The Pyromaniac

 

I’ve always been interested in baking. More so in actually making the desserts than eating them. However, as accomplished and experienced I am now, it definitely wasn’t always like that. There was one particular day that especially stands out. I was in grade 8 and I had the day off from school, so I was home alone as my parents had gone off to work and my sister had school. I thought it would be a good idea to make a cake and surprise my family when they came home. Of course, this was around the very beginnings of my baking shenanigans and my parents were just starting to trust me enough to use the oven and make stuff on my own, without fear of burning the house down. However, their fear may have had some truth to it! I found a recipe online and got to work. I set all the ingredients on the counter before preheating the oven. Milk, flour, sugar, eggs, vanilla extract, cocoa powder, and finally, butter. All of them were lined neatly on the counter, along with a whisk and a large mixing bowl and and baking tray. However, I had one small problem. The recipe called for melted butter. Where would I get melted butter? Eventually, I realized that I could just stick some butter in the microwave and I would have melted butter. So I grabbed a large microwavable bowl and dropped a stick of butter in it, complete with the foil wrapping. I set the microwave for two and a half minutes. I went on my phone to pass the time until I heard something popping and sizzling. Worried, I got up from the couch I was sitting at and ran to the microwave, only to find that the foil around the stick of butter had caught on fire. Naturally, I panicked for a few seconds and was unsure of what to do. Then my adrenaline kicked in and I yanked open the door to the microwave and tried to take the bowl out of the microwave. Luckily, the bowl hadn’t gotten very hot and it wasn’t hard to take it and place the bowl on the counter. However, there was still a fire in the bowl and it was growing bigger and bigger. I took the bowl to the kitchen sink and turned the faucet on full blast and stuck the bowl right underneath it. The fire quickly sizzled out. I turned the faucet off and checked to see what the damage was. The butter was definitely melted, however the foil was now burned and pieces of it mixed into the butter. There was also the water that I had put into the water. Obviously, water and butter don’t mix so I had a weird mixture of burnt foil, butter and water. In all this excitement, I hadn’t noticed all the smoke rising as a result of the fire, so the fire alarm went off just then. I grabbed a hand towel and ran to the fire alarm and tried to wave the cloth around so the alarm would stop. Unfortunately though, I wasn’t quite tall enough to reach so I had to drag over a chair and stand on it to try to get the alarm to stop. When I finally got the alarm to stop, I went back to the kitchen. I ended up dumping the butter and water and melting butter again, this time making sure I didn’t put any foil in the microwave. Finally, I made the cake and successfully took the cake out of the oven without any other incidences. However, I wasn’t done. I still had to ice the cake.  I debated between regular icing or chocolate icing. I decided to use regular icing and then drizzle some melted chocolate on top. I made the icing, quite uneventfully and spread it over the cake. Now, I just had to melt the chocolate. Luckily, we had some milk chocolate at home. I took a smaller glass bowl this time, and put the chocolate in and stuck it in the microwave. This time, I stayed near the microwave, making sure nothing caught on fire. But there was another problem this time. I didn’t know chocolate would take so long to fully melt, so I kept the microwave going for a while.  There was a loud crack and the sound of a mini explosion. The glass had broken and a little bit of the chocolate had explosion all over the inside of the microwave. I grabbed my oven mitt before I attempted to take what was left of the bowl out and set it aside. Luckily, only the tops of the bowl had broken so most of the melted chocolate was still in the bottom of the bowl. Before I cleaned the microwave though, I drizzled the chocolate over the cake, in fear it would solidify before I finished cleaning. I carefully cleaned the pieces of glass and wiped down the inside of the microwave. Ultimately, the cake was really good. The icing tasted vaguely of burnt things. But my family enjoyed the cake. They didn’t know the full extent of my experience though! I put a temporary halt to my baking for a while after that day. When I started baking again, I made sure to be careful and think before melting stuff in the microwave!