One Excellent Thing, One Bonehead Thing

As much as I would love to blame my lack of grace under pressure on outside factors, the reality is that every bonehead thing I do is a direct result of my carelessness. I was beginning to think that I had finally gotten things under control, that I could work my way around a kitchen without causing any fatalities. Ha, yeah right.


Last week I was incredibly productive, managing to make lemon tarts and a quiche in one afternoon, with no trouble. I have never made lemon tarts before, since I don't really care for lemon, but figured that I need to add more treats to my repertoire. The lemon curd turned out perfectly, on my very first try. I only got one tiny eggshell in the mixture, which I managed to spoon out. My pastry was a little puffy, since I did not realize that you really have to puncture the bottoms when you bake them without any filling. Aside from that, they were excellent. And the quiche, well, it was heavenly.

Anyways, since that turned out well, I thought that my days of bumbling about and ruining things were over. My stepbrother's son's birthday is coming up, and I am making his birthday cake. I want to use marshmallow fluff for the filling, so the other day I decided to make some homemade fluff and fill some chocolate cupcakes with it. And I had a craving for chocolate cream cheese frosting, so I made some of that too.


The Excellent Thing:


I found a recipe online for homemade marshmallow fluff and I had no idea how simple it was! Egg whites, sugar, vanilla and a little water. Beat over a bain Marie until fluffy and voila! Easy peasy. The chocolate cream cheese frosting was flawless as well. Cream cheese, butter, icing sugar, vanilla and chocolate. I didn't have any chocolate squares left, so I used Hersey's cocoa powder instead. It didn't give it the same richness that the baking chocolate would have given it, but it was still delicious. (I didn't feel like making the cupcakes from scratch, so I just used a mix. When I bake the cake, I'll make it the real thing.)


The cupcakes baked perfectly, the frosting was sweet and rich and the marshmallow fluff was gooey and delicious. My sister, Tynna, helped me scoop out the centers of the cupcakes, and inject the marshmallow fluff inside. I also taught her how to frost them. We called them "our" cupcakes. They were gorgeous and tasty and not one thing went wrong. Yay for me!

The Bonehead Thing:


Cleaning my kitchen is always a chore. I have eczema on my hands and no dishwasher, so washing the dishes is a literal pain. I tend to put it off as long as possible, but then things pile up and it's even more of a nightmare. Ugh. Long story short, I did the dishes and cleaned the kitchen, but while I was doing so I put the George Foreman in the oven to get it out of my way. The rule in our house is whoever uses the Foreman cleans the Foreman, and my husband made hamburgers on it. I finished my cleaning and completely forgot the Foreman.


I preheated my oven to bake the cupcakes and forgot that it was still inside. About 20 minutes later, just as I was about to put the tins in the oven, I remembered what was already inside. In a panic, I grabbed my oven mitts and yanked the Foreman out of the oven. If only I would have remembered that the grease tray was resting on top, and full of hamburger grease. It tipped over onto the burner and the whole oven burst into flames.


I wish I could explain in a way that you could really understand exactly how much fire came out of the oven. A wall of flame shot up and out, with me standing directly in front of it. It was an inferno. It was the mouth of Hell. It was the grease fire to end all grease fires. And if that wasn't stupid enough, instead of closing the door to contain the fire, I stood there and started screaming. Not just a little startled scream, but full-out, movie quality screams. Many of them. My husband was standing right beside me, and all he did was jump out of the way.


Eventually, the fire burned itself out. Thank goodness, because I was just about to throw water on it. Yup. Even though I know that you NEVER EVER throw water on a grease fire, in my panic I nearly did.


I bet Martha never set her kitchen on fire. And if she did, I'm sure she had a fire extinguisher on hand.