Monday was March 1st and to celebrate February being over and the one-year anniversary of owning our first house together, I decided to bake! The inspiration behind my choice of baked goods was this great vintage bundt cake pan I had borrowed from Di a few months ago. I have been dreaming of coffee cake since Christmas and today was the day I was finally making it!
I quickly realized I had no ingredients, so I took in the sunshine and headed to the store and spent $25.00 on things I would need. I prepped my ingredients, shooting as I went along as I always do.
Things seemed to be taking me a bit longer right from the get go. It took forever to peel and core these apples, and then I had to sift (what?) the flour.
Hmmm no sifter…would my strainer work? Why not? It’s all an adventure!! It took about 20 minutes to sift 2.5 cups of flour, but I persevered.
I let things sit when they were supposed to sit, and mixed as per the directions, but something was not feeling right. I wondered if I should add some more liquid- water, oil or another egg? I usually would, but this was my first attempt at baking so I stuck to the recipe.
The real turning point came when I realized this recipe called for a shallow long pan, not a bundt pan. The bundt pan was the whole reason for making the cake in the first place! We do not have a shallow long pan.
This was the only pan we had, so I went ahead and used the bundt pan and decided to cook it a little longer. My coffee cake fantasy was not going as planned.
I had a deep sense of foreboding as I went to put my little coffee cake in the oven. Even someone who has never baked before (like me) knows when it says “pour the batter into the pan” and you have something the consistency of baked turkey stuffing that you have to “scoop” into the pan with a spoon, that no baking miracle is going to save you.
Needless to say- I made a disastrous $25.00 coffee cake. It crumbled out of the pan, dry as a bone.
Mike was sweet and said he would try it as it had taken me 2 hours in total to put it all together. Upon eating it he said,” Wow, It tastes like hot flour.” He was being kind.
But the afternoon was not a complete ruin. Mike and I haven’t laughed that hard in a long time. Might as well enjoy your failures along with your successes.
Have a great week. Isn’t March grand?
