How not to make an angel food cake

Last week I found the cutest recipe for a Halloween cake. It basically involved making a bunt cake and then frosting it to look like a pumpkin. I decided that I wanted to make it for my upcoming Halloween party. But first, I would need a bunt cake pan. I went to a few stores looking for a good pan. I finally let a sales person convince me to buy a bunt cake pan made from silicon. It seemed weird, but she claimed that it could withstand up to 300 degrees Celsius and was non-stick. Apparently it’s the new big thing in baking. Besides, silicon pans seem to be all anyone is selling right now.

So I bought the silicon pan and wanted to try it out right away (wouldn’t you?!,) so I started looking through my cookbooks for angel food cake recipes. Most of the recipes called for 10-12 egg whites, which I didn’t have, and I wasn’t about to go back to the store. So I kept digging until I found a low-fat recipe that only called for 5 eggs whites, which I did have, so we had a winner.

However, there was still a problem. The recipe (like all other recipes) called for a ½ teaspoon of cream of tartar. I had definitely heard of cream of tartar, but I knew that I didn’t have it in my cupboard. P had no idea what it was, and looking it up in the dictionary didn’t clue me in as to what I could substitute it with. (FYI Cream of tartar is a byproduct of grapes used in wine making.) But it was only a ½ teaspoon, right? Did I really need it? Naaaah. I threw in a little extra cornstarch and called it good.

30 minutes later and I was ready to remove my silicon bunt pan from the oven. I peaked inside the oven door and saw that the pan didn’t melt, so we were off to a good start. I removed the cake from the oven and set it on the counter. Something was definitely wrong; the cake hadn’t risen at all! It was only about 1 inch thick. Shouldn’t it have risen up and essentially filled the cake pan? I tried to ease it out of the pan, but it didn’t come easily, so eventually I used force since it was destroyed anyway. I cut myself a slice thinking, “Just because it didn’t rise doesn’t mean that it won’t taste good.” Well, it didn’t taste bad; actually, it didn’t really taste like anything! I guess that’s what happens when you use a low-fat recipe and essentially no sugar!

However, this story may get a happy ending. I found out that the Old English Shoppe in Gothenburg sells cream of tartar! I’m going to pick some up on my way home from work and try out a different angel food cake recipe when I get home.

Cold and Dark, Clean and Shiny, Battle won

Brrr it’s cold. I took the bus to work this morning. It was still very dark out when I left the house at 7. It was cold too. I guess I might need to take my winter jacket out of hibernation tomorrow. I always put off taking out my winter jacket for as long as possible because I know that once I take it out for the season, there’s no going back. It’s like admitting that “yes, summer is really over, and I won’t actually be outside during the daylight hours again until next March.” I think that we are changing the clocks next weekend too, so I guess we will have a little bit extra light in the mornings, but that won’t last long.

We spent the whole weekend cleaning our apartment. I have never actually leased an apartment 1st hand in the US, but as I understand it, you have to pay a deposit up front, and you don’t usually get much of your deposit back when you move out. It works differently in Sweden. You don’t pay a deposit, however, they inspect your apartment when you move out and they will send you a bill for any damages. They will also bill you if the apartment is not properly cleaned, which means that you have to scrub every little nook and cranny if you want to avoid extra charges. We spent hours cleaning the apartment (not just this past weekend, but several weekends since moving out.) Now the oven looks like it has been never been used (almost,) the tub is shiny, and the windows are so clear that they are a hazard for birds. I also carefully dusted the tops of the doorjambs and hinges, the floor molding, the lights, everywhere. I dare say that the apartment is clinically clean. It’s such a relief to have it finished so that we can focus on other things, like the new house!

We finally won our battle with Telia! You may recall our little phone/internet/TV dilemma? We finally got phone and internet about 1 month after moving in; however, Telia told us that we could not get TV because the “hub is full on our street.” The thing is, we decided to hire Telia because we would get free TV for one year (if we signed up for phone and internet.) We also signed up for everything last July. Needless to say, we were pretty peeved when Telia suddenly told us that they could not provide television as promised! We told them that we wanted 4,000+ SEK in compensation (because that is how much Telia charges for TV for one year.) Well, they actually agreed to give us the money! So on Friday we used the money to sign up for TV with a competitor (Boxer.) Although dealing with Telia has been a real headache, everything worked out for the best. We had originally wanted to hire Boxer as our TV provider because they offer a couple of more channels (channels that we wanted) but we had decided that we could live without those channels in order to save money (since Telia was offering free TV.) Now we still got one year of TV for free, plus we are getting those extra channels that we wanted! So if you’re keeping score, that’s Big Corporation: 1,000,000 points; Consumer: 1 point. Yes!