dean who hates pumpkin).
Still this was gonna be great. I would use the extra pumpkin puree from the pies to make a delectable pumpkin spice cake that would really put me in first place with Nan, and would also show the Aussie culture the great things that sweet pumpkin goodness has to offer (Incidently. Nan has alzheimers, and I don't think she knows who I am, and pumpkin here is considered a savoury treat not a sweet one)
Yet I couldn't be diswayed, and so I began the process with a chipper heart after finding a beautiful recipe online.
After a few steps I realized that I was missing a few items.
"Oh no!"
Now, how to compensate... I'll confess...I ended up just making it up, telling myself the whole time, that it was gonna be all right. The cake turned out...all right? But lopsided, and stuck to the pan when I tried to remove it.
It was to be a 2 layer cake with cream cheese icing between the layers as well as on top. Well, you can't find anything to compensate for cream cheese, so I went with Leigh all the way to town in his prized possesion (the UTE which is a story in itself) and got the necessary ingredient along with a few precious dollars of fuel (With fuel prices around the $1.30/litre mark, this cake was beginning to become an expensive one)
Finally back home, I got around to making the icing and realized that I didn't have enough icing sugar
"Now what??"
Well, I knew we couldn't expend extra gas just to go back and get more stuff for this blasted cake - so what to do? Well, I decide to make it into a pour-over-the-top-of-the-cake type icing.
Since the cake had broken apart when I had removed it from the pan, the finished product was a lopsided broken cake, with bad pools of icing. It was tragic and so I tried to improve it by adding decorative red icing. Bad mistake. Now it looked like a horribly decorated piece of POO.
I showed it to Leigh to try to see if I was over-reacting over this episode, and the remark was - "Well, when you scoop off that stuff on the side there, I'm sure it will be just fine!".
Leigh's a nice guy, but not a good liar, so I took my hurt pride, and raced back into the kitchen for a second attempt.
I glanced at the clock and noticed that I still had time to remake another one. This time I was gonna do it right. I knew that we were low on all ingredients, so I chose a box cake from the pantry shelf this time. I was NOT going to be proving myself this time. I was just going to get the job done.
Relieved after closing the oven door on the second cake, I went on with the day and promptly forgot about it!!! By the time I remembered and got back to it, it had not burnt into what looked like a giant white hockey puck, or as Leigh's brother, Mark saw it - a perfect disc for discus. He was proud to announce that he was able to throw it all the way to the sheep pen.
Thankfully when Nan did show up with Uncle Craig, he had brought a cake with him. Maybe they knew, but I made Leigh promise not to tell them about the bad incident. And I made sure that there were no photos to prove it!
Well, I'm hoping that I've learned my lesson here now!
Don't try something new...
Ever!
(Hah!)
THIS HERE I
S OUR BELOVED NAN WITH HER GOOD CAKE!
On my first day in Australia, I had spent the day making pumpkin pies, not only to celebrate Canadian Thanksgiving, but also to keep myself occupied so as to combat jet-lag. Even after a few mismeasurements, ending with 6 pumpkin pies, instead of 1, I still accomplished my goals, and everyone loved the pie (except Leigh's brother Dean who hates pumpkin).
Still this was gonna be great. I would use the extra pumpkin puree from the pies to make a delectable pumpkin spice cake that would really put me in first place with Nan, and would also show the Aussie culture the great things that sweet pumpkin goodness has to offer (Incidently. Nan has alzheimers, and I don't think she knows who I am, and pumpkin here is considered a savoury treat not a sweet one)
Yet I couldn't be diswayed, and so I began the process with a chipper heart after finding a beautiful recipe online.
After a few steps I realized that I was missing a few items.
"Oh no!"
Now, how to compensate... I'll confess...I ended up just making it up, telling myself the whole time, that it was gonna be all right. The cake turned out...all right? But lopsided, and stuck to the pan when I tried to remove it.
It was to be a 2 layer cake with cream cheese icing between the layers as well as on top. Well, you can't find anything to compensate for cream cheese, so I went with Leigh all the way to town in his prized possesion (the UTE which is a story in itself) and got the necessary ingredient along with a few precious dollars of fuel (With fuel prices around the $1.30/litre mark, this cake was beginning to become an expensive one)
Finally back home, I got around to making the icing and realized that I didn't have enough icing sugar
"Now what??"
Well, I knew we couldn't expend extra gas just to go back and get more stuff for this blasted cake - so what to do? Well, I decide to make it into a pour-over-the-top-of-the-cake type icing.
Since the cake had broken apart when I had removed it from the pan, the finished product was a lopsided broken cake, with bad pools of icing. It was tragic and so I tried to improve it by adding decorative red icing. Bad mistake. Now it looked like a horribly decorated piece of POO.
I showed it to Leigh to try to see if I was over-reacting over this episode, and the remark was - "Well, when you scoop off that stuff on the side there, I'm sure it will be just fine!".
Leigh's a nice guy, but not a good liar, so I took my hurt pride, and raced back into the kitchen for a second attempt.
I glanced at the clock and noticed that I still had time to remake another one. This time I was gonna do it right. I knew that we were low on all ingredients, so I chose a box cake from the pantry shelf this time. I was NOT going to be proving myself this time. I was just going to get the job done.
Relieved after closing the oven door on the second cake, I went on with the day and promptly forgot about it!!! By the time I remembered and got back to it, it had not burnt into what looked like a giant white hockey puck, or as Leigh's brother, Mark saw it - a perfect disc for discus. He was proud to announce that he was able to throw it all the way to the sheep pen.
Thankfully when Nan did show up with Uncle Craig, he had brought a cake with him. Maybe they knew, but I made Leigh promise not to tell them about the bad incident. And I made sure that there were no photos to prove it!
Well, I'm hoping that I've learned my lesson here now!
Don't try something new...
Ever!
(Hah!)
THIS HERE I
S OUR BELOVED NAN WITH HER GOOD CAKE!
Comments
One of the funniest stories i have heard in a while.
Your Pumpkin Pie was B-E-A-UTIFUL.
The Cake tasted great, pitty it looked like a "piece of poo".
Better luck next time
Your Bro (in law)
(This is Ariana, by the way.)
I feel that I may have been taken off your email list somehow, because I sure only get updates when my mom prints them off and I find them laying around the house. I feel very unloved.
So that's arianajoy @ gmail.com. *coughfixtheproblemcough*
Also, could you please tell your sister-in-law (the tiny cute blonde one, not the tall willowy beer-hording one) to email me back sometime this century? That would be great.
I know I shouldn't miss you because I never get to see you anyway, but somehow because you're on the other side of the world, I do miss you.
And I have to tell you, your wedding was so perfect. It's the only one I've ever been at that made me rethink my elopement policy!
Keep up the good blogging, my friend.
Love,
Ariana
And WHEN did I horde the beer??????