The day, the cake and the lesson!

Image Coutesy of SOMMAI at FreeDigtalPhotos.net

Usually I take some time to write a post and publish it. I do proofread it a couple of times and yes every time it definitely gets better. Today I have decided to type away a post at one shot and publish it.  The moments when the mood to write and the availability of time coincide seem to be quite less. Hence I have decided to just write, read once and publish. To grammatically err is human!

December is a month of birthdays in my family-My father in law, my brother and both my kids. My children have their birthdays in the same week - his on the 26th and hers on the 30th. So besides the festive mood the whole world is in, we actually get into a special family celebration mode.

I don't bake frequently but I do experiment once in a while with a small oven that I have and an eggless chocolate cake is something that usually gives me satisfactory results. After filling my seven turning eight year old with enough excitement about it, I put all the dry ingredients in the sieve , mixed them up together and thought of turning the oven on for the preheating part. Plugged it , switched it on and Lo! The lights, fans, TV and every other thing dependent on electricity for life went off. The switch in the power circuit breaker box had tripped. Switched it back on  and tried again and it tripped again! Tried switching off some other appliances possibly causing the overload and yet it tripped again. The oven had decided to absolutely not cooperate. I have an oven that is super cool. So cool that it simply refuses to heat or even preheat for that matter. Sigh! Grrr!!

The immediate thought was to throw away the mix into the dustbin and go buy something at the nearest bakery. I was disappointed, frustrated , irritated and mad at the oven. The birthday boy was actually cool about it but the birthday mom was getting on the nerves of the rest of the family members. Anyways I decided to discuss with Google about other alternatives. Pressure cooker? Microwave? A couple of youtube videos later - microwave seemed to be not bad an option to try.

I put in things in the recipe and those not in this recipe but other recipes supposed to work best. Milk, baking powder, lemon juice and God knows what else i added. Poured it into a suitable vessel, put it into the microwave and started praying.

Six minutes later when I took it out, the results were YUMMILICIOUS!!!

It had the same taste and texture that thirty plus minutes of baking in the electric oven would have given me. In fact it was a teeny weeny bit better. The cooking was much more uniform.

We did have a home cooked cake after all and day two - the plate is clean. No cake left and we did eat it all.

No the cake in the image is not mine. That is someones whose oven never gave trouble. Yes, the art of making a cake lies entirely with the machine and not the humans that prepare the mix ;D

SO time to enter 2017 with a philosophical lesson from an eggless chocolate cake.

Things may not proceed as we expect. But going ahead with possible alternatives instead of grumbling might give us better results we never ever imagined.

If your plan does not work out, see whats in the big plan for you. It may be a much better option!

I can't think of any philosophy to explain a new bread-making baking tin and a couple of ingredients that I had purchased on a become-an-expert-in-breadmaking whim.  Thats a different story!! :) Happy New Year all !