I Blame The Whipping Cream

It all started when Micah jacked Becky's cream.

Today is Becky's boyfriend's birthday. She found a cake to make called salted caramel six-layer chocolate cake, and thought it would be the perfect thing to bake for him. I have to admit that I was really looking forward to having a piece of that. She needed some special ingredients, and stopped by the grocery on the way home from church Wednesday evening to pick them up. Heavy whipping was in a small carton in the fridge, waiting to be used in something awesome.

Micah slept in this morning, until nearly 9:00.  It's so rare that this happens that I was about to go check his breathing when he came downstairs to greet me, and request that I make him breakfast. He got dressed for school, then Becky helped him pack his lunch. Daddy drove him down to school, and we got on with our day.

If you've ever made homemade caramel you know it's not easy. And yet, Becky's turned out perfect the very first time. Then, as per the recipe, she needed to add the whipping cream. But it wasn't in the fridge where it should have been, nor was it on the counter where she thought she might have set it and forgot. In fact, it wasn't anywhere. And that's when she realized that Micah jacked her cream. The carton looks just like the one Micah got milk in at school, and he was pretty sure someone was kind enough to have gotten him one for his lunch box. I told Becky to go to the school and rescue her cream. It was as far away as the grocery store, and there's no need to buy it twice.

She called to say that she never did get to the school. She hit an ice patch, spun a few times, nearly rolled the car, righted again and hit a ditch, then ended up on a bank facing the opposite direction in which she was traveling. Mercifully, she wasn't hurt, and the car was completely off the road and out of the path of oncoming vehicles. And it was at a neighbor's house that we knew, so she waited there until I arrived. Our friends checked the car over, declared it good to go, and helped push her over the ditch and onto the road. She escaped with a dinged bumper and a scare, because God is good.

At the school, the teacher knew exactly what we were there for, because Micah was eating his snack and was quite peeved when the teacher took the whipping cream that he rightfully stole. She was fairly certain that he shouldn't be drinking whipping cream, and ignored the stink eye Micah was giving her.

Turns out, you can't really re-heat caramel on the stove to soften it again. It burned. Becky started over, and realized why caramel is difficult to make. The second batch was tossed, as was the third. And then she decided it just wasn't going to happen and looked for another recipe. Except her frosting recipe didn't turn out either, so she ended up calling Daddy and asking him to pick up frosting on his way home. We would enjoy chocolate cake with cream cheese frosting, from a can, for dessert. But there was always the chicken pot pie and potato salad.

But the pot pie didn't go as planned, and it ended up being a casserole with biscuits. And she decided to change to macaroni salad because it was easier than potato salad. She's not a slacker in the kitchen (she's our personal chef) but she was just not having a good day. At all. Easier was better. And this is where I taught her a very important life lesson.

The best laid plans will always be thwarted when it's important that they turn out. You can plan the best birthday dinner ever, with all the foods the birthday recipient loves, but days like today are why you end up eating box mac-n-cheese for special celebrations. She said next year she might just order pizza. But she's an awesome little cook, and the chicken pot pie was very good, even if the cake was a bit less than.

And we all learned that if you're going to keep whipping cream in the house, you'd better hide it to avoid kicking off a series of events that makes your day not so good.


1 comment:

Mary said...

Love this story. Sounds like quite a day.