In Which Things Do Not Go According To Plan

[active_apathy]

Sometimes I like to bake things. Usually, this coincides with the baked goods turning out properly, though occasionally it's fun to try, only to be defeated by cruel circumstance.

Today was definitely the latter. And the mighty foe? Cinnamon chocolate chip cookies, which found their way to a new life as cinnamon chocolate chip failcookies.

The problem - much as this might seem like a pathetic excuse - lies in the oven. And its not one particular place inside; oh no. If it's the inside of the oven, you can pretty much rest assured it's out to get me. Unless - and now this amuses me more than ever - the baked item in question is a cake.

My oven likes cake and hates cookies.

It also has some strange habits. My oven is (nominally) fan-forced. While I don't deny the existence of a fan - one that's most effective at pushing hot air into the face of anyone foolhardy enough to take things out - I've yet to see any evidence of force. Or, at least, force at the temperatures typically labelled as for fan-forced ovens. Clearly, this is a problem - but the moment you turn the oven to the non-fan-forced oven temperature, the fan discovers the force, and manages some interesting feats, like nearly burning things on the inside.

You'd think you could solve this problem by just setting it somewhere in the middle, and letting the two conflicting behaviours balance themselves out. You'd think so.

Alas, no. My oven has studied its Agrippa.

For an oven, that apparently means that it can manage hot spots, cold spots, light spots, dark spots, high spots, low spots, beauty spots, holiday spots, Spot books, and occasionally a teensy tiny little miniature nanoclimate, with the net result being that a batch of cookies going in will each find a different way to come out wrong.

Fortunately, it wasn't a total disaster; since some of the leftover chocolate chips were melting into a little dark chocolate puddle from which to decorate the expected cookies (because playing with chocolate is fun!) I threw in most of a cup of milk and some of the leftover cinnamon and just drank it instead. Happiness ensued.

In conclusion: Tomorrow I am going to have to do the sensible thing, and just bake myself a cake instead.



(... I think I may need to add some sort of tag for minor disasters.)

Comments

[lilacsigil.livejournal.com]

You need an oven thermometer! They're pretty cheap and did great things for my baking in my oven from 1966, degrees marked in Fahrenheit. Of course, that oven then died and I got a new one, which was even better!

[active-apathy.livejournal.com]

...actually, that's not a bad idea. Unless it makes a nanoclimate around the thermometer, I suppose, in which case all bets are off.

[lilacsigil.livejournal.com]

I bought mine at a catering shop, it was pretty cheap. And at least you'll be able to put a nanocupcake in that nanoclimate and it will be perfect!

[active-apathy.livejournal.com]

...unless the nanoclimate moves to wherever the thermometer is. Mine is an unpleasantly crafty oven.