Turn That Frown Upside-Down

Hello loyal fans and detractors!

I noticed, while reading some old posts, that it's been a while since I had an epic failure in the kitchen. On the one hand, Yay! I must be getting better! But on the other hand, Boo. Where's the entertainment value in writing about how great things are going? I suppose a blog, by nature, is mostly self-congratulatory but I'm most in my element when I'm being self-depreciating. It's a fairly effective way to maintain the appearance of modesty and humility in the face of recurring triumphs. It also keeps the students laughing (and hopefully, the blog-followers reading).

So. While losing the AFM's "Squash It!" contest helped some, that wasn't a personal failure so much as it was the indifference of cheese-aholic judges. Thus, to bolster my 'aw shucks' persona, I present for you the previous week's moderately disasterous attempt at an upside-down cake. Here's how it happened:

My mom sent down for me a bushel of tiny, home-grown pears. My high school teachers have been giving me produce for decades since I was the only vegan they knew. Even though I've moved away, my mom is still the recipient of their garden largess - this time 2 dozen of the sweetest pears I've even eaten. When those pears started to attract the beefed up fruit flies that live in my kitchen, it was time to bring on the baked goods.

Now, my only prior upside-down cake experience has been avoiding those made with pineapple. Pineapple upside-down cakes have a "nursing home" aura about them. They smell of heavy syrup and desperate resignation. Also - they look disgusting. Maraschino cherries fill me a diffuse, stormy (and, admittably illogical) rage. But I like the concept of fresh fruit on top of cake. And so my misadventure began.

Step one: Do not cut yourself while trying to peel and core the pears. This leads to blood in your brown sugar glaze. Just leave the peels on. People who won't eat fruit that isn't peeled shouldn't be offered dessert anyway.

Step two: Even though you have a bag full of orange slices leftover from last weekend's round of cinnamon tequila shots, it is not advisable to zest these. Zesting already-cut oranges will send an excruciating amount of juice and citric acid into your cut finger, dribbling down your arm and onto the rug. On the plus side, your kitchen will smell zesty fresh.

Step three: Remember that when you are melting butter in the glass dish, the dish will also get hot. Though, forgetting this will result in cauterizing the aforementioned cut, it also means you will dump half a stick of melted butter into the bottom of your oven.

Step four: Make sure you have all the ingredients necessary to make your cake. It can be very disheartening when you reach for your Tupperware container marked "white flower" (yes, I misspelled 'flour' when I initially made the label) and it is empty. Using all wheat flour isn't a huge set-back but it does change the consistency of the batter.

Step five: Stretch properly before attempting to flip hot cake out of the pan and onto a serving tray. If you are, like I was, attempting to use a serving tray that is significantly larger than the cake pan, it will require a kind of kitchen contortionism that can easily lead to singed forearms and a spilled cake that is less 'upside-down' than 'dumped onto a plate.'

Accidentally Wheat Fresh Pear Dump Cake

3-4 fresh pears, halved & cored

3/4 cup butter

1/4 cup brown sugar

1 cup white sugar

1 eggs worth of Ener-G egg replacer

1 teaspoon orange zest

1 teaspoon vanilla

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 2/3 cup flour

1/2 cup soymilk

Place 1/4 cup of butter in a 8x8 glass pan. Place pan in the oven to melt the butter as the oven is preheating to 350 degrees or so.

Cream the rest of the butter with the white sugar, vanilla, orange zest, and egg replacer mix. Set aside.

When the oven butter is melted, sprinkle the brown sugar over it and place the pears in the dish, cut side down. Set aside.

Blend the baking powder and salt into the butter-egg mixture. Alternate adding the flour and milk until completely smooth and blended.

Pour the mixture over the pears in the dish. Bake for 40 minutes or so.

Invert onto a serving dish. Scrape out any cake parts that stayed stuck inside the pan (because you didn't really have hands large enough to invert a scalding hot glass dish onto a plate) and rebuild the corners and sides into something resembling a square cake.

You should eat this cake within a week. Even keeping it in the fridge won't make it last much longer than that. If you don't mind moldy pears on your cake (and I certainly don't) then it will keep for much longer.

And there you have it, kids. A sweet & wheaty cake and a little bit of my failure.

I hope you enjoy them both.