Humor
The Bubbling Cauldron of Doom
Why I never bake recipes featured in the New York Times.
Sometimes, it really is true that you can’t teach an old dog new tricks. A few years ago this old dog went all Pavlov when she saw a recipe for a Maple Pear Upside-Down Cake rather than the usual pineapple upside-down cake. She completely ignored that (1) the recipe was featured in the New York Times and (2) not a single recipe from that illustrious publication has ever worked for her. And do you know why she ignored past experience?
Because (everyone say it with me) this time it will be different.
I don’t remember what variety of pears that I purchased. I do remember that they were the biggest darn pears that I had ever seen. I bought four as specified in the recipe, but only needed half that number to affect the overlapping circle on the top of the cake.
Cooking the maple syrup and brown sugar topping was not a problem. While it was cooling, I made the cake batter. Which, when finished, bore a striking resemblance to BisQuick.
My problems began when I poured the brown sugar maple syrup mixture into the cake pan. It seemed like a lot.
When you’ve been baking for a while, you get a feel for when ingredients are too much or too little, pans are too big or too small, batter is too thick or too runny.
This seemed like a case of the pan being too small. I re-checked the recipe. I was using the size pan it called for. Perhaps the syrup was supposed to bake into the cake. I forged ahead confident that the chefs behind the recipe in their infinite wisdom, knew what they were doing.
Pear slices were arranged in an attractive circle, batter was spooned into the pan and then carefully spread to cover the pears. The pan was slid into the oven and the timer set for 45 minutes.
The trouble began at the twenty-minute mark when the first eruption of brown sugar/maple syrup escaped from the pan and landed on the bottom of the oven where it sizzled into a sticky, blackened mess. As the minutes ticked by, the eruptions grew more frequent, the sizzling almost constant. Thirty minutes in, my smoke alarm was screaming as smoke billowed out of the stove. The boiling mixture intended as a delicate syrup for the pears had turned my oven into a bubbling cauldron of burning sugar.
I made the decision to remove the cake early rather than risk burning down my house.
Repeat after me: The motto of the New York Times is “All The News That’s Fit to Print” NOT “All The Recipes Fit to Print”.
Unfortunately, this fiasco happened a few days before Thanksgiving. Normally, my oven is pretty clean. Cleaning it is not one of my favorite chores so I try to do it as seldom as possible. To that end, I usually only bake in it. No splattering grease from roasting meats. I only cook meat dishes that are covered. Except my Thanksgiving turkey and Christmas roast beef.
The day after Thanksgiving, while everyone else is shopping or watching football, I am on my knees in the kitchen cleaning my oven secure in the knowledge that I won’t need to clean it again until after the Christmas roast beef.
That year, thanks to the New York Times (note to self: “All The NEWS That’s Fit to Print”), I cleaned my oven twice in one week.
And in case you’re wondering, the much-maligned Maple Pear Upside-Down Cake was delicious.
© Copyright 2020 Caren White. All rights reserved.
