Of Course I Fail Now…

…that I am finished with the Pintester Movement. I’m so fail, I fail at failing when failing is the whole point! Okay, so I guess success is the point too, but failing at Pinterest is so much more fun!

The day after I participated and submitted my blog post for the Movement, I decided to try a new Pinterest recipe that I found repinned by my neighbor, Shannon. It was an apple oatmeal dump in the crockpot dish. The picture is so alluring, you can’t help but want to try it. See for yourself.

“Delicious” Apple Cinnamon Crock Pot Oatmeal

Do not be fooled by this picture. The recipe was totally fracked. Maybe it was because it was 6am and I was tired and ready for bed after a long night of photo editing and blogging. Maybe it was my ignorance in cooking oatmeal any where but the microwave with directions on the packet. I don’t know, but I followed the recipe to the letter and what I got was very bland apple oatmeal soup.

Don’t let the picture fool you either. It was awful!

Mike tried to doctor it, he even ate a bowl of it. Gave me a taste that promptly made me make a face. I wasn’t sure it was worth salvaging. After the first (and only) bowl, I still need to scrub the crock pot.

Later as I was leaving the house, I asked Mike for the debit card. The conversation went like this:

Me: Can I have the card before I leave?
Mike: Why? You won't need it.
Me: But what if I get hungry?
Mike: Well go eat some of your apple crap before ya leave.

I looked it up on my favorite recipe site, Justapinch.com. The commenters suggest only adding 2 cups of water then towards the end of cook time, adding up to 2 cups of milk, depending on how much liquid it still needs. Also, add your cinnamon at that time too, about 30 minutes before you think it should be done. I will try this again soon and post an update on how it turned out.

Fall is, hands down, my favorite season. Getting into the dog days of summer always makes me long for fall, cooler weather, brightly colored leaves and baking. As soon as we had our first cool day, I looked up recipes for spice cake. Which of course led me to pumpkin spice cake. Which lit me up like a kid at a candy store. I would make this fabulous Pumpkin Spice Cake with Cream Cheese Icing.

It would be so good, Mike would marry me all over again. It would be so good, Shannon would think I was a domestic goddess, it would be so good a line of people would form outside my kitchen door.

As Mike just put it, it was a “cake that try men's souls...”. It definitely tried mine. I mean it had so much potential! But, I am me and I make stupid mistakes. Especially when I multitask.


After baking it the required 50 minutes, I did the toothpick test and it came out clean. Which surprised me, since my oven doesn’t hold true and things have to cook a bit longer than instructed. I pulled it out anyway and set it on the stove eye to cool for about half an hour, then I would turn it out. I had been preparing dinner while it cooked, to be ready for the oven after the cake came out.  I also made some green beans and mashed potatoes; putting the two on the stove to warm and boil, respectively. I then joined Mike to watch some Sons of Anarchy while it all cooked for a bit. Mike and I noted that the cake really smelled good, like it was cooking still. I went to the kitchen to check on things and wouldn’t you know, I had turned on the eye I had set the cake on! It was only on the stove because I didn’t have a trivet handy. I yanked it up and turned out to prevent any more damage, and sure enough, it was a little burned. Okay, no loss, I can cut off the burnt part. I do this and discover, the cake isn’t thoroughly cooked. But it’s edible, not liquid. This was a dense cake it really was edible if a touch under done. Then I got the cream cheese icing and it felt rather light. Apparently at some point in the last year, we had opened and used it, I remember now, for red velvet cupcakes. Not only was it half empty, it was turning pink. Gross! I then scrounged up some white icing and Mike, who will try it if I made it, ate some and told me it wasn’t that bad. I tried it, it was so bland. All the spices were right, but I didn’t get enough salt into it. That was that. I had enough of this debacle. The cake now lovingly rests in my trash can. Gone were my delusions of cake mastery. Dashed were my hopes and dreams. Sad face.

Cake of Soul Crushing Disappointment

Until next time,

I love y’all.