Half an Angel Food Cake and Balloon Surfing

My favorite dessert? desert?.. is angel food cake. I usually ask for it for my birthday.

Charly has never made an angel food cake before and she decided to make it for me for my birthday. Now if you want to hear the more interesting side of this story you better go read Charly's blog because she had quite the adventure.

Now my side of the story is that when I got home from doing eight hours of physics homework there was angel food cake, and a super cute wife waiting for me.

The cake was a little interesting to look at. There was a little bit of candle wax melted into it, and the entire bottom half of the cake was... unique... BUT the top part of the cake tasted great and I loved it. It was perfect for me. I am super thankful to have a wife that thinks of me so much and works so hard to make me happy. I have so much to learn still and I have a good example to learn from.

One of the other things that I got to do was balloon surf. There were enough balloons to cover the entire floor and so I got on top of them. They held up my weight just fine. Charly thought I was crazy I'm sure but I loved it. Balloon surfing is fun.

Benjamin's Birthday Cake. Ahem. Sort of.

Every year for Ben's birthday, he has his mom make Angel Food Cake. It's his favorite cake. This last week, I was asking him what he wanted me to make for his birthday dinner. 

"I don't care what we have for dinner," Ben said. "But I do love Angel Food cake ..." It was not a subtle hint at all. If you have any background knowledge of my cooking skills, you'll know why I was more than a little nervous for that particular request. 

The morning of his birthday, we both had to leave for class around the same time. I got home around eleven in the morning, the house empty. I pulled out my mom's recipe for the first time and felt my stomach sink. 

I didn't have cake flour. 

Or cream of tartar. 

Or a tube pan. 

I thought maybe I could do it without those, but I wanted to wait and ask my mom. I decorated our kitchen with streamers and blew up 174 balloons (hours of entertainment for Benjamin) until my mom was home from work. I called her and told her my dilemma. 

"So, can I make it without those?" I asked. 

"Well, I'm afraid not," she said. "Definitely not without the right pan, or cream of tartar. You might be able to get away with using something other than cake flour, but it just won't work as well." 

"Okay," I said, my heart sinking. What was I going to do? I really wanted to make the cake, since it was Benjamin's favorite. Plus, I'd already bought candles for it. "I'll see what I can do." 

After my mom wished me luck, I hung up and decided to head to Wal Mart--despite my time limitations and the floods of rain that were coming down outside. 

I went to the pan section first. I found a round pan, with a bottom that came out. I wasn't sure if it was the right one, but I couldn't see any others that might work. Unfortunately, I had left my phone at home so I couldn't call my mom to make sure i was right. If you know anything about Angel Food cakes, you know how this is going to end. 

I finished my shopping and hurried home. I started mixing the cake, following the recipe exactly. I was very worried I was going to mess something up and was being very careful not to do so. There was one part of the recipe I wasn't quite sure of, so I called my mom. While I already had her on the phone, I told her the kind of pan I had gotten. 

"That'll work, right?" I said. I expected her to assure me it would. 

She told me it wouldn't. I guess because the cake batter is made up primarily of egg whites and sugar, the cake can't support itself in the middle while it's baking. That's why angel food cake pans have a smooth tube in the center and the batter cooks itself around it. 

Well, I was determined to make this cake, especially since I'd already started to. Realizing that Wal Mart hadn't had what I needed, I decided to go door to door on our street trying to find a pan I could borrow. We have plenty of older ladies in the ward and I figured somebody had to have them. I went to four different houses with no luck; the fourth house, though, the lady introduced herself as Shelby. She told me that she did not have one, but she knew her mother, the bishop's wife, had one. 

It was a miracle. Except that her mother wasn't home; she was at parent-teacher-conferences, as a teacher. Shelby took me over there and looked everywhere she could think. Her 8-year-old son was with us and was convinced that "Papa" would know where to look. He ran and got the Bishop, who had no idea what a tube pan even was. 

To make a long story short, I went home without a pan, my time before Benjamin got home dwindling. Still wondering what in the world I was going to do, I looked up online if there were ways to make an angel food cake in a different pan. And I found one! 

Following the instructions, I emptied a can of peaches and washed it out. Then I took some shortening and spread it on the bottom of the can to seal it to the middle of my pan. It made an interesting makeshift pan. I then poured the batter into the pan and put it in the oven with a sigh of relief. I thought my cake nightmare was over. 

THEN, about five minutes after putting it in the oven, I smell burning. I open the oven and the cake batter is DRIPPING OUT OF THE BOTTOM OF MY BRAND NEW PAN. I wanted to cry. I pulled the pan out and tried to scrape the burnt cake off the bottom of my oven. It was too late, of course, to stop the burnt smell from filling my entire house. 

I didn't really know how to fix the pan, so I set it on a cookie sheet and put the cake back into the oven to finish cooking. When it was done, I took it out and flipped the whole pan upside down (exactly how you are supposed to). As soon as it was upside down, the entire bottom of the pan decided to come apart from the rest of the pan and flop onto the counter, cake first. 

