Blog: Well, a lot of really weird $#!+ went down in Magic House this evening, if you pardon my departing from my usual AP Stylebook-type language. Cake-Like Thing, what exactly are you, anyway?
CLT: I'm a labor of love, Blog, a labor of love. You see, last weekend was Davie's birthday, and Diana forgot to get him a cake. She felt bad tonight when they were driving home from dinner, so she said she'd make him a belated cake.
CLT: BELATED.
Blog: Oh. Sorry. Go on.
CLT: So Diana quick found a recipe for chocolate cake online, which she planned to doll up with some extra ingredients and what-not.
Blog: I'd say the what-not was a mistake.
CLT: Hold on, Blog, let me tell! She put together the flour, cocoa, baking powder, sugar, salt, vanilla, water, oil and eggs, and dumped it all in a pan, and put the pan in the oven.
Blog: You mean A.B. The oven's named for Alton Brown, the host of "Good Eats," and Danny Elfman doppleganger.
CLT: Right. Whatever. And then she realized it should have been 3 teaspoons of baking powder, not 3 tablespoons.
Blog: Uh-oh.
CLT: Too late though! And seeing as the real Alton Brown wasn't there to tell her what that signifies from a food chemistry point of view....I was born....
Blog:
Blog: So how did you come to look like that? All...leprous?
CLT: First I swelled way up. Then parts of me cascaded down the sides of my pan. They fell on the oven floor and burned, which meant Diana had to scoop burning chunks of batter out of the oven and fling them into the sink, then rush to run the vile, stinking things down the garbage disposal. And then she put a protective cookie sheet in the bottom of the oven, which got burning goo on its bottom, and more burning goo on its top.
Blog: This is not good.
CLT: As smoke filled the kitchen, Diana soldiered on making amaretto glaze out of butter, sugar, amaretto and creme de cocoa.
Blog: Hoping that alcohol might cover a multitude of sins.
CLT: She also made frosting out of powdered sugar, more butter, milk, cocoa and more amaretto.
Blog: Booze and butter, the only hopes of the culinarily incompetent.
CLT: Yes. And meanwhile, having puffed up and gushed goo, I now collapsed into a more normal but oddly disfigured size and shape. The timer went off that I was (supposedly) done baking, and Diana put a toothpick in me to test, praying I was so she could remove me from the violently smoking oven.
CLT: My top was crispy, but my edges swirled. Like pudding.
Blog: Sweet Mary and Joseph! Your edges swirled? What did Diana do then?
CLT: She cranked the oven up and went out to watch the hockey game in the living room.
Blog: She is really hard core.
CLT: I know, most women would have fainted. In the end she decided I was as done as I was going to get, and took me out of the oven. Then she slathered me with amaretto glaze, cut me into square-like things, put frosting on two of them, and then whipped cream. Then she chipped some of the hard stuff off the sides of the pan, crumbled it, and sprinkled it on top.
Blog: And she served you? What did Davie say?
CLT: He said...wait for it...that I was delicious.
Blog: No.
CLT: Yes! And in fact, I was delicious! Can you believe that? Here's how I would have been described on a dessert menu in a fancy restaurant:
Chocolate Amaretto Decadence
With rich chocolate flavor and textures ranging from chewy to molten, this is more than a cake. Topped off with scrumptious chocolate amaretto frosting, whipped cream and crispy fudge crumbles, it will overwhelm you with decadent deliciousness!
Blog: Well, I don't know what to say!
CLT: I do--eat me.
Blog: What?
CLT: Seriously, try a bite.
Blog: Say, you ARE delicious! That's just nuts!
CLT: Diana dodged a bullet, that's for sure.
Blog: Is she going to make you again sometime?
CLT: I don't think it's possible to replicate the combination of open oven door, smoldering goo, and pan shuffling that brought me into existence. So alas, no, Blog.
Blog: It's too bad, because you are one tasty cake-like thing, Cake-Like Thing.
CLT: Thank you.
Absolutely RIDONKULOUS!!!!!! Imagining the entire thing as I read, my jaw was on the floor!!
ReplyDeleteTruly astonishing! The ending is still shocking me. You really ate it, and it really was good? Surely this isn't just rewriting the actual story so you feel better? I just can't imagine it tasting good after all that smoke.
ReplyDeleteThanks Katesi, Blog is glad you were amused. Alanna, it really was good. I don't know why, but it didn't taste at all smoky. Really nice texture and yummy flavor. Go figure!
ReplyDeleteOMG, I laughed so hard as I read this that I literally cried! All's well that ends well, eh?
ReplyDeleteYes, it was quite an adventure! But worth it for the entertainment value if nothing else, CC.
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