Over the weekend, two of my flatmates were visiting friends in London. My other flatmate and I had the place to ourselves and decided to make a cake on Friday night. We ventured out into a rainstorm to our local Tesco to purchase the necessary ingredients. When we arrived back home, we mixed the batter and preheated the oven to the best of our abilities—neither of us really understood how Celsius worked on our oven, and the settings were very strange. No more than 8 minutes later, our cake was a little darker on top than we wanted and it looked done. Using several towels, because we do not have oven mitts, we removed the cake from the oven as I burned myself in the process. A knife in the center of the cake came out clean, and my baking expertise told me the cake was indeed done. The tough part for us followed–waiting for the cake to cool so we could frost it.
After many episodes of “Friends,” the cake was finally cooled. We frosted it with delicious chocolate frosting and stuck candles in even though it was neither of our birthdays. We were really excited to enjoy this cake because pre-bake tasting told us both the batter and the frosting were deliciously rich and chocolatey. As we cut into the cake, we discovered that it had not cooked all the way through! The entire bottom half of the cake was still runny batter! It was a complete fiasco, but we still ate parts of the cake that were (mostly) cooked through. One of my other flatmates tried to cook a pizza the other night, and the top of the pizza burned really quickly, but the bottom crust remained soft and chewy. Needless to say, we should definitely figure out how to use our oven correctly.
Unfortunately, we ended up with a mess of chocolate that we had to throw away, along with the 7 Euro we spent on the ingredients. If we master the oven settings, a cake and cookie-baking day is in the near future, especially on the rainy nights that we seem to have frequently. Until that day comes, we will stick to the cupcakes from the bakery down the street. My take-away from the cake fiasco is this: sometimes things do not always turn out the way you planned, but in the company of friends, even a ruined cake is bearable as long as you have delicious frosting to eat instead!
Until next time!
Emily Bailey
<p><span style="color: rgb(29, 29, 29); font-family: Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal; background-color: rgb(237, 237, 237);">My name is Emily and I am currently a junior at Illinois Wesleyan University in Bloomington, IL, and I am studying psychology. I hope to attend law school someday and work with children and families. In my spare time, I enjoy playing guitar, watching reruns of “Friends,” and spending time with my friends and family. I have a passion for travel and good food, so this experience in Dublin is absolutely incredible! Check out my blog and feel free to leave comments or message me!</span></p>