At this point, I was so done with the cake. I didn't even try to get the bottom (which, by the way, was covered in melted shortening from my "sealed can") of the cake off the pan. I set the entire pan bottom on a plate and stuck the candles in that. 

Ben got home and the first words out of my mouth were, "You do not know what I went through to make you this cake today."

It was worth it. We ate the entire top of the cake off. And it was delicious. 

I did not burn the cake ...

Friday night, Ben and I planned a group date with some of our friends. We decided it would be fun to theme the evening around Disney. We listened to Disney music, played Disney board games, had Lady and the Tramp Spaghetti and Meatballs for dinner, and I wanted a Mickey Mouse shaped cake for dessert. 

Ben and Jon and I made dinner and the cake right before everyone else arrived. I was therefore putting the cake into the oven right as the last couple arrived. To make the cake the correct shape, I put part of the batter into two cupcakes and the rest into a circular cake pan. I wasn't really paying attention, however, and set the timer for a cake made in a rectangular pan. 

We finished getting the dinner ready and everyone started dishing up. The cake had been in for almost fifteen minutes. I checked on it and both the cupcakes and the cake in the pan were looking very golden on top. There was still almost fifteen more minutes on the timer, however, so I let them be. In the middle of everyone dishing up, all of them gathered around the counter and stove, I realized my mistake and decided to pull the cake out of the oven. In the midst of the chaos, I didn't check it with a toothpick. 

After dinner, Ben and I were doing the dishes when he noticed that my cake did not look done, and mentioned it to me. There was nothing to be done except put it back in the oven and hope it cooked right. After we put it back in, we went downstairs with our group to play games. 

Not our smartest move, I'll admit. 

We played a game called the Name Game, Disney style. That's when Ben gave me a look. 

"Oh no, Charly," he said, his eyes a little wide. 

"What?" 

"The cake." Ben said. 

My stomach dropped. I felt like crying. How could I forget the stupid cake? I ran upstairs as fast as I could, Ben following me. 

We pulled it out and, miraculously, it wasn't burned. It was definitely well done, but not burned. We let it cool off with a sigh of relief and served it to everyone. They all said it was fine, but I could tell the extra cooking time had taken its toll. Plus, Ben said it looked more like Winnie the Pooh than Mickey Mouse. Meanie. 

But, after all, I didn't burn the cake. 

Starving for a Sandwich

Last night, I got onto my email account and lo and behold I have an email. It says, "Charly has invited you to contribute to a blog". I know Charly minimally ... as in, I have seen her twice and gone on a double date with her once, so to say that I was confused is an understatement. I considered writing something yesterday, just for the heck of it; it was my birthday, after all, and I obviously can get away with anything and everything on my birthday--even if it was potentially causing havoc and ruin on the blog of someone who I barely know who, without meaning to, allowed me to contribute to it. My more charitable side decided that was a poor decision, so I didn't. Then I get home today and I bring it up to my wife, thinking she will be just as confused as I am. She wasn't. Turns out she had roped me into being part of this blog then forgot to tell me that I was being roped into it. I will have you know I am coming into this kicking and screaming, or at very least pretending that I am. 

Anyways apparently I am supposed to respond to the stories that my wife tells about us, so you can get both sides of the story. So I shall.

I was at work, and I had no idea what was going on. But that is not the true tragedy of this story. I went into work at 11 in the morning, and I, foolishly, had not taken food to eat while at work. Add in the fact that I had two "midterms" (two weeks before finals) the next day and several person (or personal if you want to read it that way--I personally like both) issues at the time and you can imagine my mood going into work. I had pointed out the aforementioned shirt to my coworker because it is gorgeous and the only really red shirt that we sell there. Then I had pushed through the day like a trooper.

About four in the afternoon, who should come to visit me but my dear wife. She is so very sweet but I am a self proclaimed trooper and, having to live up to that fact, I was busy working, helping out as many customers as I could feasibly help while giving my wife as much attention I could give her, which was very little. Next thing I know, she is being sent to go get us sandwiches. Now remember who has not eaten since that morning; yes, I am talking about poor, starving me. So the guys give my wife money to go down the street and get sandwiches from probably the BEST sandwich shop in Salt Lake (the Gandolfos on main street). She wanders off and I continue troopering on. She comes back, and this is when her story takes place. (Insert wife's story here)

Now back to my story. She had gotten sandwiches for the guys, including a foot-long for her and me, buy I didn't have a lot of time to sit down and actually eat it. The problem is that it was connected to hers and if you read her story you can guess where that sandwich went. That's right, while she was being mischievous and conniving, she took my half of the sandwich and walked RIGHT OUT THE FRONT DOOR. There it is right there. The fact that because my loving beautiful wife wanted to surprise me with something for my birthday, I had to starve....

So it really wasn't that tragic and let's be honest, I look dang good in that shirt, but WHO DOES THAT!?!?! Oh, wait, my wife.