/ Food
Cheap Eat Beat: Cake in a Soup Pan
I don't own an oven, but for my sweeties birthday I was bound and determined to bake a cake. This is a dangerous prospect for a half-hazard cook like myself, but hey. A birthday's a birthday and love is love. So after getting the birthday boy out of the way, I high-tailed it to Tesco, where I was sure I could pick up an oversized oven, big enough to bake a small cake in. On arrival, I realized it was Saturday afternoon, primetime for Chinese shoppers and gawkers. There were so many people there, I couldn't find a cart and I had to elbow and squeeze my way to the appliance section.
"Excuse me!" I panted to a surly store staff, who glanced at me like I was a small rodent. "Excuse me, do you have an oven?"
Slowly, she curled her lip and pointed. Following her finger, I saw a toaster oven, big enough for a single piece of toast. Panicking, I asked her if there was anything bigger. She laughed and said no.
Steeling myself, I hopped onto the metro and risking life and limb, emerged from Carrefour with bruises on the backs of my knees, a steaming temper, and a brand new RMB400 oven, big enough to roast a chicken in. Elated, I made it home and began to look for recipes. My friend, the baking expert, arrived with a whoosh and happily asked what kind of cake we were making.
"Vanilla," I smiled. "With chocolate topping."
"Great!" he said. "Where's the pan?"
With a feeling of sinking doom, I realized...I DID NOT OWN A BAKING PAN. The idea of returning to Carrefour was heart stopping, so frantically; I scrabbled around in the depths of my cabinets and finally emerged with a small metal soup pot whose handle had recently broken off. This bowl was the only fire-proof, melt proof pan in the entire house.
At the end of the day, we hand beat all the ingredients, baked it lumpy at a low temperature, let it cook for 45 minutes after panicking slightly when the oven started smoking, ended up leaving half of the cake burnt to the bottom of the pot, decorated the cake with store bought vanilla icing and a melted bar of dark chocolate and the result was ..... pretty damn good.
More on baking cakes in soup pots out of a big toaster oven next week.