I've written many times about my horrid wonderous cooking skills, and for the most part I am quite capable of simple meals, but when it comes to holiday meals I leave that up to the expert...mainly Kelly. Kelly cooks my Thanksgiving dinners and sometimes, depending on the year, my Christmas dinners. I have a few dishes I'm responsible for, and this year it turned out to be dessert.
I decided to make a pumpkin cheesecake because, frankly, I love cheesecake. I also found a recipe for a chocolate chip cookie cake with marshmallows, chocolate chips, butterscotch chips, and sprinkles. I thought that would be a delightful dish to take to my mother-in-law's house for the kids as most kids don't consume, or care for, pecan and pumpkin pies.
First the recipe called for "Thanksgiving themed" sprinkles, which in the picture of the cake looked like brown, orange, and yellow sprinkles with some colored leafy looking sprinkles. I could not find this at my grocery store so I bought regular sprinkles, and Darcy, Madison and I spent an evening digging out the "Thanksgiving colored" sprinkles. Madison thought me crazy, but it all worked out fine.
This morning I got up early and made the cheesecake with the help of my friend's three year old son, Henry. (Pictures tomorrow) Then, since the oven was still on and the turkey had not yet arrived to be cooked, I decided to tackle the cookie cake. It was to be put on a 12 inch pizza pan. I wanted to buy a disposable foil pan, but Madison thought that silly because we own a pizza pan. I didn't want to use it because it was a lot larger than 12 inches, and I am a follower of directions. But Madison went on and on about money and waste and so I compromised and bought two packages of cookie dough to spread across my pizza pan. (Yes, people I bought the damn dough, and why not? Life is too short to spend it in the kitchen whipping up ingredients that are right in a package nicely done for you.)
Before I had turned on the oven that morning, my friend, Sharon, and I cleaned the oven so that it wouldn't smoke as there was some food caked on the bottom. I have no idea where it came from, but since my girls are now cooking I blamed that on them. My oven is fairly new and the bottom rack is somehow attached to the door so that it comes out nicely when the door is opened. I have no idea how to remove the thing so Sharon and I had to work around that factor, and we did, and the oven worked great with the cheesecake.
Then I put in the cookie cake and set the timer. After it beeped, I opened the oven door and smoke began hurling out of the door, which in turn set off my smoke alarm. I shut the door and worked on the alarm, and wondered aloud, very loudly, why there was smoke in my oven. I tried the door again. Out came the smoke and on came the smoke alarm. This went on and on each time I opened the door until finally the cookie was done and out of the oven. That was about the time Kelly called to tell me to preheat the oven she was on the way with the prepared turkey to cook. I peeked in the oven and there was black gunk on the bottom burning away.
Me: "What in the world in that? Sharon and I cleaned that this morning."
John (Sharon's hubby): "What did you cook in there after you cleaned it?"
Me: "A cheesecake and the oven was fine."
John: "Okay, then you put in this cookie?"
Me: "Yes, and that is when the problem started, but it didn't spill over or anything so what the hell happened?"
John: "Is this a pizza pan? Are there holes in the bottom of this pan?"
Me: "Uh......
Yep, there are holes in the bottom of my pizza pan, and yes, the cookie cake dripped through the holes and burned the bottom of my oven. But what is a holiday without a little mishap? So wee are having to work around the smoke and the alarm, but the turkey seems just fine in there sharing space with burnt cookie dough. Who knows? Maybe it will add some flavor.
Happy Thanksgiving everyone. May you too have some holiday mishaps fun!
No comments:
Post a Comment