Out of the Oven and Into the Trash

You will note the giant crater in the middle of the cake.

Lest you think everything I make works out, I wanted to share this picture of my failed lemon poppy seed cake attempt with you.  What you can't see in the picture is the blob of poppy seeds that somehow migrated to the lower left corner of the cake.  Not particularly appetizing, if I do say so myself.

I have to start out by saying that I followed the directions.  I whipped the eggs and the sugar for five minutes as instructed, and I lightly folded in the dry ingredients.  (Lightly being the key word here because I have a somewhat heavy hand when it comes to folding.)  I have no idea what went wrong.  All I know is that I have a lemon cake with a giant crater in the middle.  Hum...

I make lots of things that don't work out.  I just don't tell you about them.  I have to keep the mystique going and if I reported on every kitchen misstep, well, that's all I'd be writing about.

But here's the thing.  I don't mind when things don't result in a culinary masterpiece (or in this case, something edible).  Not everything Julia Child made was successful.  In fact, if I'm to believe all that I've read about her, there were at least as many failures as there were successes.

Sometimes the recipes don't work because I did something wrong and I'm willing to admit that.  But you know what?  Sometimes it's the recipe.  Not every recipe in every cookbook works.  Imagine that?  Most do, but sometimes they just don't.


My family is always very patient when I serve a somewhat less that perfect chicken dish for dinner.  We've gotten good at cutting around the sunken centers of pound cakes.  But sometimes things just land in the trash can, which is very frustrating, but you know what? It's not the end of the world.

It's just a cake.