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So it’s my turn to bring treats to my evening class tonight. As such, 11pm last night found me in my kitchen baking. I discovered pretty quickly that my kitchen is not a good place for one to get one’s bake on. I have roughly 1 square foot of counter space (more like 1.5 feet x 8 inches) to work with.

I made chocolate chunk cookies for the first of my two acts (they were my backup treat). These were decently easy because I cheated. Really, Tollhouse and my oven did most the work on that one, though it wasn’t as easy as it should have been. I pulled the package of cookies out of the fridge, only to discover I was supposed to open it with a pair of scissors. I couldn’t find any, so I just swung a steak knife at it a few times until it decided to open. Then I went to break apart the cookies, but they preferred to break on lines of their own choosing, not the predefined ones, so I ended up mushing most of them back together. Then I had to arrange them on the cookie sheet really, really quickly because the sheet was sitting on my oven range (the only place it’d fit), and the pilot lights burn hot enough to warm pans pretty fast (I’m amazed we haven’t started a fire yet). The cookies cooked up decent enough, and I cooled them on top of my pan rack, which has become my makeshift cooling rack.

While the cookies were baking, I started in on product #2: pineapple upside down cake. This one I made on my own, so it was a bit tougher. Once I had my mixing bowl out, there was no more counter space, so the cookbook sat on the dishes drying in the drying rack and I had to get ingredients out one at a time and put them away the moment I was done. I got it all mixed up (the good way) eventually, though, and into the oven it went. Then I discovered there must not be much heat in the center of my oven, as the sides cooked much faster than the center. The center also, because of this, rose higher than the sides, meaning when I turned the cake upside down (or rightside up, I’m not even sure anymore), the cake cracked in a couple of places around the middle. Also, some of my pineapples stuck to the pan a bit, and I had to stick em back on the cake. Then I wrapped the pan in tin foil and stuck the cake in the fridge, where it will sit until I head home to grab it in a few minutes. I’m hoping it’ll taste decent enough, cause it sure looks crappy. :p I’ll let you know.

Didn’t we set record highs a few days ago? We’ve got a shot at the record low tonight. God bless Iowa.