Kitchen Fails

Dave's sister is in town from South Carolina so we had her over for supper on Saturday along with his parents.  This is the cake I baked for his mother's 81st birthday.  Swell, isn't it?  This was the second attempt.  The pan for this is shallow like a tart pan with an indentation for filling when the cake is baked.  I've baked this a handful of times without incident but on Saturday...I was in a hurry.  I mixed the batter, filled the pans, threw them in the oven and returned to chopping and prepping whatever it was I was cooking.  Soon after I started hearing a hissing from the oven.  I turned around and the pans were bubbling over and burning onto the floor of the oven.

I'd just finished watching the finale of The Great British Baking Show the night before (Nadiya won!) and I realized at that moment I could never be on that show because I was yelling and swearing like sailor.  I actually had a fire in my oven.  Once the oven cooled down, I had to scrape out the charred on cake drippings.  It felt like I was cleaning a fireplace.  I washed the pans and started over, this time baking them on a cookie sheet which is what I usually do.  They've never boiled over on a cookie sheet I suppose because they're somewhat insulated.  The second attempt puffed into a mound as usual with no spillage.  Then I trimmed it, filled it and topped it with sliced berries into the finished cake you see above.

And THEN...on Sunday I was canning tomato sauce and salsa with corn and beans, inspired by my friend Brenda.  I had not quite a pint of salsa left over that I was going to just keep in the fridge for us to eat but at the last minute I found another wide mouth 1/2 pint jar.  I filled and covered it and used my tongs to try to find a spot to lower it into the canner.  I heard a faint tapping noise and suddenly the water was filled with salsa.  I lifted the jar and the entire bottom had cleanly snapped off.  I was visiting with a gal at work tonight and apparently that is not uncommon, but it was a famous first for me!  I got 7 1/2 pints of tomato sauce and 8 pints of salsa out of last night's processing. 

Still, none of my kitchen fails were as dramatic as THIS!