So, it turns out rubber bands start to melt if you bake them at 375F for half an hour. It took me a while to figure out why the cherry-nectarine buckle didn't smell as good as I expected. For those of you who are in the dark, a buckle is basically a streusel-topped coffee cake with fresh fruit in the cake part. I messed with the recipe a little, but I didn't expect anything crazy to happen. (I used cherries instead of blueberries - by the way, pitting a bunch of fresh cherries and peeling nectarines are a huge pain in the ass, in case you wondered.) Then the house started to smell really weird.
Good thing I checked on the cake, because the rubber band that I put around the end of the springform cake tin had snapped and was starting to melt onto the oven rack. Chalk that one up to "it seemed like a good idea at the time." We're theoretically going to a friend's backyard barbeque tomorrow and I thought it would be good to bring something. Theoretically because if they don't have a covered area of their backyard, I'm not going. They're good cooks and all, but I'm totally not down with standing in the rain for hours for the sake of two beers and a damp-bunned hamburger.
Just in case the barbeque occurs, I decided to be all smart and forward-thinking and bake the cake in a pan lined with parchment paper for easy removal. But the parchment was kind of refusing to stay in place and I didn't have the cake batter ready yet to weigh it down, so I stuck a rubber band around the outside of the springform pan and that kept the parchment paper in place pretty nicely. However, I failed to take off the rubber band when I put the cake in the oven. It's like I thought the rubber would be impervious to heat or something. Why don't I ever learn? Tire fires are a running joke on Simpsons! The entire MBTA system smells like burning rubber! Putting rubber bands in a really hot oven is probably not a good idea.
Anyway, I hope it turns out okay despite the burning rubber thing. The french chocolate silk pie for Dave's birthday came out really well. We ate pie all weekend. I think it's the best birthday dessert I've made for him yet. I guess I'll find out if he requests it again next year.
2 comments:
Kitchen string, baby! Get a big roll and you can do a million things with it -- it's like the duct tape of the kitchen.
While reading this I was convinced that it was going to be one of the cats' fault, because that's totally what would happen in our house -- Francis has a rubber band obsession and he carries them around with him everywhere and hides them. When I sweep he follows me around the house to make sure I'm not sweeping up any of his rubber bands, and if I do he JUMPS into the pile of dust to rescue them.
I'm sure though, that you, unlike me, are intelligent enough to learn from your mistake, right?
From the person who has melted not just one, nor even two, but THREE, yes, three, plastic handles on large glass frying pan lids by using them as casserole lids in the oven. I *think* I might finally have learned that lesson now.
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