I’ve just had the most harrowing experience. I told myself that I would make some kind of sweet food this weekend. Since I’m intimidated by full-on dessert, I decided on a sour cream coffee cake. (Hold on. I gotta go turn the pan.)
(Well, that made me nervous, too.) Anyway, doesn’t sound like a big deal, does it? For me… it is. I take down the 400 pound Kitchen Aid stand mixer. What a beauty. I’ve probably had it 10 years and used it about 10 times, 6 of those for whipped cream. I’m telling you, that thing whips the hell out of some cream. I can do that. What I can’t do is mix up a batter. I made the topping and a chocolate cinnamon swirl mix. That was easy.
Then came the batter. (Oops, forgot to set the timer for another 20 minutes before I have to turn the pan again. Does it seem weird that I’m opening the oven and fooling with this pan so much? Seems weird to me.) Back to the batter. Sounded really simple. Not. The high point was when I coated my coffee maker, the floor, the counter, the stove top and a knife block holding about 15 knives with a shower of flour. Let’s just say I don’t really know how to use this mixer. Why can’t the recipe say, “turn it up gradually” or “8 is a little high for adding flour”? My boxer, Maxine, helped out by licking up most of the flour on the floor. I guess it would be uncool to hand down the coffee maker, huh?
I’m doomed. I’m sure I over-mixed the stuff. The recipe said something about pouring the batter. The batter I made ain’t pouring. Spreading, maybe. No pouring. Maybe I should have tried scones or something.
So, now it’s cooking. Why did I decide to do this? Why don’t I just leave the baking to Hubbard?
You know, when I bought the big mixer, Hub said, “But, you don’t bake.” My justification was that it would inspire me to bake. Why do I make up this crap? I should have just said that I wanted it and I was going to buy it no matter whether I used it or not. That, he might have believed. He doesn’t even use it. Hubbard uses a handheld mixer.
Maybe there’s a book out there somewhere that is all about the stupid mistakes you’ll make if you don’t have any sense about baking. I need that book.
I’ll let you know how it turns out. Those tenderloin steaks I bought this morning will surely make me feel better when I have to trash this coffee cake. Some success would really be helpful right now. I hate it when stuff sucks.
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Not looking very hopeful, is it? Looks, I don’t know… brown. It doesn’t smell burned. That’s something. 30 minutes to cool and then I can see what’s going on inside…
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I don’t believe it it. It looks normal. It even tastes good. It’s moist. Maybe too moist by the time you get to the center of the thing. But, who cares? We’ll never eat it all anyway. Wow.

And you guys were worried it wouldn’t turn out well…