CAKE

or, How I Burned My Face Melting Butter.

Today in my little corner of the world, it's a bank holiday. This doesn't actually affect me, since my husband is off work anyway and I don't have a job and we weren't planning on doing anything. BUT I feel the need to use 'it's a bank holiday' as my excuse for trying to make cake for dinner tonight, and the chaos that ensued.

I was making no-bake tiffin cakes, a'la My Daddy Cooks. Because it's easy and because tiffin cakes are yummy and because we had all the ingredients. Which is pretty much my criteria for making anything.
First I had to crush the biscuits. Nick recommends doing this in a bag, but again, I'm lazy and couldnt be bothered to find a bag, plus I like mine crushed a little finer than the bag allows for. So I just break them by hand and then complain about how long and arduous this process is. Tonight I managed to rub my skin raw breaking biscuits, which is a) ridiculous, and b) kind of deeply deeply gross. I have decided it's ok however, because no one else will be eating them and I'm pretty sure Mr A doesn't mind eating a little bit of my skin. Lets face it, we're a married couple, he's done worse.
So now I have really painful hands, which are silky smooth but that's only nice for anyone I'm touching, not so nice for me, who has been rubbed raw. Next I have to melt some butter. Simple? Oh. Oh no. Not simple at all, apparently, because when I put the butter in the pan, it all goes horribly, inexplicably, wrong. First clouds of smoke, thick, grey, solid-looking smoke, issue out of the pan in quantities I've never seen issue from anything in my life. It is EVERYWHERE. I turn the heat off and move the pan, but it doesn't stop. Mr A comes to the rescue, opening the back door and telling me to calm down. Once the smoke stops, I resume cooking, except it's not over yet. As soon as I put the rest of the butter in the pan, it starts EXPLODING IN MY FACE. Yes, you read that right. EXPLODING all up in my FACE. Then it starts exploding EVERYWHERE. I'm screaming, Mr A has Baby A and so can't come and rescue me, I back off from the pan but now I'm trapped in the corner of the room while the pan is still on the heat, volcanic bursts of boiling butter spewing forth every few seconds, coating everything in a five foot radius, including my face and arms.
Eventually I grabbed a towel, covered myself and moved in on it. This minimized the damage, but didn't stop it all together. I was terrified every time I heard the pop and bang and felt hot fat hit me through the towel.

I've just surveyed the damage, and my entire kitchen, including the clean clothes and nappies hanging up to dry, is covered in big fat droplets of grease. I did a quick wash of the floor but it's going to need heavy duty work tomorrow to get it properly usable again.

Ugh. Bloody bank holiday Monday. Why didn't I just make toast?