Cooking Fail. Again.

First of all, let me say THANK YOU for all the great advice you gave me about Kate’s room – the comments on my post were fantastic.

And now on to more failures in domesticity.

Wednesday night’s dinner was a disaster with a capital D. (Except I’m not going to capitalize it because it’s not a proper noun and capital letters used for emphasis drive me insane. But you know what I mean.)

Let me preface this by saying that on Wednesday, I didn’t walk in the door until 7:45 p.m. That is where the disaster began – it’s not a good idea to try complicated (or apparently even simple) recipes after a long day of work, softball practice, and a trip to the grocery store. Those nights should be designated for peanut butter and jelly sandwiches or something. But who am I kidding – every night is busy! And every night can’t be pb&j night. Can it? That is something to consider. I’m pretty sure I’d be fine with eating that for dinner all the time, throwing in pizza night every once in a while. Which makes me again ponder my reasoning for torturing myself trying to learn how to cook.

But I digress.

My grand plan was to make the Pioneer Woman’s BBQ chicken pizza. Now before you all freak out on me for attempting one of PW’s recipes, let me say that I made the recipe a couple weeks ago and it was delicious. I didn’t even screw it up! The recipe actually makes a double batch, so I had frozen the dough, chicken, and red onions, and had cheese and fresh cilantro ready to throw on it.

Nothing to it!

At least there shouldn’t have been anything to it, but of course this is me we’re talking about. As I mentioned, I had made the dough a week or so earlier and froze one portion of it, which I put in the refrigerator to thaw that morning. Smart, huh? Theoretically, yes. In practice, no. Because I am an idiot, I prepared the dough for freezing by wrapping it in wax paper and putting it in a ziploc bag.

Why exactly I thought pizza dough and wax paper were a good mix is pretty much beyond my comprehension, because on June 9, 2010 I posted this to Facebook:

Yet that didn’t cross my mind when I put yet another unsuspecting glob of dough onto wax paper.

SO.

When I tried to unwrap it to prepare the BBQ chicken pizza on Wednesday night, I found that the moisture in the dough had seeped into the wax paper, making it more the consistency of wet tissue paper. Which left my dough with a tasty coating of wax hanging on for dear life.

I was picking pieces of wax out of the dough when I heard Andy on the phone ordering pizza from people who actually know how to make it.

So I tossed my creation into the trash can and despite the fact that my husband could tell I was *thisclose* to completely losing my shit and was begging me to take my iPad and sit on the couch for a while, I decided to move on to my next culinary task of the night – the Heavenly Chocolate Cake Roll from Smitten Kitchen.

As you may know, it is currently Teacher Appreciation Week, and I had signed up to bring in dessert for the teachers at Sam’s school on Thursday. I thought since I’d be baking anyway, I’d also make one for Kate’s teacher. I was certain they’d, well, be in heaven while eating the heavenly cake roll.

As it turns out, I was in hell.

I had perused the recipe prior to that time and I thought I could handle it. I mean, I can make pumpkin rolls, so surely there’d be nothing to making their chocolate cousin. But as it turns out, I had apparently scanned the pictures in the recipe and had failed to read the list of ingredients and/or instructions on how to actually construct this thing. As I set out all the items the recipe called for, I realized that it didn’t make mention of any flour. I must have read the list 14 times trying to find where the flour was because it is a cake and cake has flour.

There was no flour.

So I started to read the instructions.

Preheat oven to 350°F. Butter or oil a 10-by-15-inch shallow baking or jellyroll pan. Line the bottom lengthwise with a piece of waxed or parchment paper that extends up the short sides one inch.

That part I could handle.

Melt chocolate with water or coffee in a small saucepan over very low heat until it is 75 percent melted. Remove from heat and stir until the remaining chocolate is smooth. Set aside to cool slightly.

The “75 percent melted” thing had me a little concerned – how does one measure the percentage of meltedness? I decided I had better read on before melting anything.

Beat egg yolks with an electric mixer until pale and creamy. Add sugar gradually, and continue to beat until yolks are pale and ribbony. Gently stir the chocolate into the yolk mixture.

Wait, what? I’ve never seen a ribbony egg. I was starting to panic.

In a clean bowl with clean beaters, beat egg whites with salt until they hold stiff peaks. Stir 1/4 of egg white mixture into the chocolate-yolk mixture to lighten it. Fold the remaining whites into the cake batter in three additions. Pour batter into prepared pan and smooth top. Bake in preheated oven for 15 minutes, or until cake layer feels dry (but very soft) to the touch and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. It will still seem a little underbaked.

That’s the part where I finally decided there was no way I would be able to do this. Cleaning the bowl and beaters seemed like a lot of trouble and the part about putting the egg whites into the chocolate yolk mixture sounded like it required someone with four hands. And really – I was supposed to put EGGS and CHOCOLATE into the oven and somehow it was magically going to turn into a cake?

Where was the FLOUR?

So I admitted defeat.

I turned to Andy, who had a slightly panicked look on his face, and said “I can’t do this.” He said “Thank God” and ushered me to the kitchen table where our delivery pizza was waiting.

The next day, I delivered chocolate covered Oreos to the teachers – presented in a Martha Stewart-esque manner… in the box that said Kroger Bakery.

Maybe next year.