When I turned 30, I was living with a friend at her apartment for rent. She had renovated her two-room apartment and moved in when she got married and asked me to move in with her. After giving it a thought, she convinced me a year later. It was a cozy gorgeous apartment and living with them was fun. I usually finish my work by evening, and we hang out at night. My friend is a great cook and she specializes in cakes. I am pretty sure her spirit animal is a Betty Crocker Super Moist chocolate cake. So basically, she cooked and we ate.
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| Archie Binamira |
Anyway, when I started dating my last boyfriend, he used to come to our place to spend time with me and became fast friends with my housemates. He would come around 9 at night after work, and we occupied the sofa in front of the TV while my friend sat in her customary recliner. We watched the Hindi shows she liked to watch religiously, especially the dance and singing shows.
Somedays I liked to cook him something special for our date nights and he seems to like it. Then, I wanted to kick it up a notch and had the bright idea to make him a cake. He was a sweet food lover and our romance was new, I wanted to show off how good I can be. So, under the watchful eye of my friend, one afternoon, I began my journey to bake my first cake. I poured in the cake mix along with the ingredients together instructed as in the packaging. She stood next to me giving out the commands “mix all together!”, “grease the pans!”, “preheat the oven!” like she was a drill sergeant. To be fair, I did tell her I wanted to do it all by myself.
The cake was 2 layered with whip cream (which I made from scratch) in middle and around it. I finished off with chocolate chips on top. Madam checked the cake turning it around solemnly and finally smiled and gave a thumbs up. Feeling like a pro I presented my prestigious cake to my boyfriend that night. The cake was a hit and I awarded myself the second-best baker in the world. (First being my friend, of cause)
After another few days and I was still riding my overconfidence high. I asked him to tell me the cake he craved most. He was like anything will be fine. I said, no no, you have to tell. After a little more coaxing he finally said he really loves fruit cake. Now I had no idea what a fruit cake was, I mean it must be a cake with fruits inside, right? It was there in the name. I did not want to ask for more details from him since I did not want him to think I did not know. I was not much of a sweet tooth kind of a person, or more precisely, I did not make food before, food was made for me.
So anyway, I was like sure I can make it for you, and I dove straight into google to search every fruit cake recipe in history. Although, the cake he actually envisioned was a butter cake with whip cream and fruits on top. The recipe for fruit cake I decided on was with dried fruits in the batter, so I thought ok I got this.
That fateful day I came home from work, armed with the ingredients as per the recipe and I explained it to my friend. She seemed a bit skeptical and told me that baking from a cake mix is easy, but from scratch might be a bit tricky. And I was like I got the recipe and recited the mantra “we got this!”
Beginning it was fine, I measured the ingredients, (after a few hiccups, apparently dry ingredients and liquid ingredients are measured in different cups!). Almost made a blunder, thankfully my friend stopped me in time. I mixed in all ingredients and it seemed fine, and when I reached for the salt, my friend asked” you are putting salt?” I said, “Yes, it needs a pinch of salt, see.” I showed her the recipe but she did not seem convinced. When they said a pinch, they did not give an exact measurement, but I’m a baker now, and I knew how much a pinch was. So, I added a pinch. Once in the oven, I pulled up a chair and sat in front of it, waiting for my masterpiece to emerge.
Things started to go downhill from there, fast. When I took out the cake after instructed time was up, the middle was a bit gooey, so put it back in. my friend told me to change the settings to bake more inside part. Who knew, the oven can do up or down or middle baking? Anyway, the second time I took it out it was still not cooked inside. It was almost time for my boyfriend to come and I started to get flustered. I put the cake back again and waited. The third time even though it was the same, the outside of the cake was now beginning to overcook and turning a greenish-black color. After the fourth time, I decided it was fine and took it out to cool. Once it cooled, I placed a plate over the pan and flipped it. The sound it made when it fell into the plate was like a brick on ceramic. The cake was hard on the outside and gooey on the inside and it tore in the bottom where it had got stuck half on the pan.
My boyfriend, who had arrived a few minutes earlier has already seen me fussing over the cake. Now I cannot hide it and come up with a lie even. He was settled at our dining table. Must have been dreaming about a fruit cake the whole day for all I knew. Reluctantly I cut a good piece and brought it to him. I told him about the baking error and he was like it’s fine, it looks good. He ate a bit and kept saying it was tasty. Unconvinced I took a bite and realized I did not know what a pinch of salt meant. The cake was not only burned, but the taste of salt was so strong it overpowered every other taste it might have had.
I took the piece from him and threw the whole cake away. To this day he insists he liked that disaster of a cake I made that day. He is sweet like that. No wonder I had to marry him. The poor unfortunate soul.
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