Everyone makes mistakes from time to time, some of them are bigger than others and stick with you better than the little mistakes. To Err is human after all right? Mistakes help us learn and all that jazz.
Today’s prompt is simply:
Write about a time you screwed up – a mistake you made.
Image from Stockvault.net
I’m sure there are things, LOTS of them really, that I can put here. But the one mistake, one really big screw up that I’ll forever remember is the first time I attempted to make a cake. It was my 12th birthday cake and aside from a friend over, I was home alone. No siblings, no mom, pretty sad for a 12th birthday huh?
Anyway, I’d never made a cake from scratch before, I’m sure by then I’d used a box mix or two but never by scratch. So of course I didn’t even realize the pan size for my cake was too small.
Imagine our surprise when smoke started filling our small apartment. Here we were an 11 (friend) and just turned 12 (it was seriously the day OF my birthday) year old, with smoke filling the apartment and no idea what was going on until we opened the oven door to find FIRE!
Yes, indeed the cake batter had gone over the edge of the cake pan down to the bottom of the oven and caught on fire.
I can remember my friend calling up her mom in a mix of fear and panic saying “Mommy, how do you put out an oven fire??” I can remember her voice too! We couldn’t get a hold of any of my family, and thankfully her mom was home!
We got the fire taken care of, the cake leveled off enough that it wasn’t going to cause further fire, and then resumed baking. Before the cake was finished though her mom had rushed over with a store bought cake and to make sure we were okay.
Thankfully, aside from just burning cake batter nothing horrible happened!
I like to use this story to remind all of my kids that sometimes, mistakes will happen when cooking. Nothing is going to go perfect more so when you’re just starting out, but you can’t let the little things like this (okay a fire isn’t a little thing.. but still!) stop you from being willing to learn how to do things in the kitchen.
Kat is 13 now, and made a cake using a box mix the other day. Aside from a tiny bit of assistance (in finding certain things in the kitchen) she did just fine. 😉
Kisa what a sad 12th birthday I agree. But I’m glad that everything was taken care of & how sweet that your friend’s mom saved that day AND brought you a cake 🙂 What a great life lesson for you to teach your kids out of such a wild (I’m sure a little traumatizing) situation!