Baking Without An Oven

Have you seen this? 

I didn’t watch the Super Bowl so I missed it, and I fast forward through all the commercials on my DVR recordings so I’d never seen it at home.  But a couple of weeks ago it came on while I was on the elliptical machine.  I love, love, love, physical comedy so when bird-man slammed into the window I was SO close to bursting out laughing that I almost broke the number one rule of gym etiquette ―  “thou shalt not appear to enjoy the evil elliptical machine.”  Fortunately, in that half second before I let loose with the first snort I looked around, realized I wasn’t alone, and managed to restrain myself to a contorted grin that probably made me look like I was grimacing in pain and dying to get off the machine … which I was … and which I did.  Get off.  I didn’t die first but I did get off and I haven’t been back on it for two whole weeks. 

I wish I could say I haven’t set tennis shoe back on the elliptical because I’ve discovered a pain free, sweat free, enjoyable way to stay in shape and still eat the Girl Scout cookies people keep bringing to work.  I wish I could tell you I’d found a way to enjoy a five-ounce glass of wine at dinner without feeling guilty that it’s the equivalent of a small slice of sponge cake.  Holy Goddess of Grapes!!  Five ounces?  Get real.  I drool more than five ounces at night.  I’ve seen spit puddles on the sidewalk that were more than five ounces of slimy slobber.  Five ounces is nothing.  Nobody drinks a small slice of sponge cake.  Do they?  I’m not the only one drinking a humongous slice of sponge cake … half a sponge cake … hell … some nights even a whole sponge cake … with gooey frosting!  Am I?  

Anyway, getting back to the all-important topic of my health and physical fitness, I do not wear the crown and cloak of Queen of Guilt for nothing.  No, I may be free of my 35 minute Tuesday and Thursday elliptical routine but I have added a 60-minute Pilates class to my Monday-Wednesday routine in which I half expect to see smoke rising from my abdominal muscles and where I try not to groan (very much) out loud.  That’s immediately after my 60 minute Zumba class in which I am the only dancing board in a room filled with gyrating hips and shimmying shoulders.

The bad part about condensing my workouts from four days to two is that after my classes end I can barely shuffle out of the gym and fall into my car.  The hardest part is pulling my two quivering legs in after me, which is second only to trying to shove them out and lift them one at a time up the two steps to the porch once I get home. But the good part is, now I have Tuesdays and Thursdays free after work to do really fun stuff like dig up raspberry bushes and clean up flower beds.  Pretty soon I’ll get to mow the lawn.  And I can hardly wait until I can weed the garden! 

I’m so excited I think I’ll celebrate by munching on Doritos while I drink a sponge cake.

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Baking Without An Oven

An Update to My Whine

We drove to the symphony on snow-covered streets with temps hovering around five degrees and I stared out the window fuming about that cranberry/raisin/pecan/candy cane bread rising silently in the garbage.  The last thing I wanted was to stand at a door taking tickets from happy people who probably had freezers filled with perfectly baked Christmas cookies and breads.   But it's hard to stay mad when you have to say hello, how are you? thank you! enjoy the concert, I'm glad you braved the cold ... to dozens of nicely dressed, very polite people who are happy and excited to be attending a Christmas concert.  And after listening to a symphony filled with toe-tapping, head-bobbing Christmas music led by a happy, funny, down-to-earth conductor, the whines were knocked right out of me.  When we got home from the concert I marched into the kitchen determined that two days of total baking failure was not going to get the best of me.  There is a new bowl of bread dough mixed and in the fridge.  Tomorrow I will conquer that candy cane bread or I will die trying.  And you know what else?  I have more Christmas cookie recipes waiting.  And I will bake them and they will be perfect.......or at least edible.◦

An Update to My Whine

Don't Read This Cuz I'm Gunna Whine

Tis the season to be baking cookies and breads and fancy desserts.  Tis the season to fatten yourself and loved ones.  But for me, apparently tis the season to screw up everything I bake.  Yesterday it was the yellow cake intended for the raspberry trifle which has become a tradition at our house.  I have never been able to find a great yellow cake recipe, or even a yellow cake recipe that's pretty good.  So each year I  try a new recipe in my quest for the perfect trifle cake.  Yesterday I mixed up another yellow cake, poured it into two round baking pans, stuck it in the oven and hoped this would be the one.  About halfway through the baking process I peeked into the oven window only to see cake batter bubbling out over the top of the pans.......onto the bottom of the oven I had cleaned only three short days ago.  I let it finish baking hoping the issue was just that I should have used bigger pans but when we tried the bits leftover after prying it out of the pans there was no doubt that the cake was inedible.  Dean helpfully pointed out to me (several times) that 3 1/2 teaspoons of baking powder seemed way too much for a cake..........he would never have used that much baking powder even if that was what the recipe called for.   Of course what my brain heard was You stupid idiot.  How could you not know that 3 1/2 teaspoons for one cake was a ridiculous amount and your cake would blow up in the oven?

Today, I attempted yeast bread twisted into cranberry/raisin/pecan filled candy canes.  The dough I had mixed up yesterday looked good, the filling looked good, everything seemed to be going good until I cut the strips of bread and twisted them into candy canes.  Something just didn't seem right.  If these canes still had to double in size before being baked they were going to look like they were meant for the jolly green giant.  However, I soldiered on, got them all cut, twisted and on the pans ready to bake and then did a quick review of the recipe.  Oops.  I was supposed to cut the dough in half and instead of 15 canes of gigantic proportions I should have had 30 normal people size bread canes.    So, rather than suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous teasing if I presented these for Christmas breakfast, I heaved them disgustedly in the trash where they are now rising and will soon be snaking out the sides and tops of the garbage drawer.

I would like to tell myself that I've screwed up royally this weekend because my laryngitis evolved into some kind of upper respiratory/bronchial illness.  That I have been tired because I spent several nights sleeping on the couch in order to save Dean listening to my 2-3 hour coughing fits.  I would like to say it's because I am still tired and recovering.  Or I'd like to think it was because I was rushing to get the cake done before Leslie and the grandkids came over for a day of fun.  Or I misread the bread recipe because I was rushing to complete it before we had to go usher at the symphony.  And in between I was running up and down the stairs switching laundry and ironing sheets.  Yes, ironing sheets.  The high-end sheets we bought a couple of years ago because they would be so great  were so stiff and came out of the dryer so wrinkled that I hated them.  The sheets that shrunk the first time I washed and dried them so that I have to sit on the floor, grab each corner of the bottom sheet and pull with all my might to get them over the 67-inch high mattress we have.  The sheets that Dean said recently were finally getting softer.  Yeah, buddy.  That's because I couldn't stand it anymore and started ironing them.

And the whole point of this whining, complaining, grumbling, pitiful post is this:  I quit. Maybe I'm past my baking prime.  Maybe it's time to pass the baton.  Maybe I'm too stupid to read a recipe.  I'm done baking. Who needs homemade Christmas sweets anyway?

So now I'm going to go usher at the symphony and spread some of my Christmas cheer.  How appropriate that we dress in black.

And I'm not even going to proofread this because nobody is reading it.◦

Don't Read This Cuz I'm Gunna Whine