V-Day Bake Fest 2011 ... A Horror Story

After years of chocolate therapy I can fully admit that I’m a self punisher. I seem to set lofty goals and charge head first into projects KNOWING that it will more then likely drive me to the Loony Bin. A perfect example would be this last Sunday…the day BEFORE Valentine’s Day….Otherwise known as Pre V-day. Not because it stands for Valentine’s Day…it’s because D-Day was already taken.

I LOVE to Bake. It excites me, inspires me and challenges me to test my culinary limits. It also punishes me like a school yard Bully who takes my lunch money,  pushes me to the ground and then walks away laughing. We have a complicated relationship.

 I started out planning to make Chocolate Covered strawberries…a Valentine’s Day favorite. Easy enough right? A little chocolate (white and dark because I’m an equal opportunity chocolate lover) and some plump Costco strawberries. No biggie. That was before I saw the brownie bite recipe. We looked at each other across a crowded internet food site…time froze and somewhere in the distance I heard music playing (It may have been the alarm on my cell phone reminding me to change out the laundry but being a firm believer in love at first site I fully embraced the moment) The raspberry tops teased me with glistening juiciness and I caught myself licking my lips in anticipation. They called to me like a lost Lover. How could I not make them? Hadn’t we been separated long enough? So like the devoted baker I am I hit the print button and added them to my Valentine’s Day baking agenda.

I still figured I would be fine - So I had a few dozen strawberries to dip and 60 or so brownie bites to make. It would be tricky but I felt up to the task….until my sweet husband piped up. “Hey sweetie” he said innocently from the living room where he was doing his homework “I’ve been talking about your amazing cookie cupcakes at work all week, the crew can’t wait to taste them!” Processing this information I popped my head around the doorway and Freaked out calmly clarified. In the end I added 24 cookie cupcakes to my ever growing baking list.

Sunday evening I assembled all my necessary ingredients covering one full counter. Chaos swirled around me as restless children buzzed in and out of the kitchen and my teenage daughter struggled to hold my attention as she proceeded to quote every line from a TV show she found particularly funny.  I started mixing the cupcake batter and quickly closed the oven door. It was the calm before the storm, 20 minutes later all heck let loose.

For a full hour my two youngest daughters had been playing “Who is the Queen of annoying noises” Needless to say they were both going strong. I stormed down stairs wielding my spatula with the wrath of motherhood and threatened patiently redirected my offspring.

Returning to the kitchen my eldest and supposedly wisest DNA nugget informed me that the timer had gone off several minutes ago.  Terror iced through my blood- over cooking cupcakes is cupcake suicide and mine had been on the ledge for at least 2 minutes! I wrenched open the nearest drawer and grabbed for my two baking mitts…my hand hit an empty drawer bottom. Nothing but a pathetic twist tie and a few toast crumbs. Meanwhile my cupcakes were having their wills notarized.

Searching for anything heat resistant I desperately considered using my bare hand…skin heals, cupcakes don’t. Luckily I was saved from self mutilation when I had a flashback. The day before, my husband brought a pan of enchiladas out to the car using my potholders. Luck would have it that he NEVER returns anything to its rightful place an Annoying endearing trait.

Yelling a string of PG-13 obscenities I raced out to the car and retrieved the pot holders. I hurdled two backpacks and knocked down a kitchen chair as I bee-lined it to the oven and threw open the door. Faster than pizza disappears at a weightwatcher's convention I whipped the flat lining cupcakes out of the inferno of death. Just when I thought I had rallied, the edge of one pan caught on the lip of the door and flipped into the smoldering darkness of my oven. Cupcakes bailed from the pan like passengers from the titanic. Several landed on the oven door, some on the baking rack and a few sorry souls face planted the red hot elements, their tasty tops began to burn and melt off them like peeling skin…it was horrific.

Filled with more anger than I ever thought possible, I turned from the murder scene and swallowed my rage in several giant gulps of air. In my peripheral vision I sensed movement. My 15 year old who had witnessed the entire incident slowly left her chair. Years of watching animal kingdom had prepared her for this moment. Moving like a sloth she inched her way from her barstool and along the wall pressing her body firmly into it and giving me as much space as possible. She instinctively knew her life could end at any moment as she attempted to flee and was careful not to make eye contact or any unnecessary noises. When reaching the stairs she flung herself up them taking two stairs at a time…living to see another day.

Passing her on the stair was my husband “Where’s the fire” he teased her as he entered the kitchen. A poor choice of words it turned out since the oven had started to smoke from the cremated cupcakes. Seeing the situation he started to foolishly approach me mumbling something like “Honey, it will be fine, we don’t have to have cupcakes tomorrow”….or something that sounded a lot like “Grab the knife on the counter and stab me with it so you will feel better”….it could have been either one. I turned my head to look at him and I’m guessing it may have resembled a scene from the Exorcist because he stumbled backward and made the sign of the cross before retreating to the basement.

I scraped 12 cupcake corpses out of my oven and held a private vigil over the trashcan complete with a few words from the bible “ashes to ashes dust to dust” Accepting that they were now at peace I went back to work. With the house quiet and my family in hiding, things went much smoother than before. Out of challenges come ingenuity and since I was short on ingredients for a second batch of cookie cupcakes I managed to create a new creation that rivaled my very best.

6 hours later at 3am I tucked 116 goodies safely into the refrigerator and crawled into my awaiting bed. It was now Valentine’s Day and I rolled over to cuddle up to my sweet heart relieved that everything had turned out. Awkwardly I felt a sharp poke in my side and search for the cause in the darkness. I held the object in the light that streamed through my bedroom window….it was my Husband’s toothbrush whittled down into a handmade shank for protection.

Happy Valentine’s Day.