Conquering the Miracle Oven

So, I am long overdue for a blog entry. I keep having all these thoughts I want to write about, but I've been so wiped out lately that, when I sit down in the evening, I just want to veg and not think at all!

Anyway, tonight is my introvert night. :) John, Tom, & Alana are attending a discussion group about The Shack on Wednesday evenings. Tom was feeling bad and worried I would feel left out. Tom is an extreme extrovert and doesn't understand that time alone is a treasured treat to an introvert like me. So, they all get something fun for the evening, and I get an evening of time to just be by myself!

So, I thought I'd jump back in on a little blogging with something not too deep--my foray into the world of the Miracle Oven. So, I've used this word foray before, but I thought I should look it up to make sure I'm actually using it correctly, and it turns out that it fits in a funny way even better than I thought! One definition from dictionary.com is "an initial venture," which is what I was thinking. But, the first definition is "a quick raid, usually for the purpose of taking plunder." While it obviously doesn't fit literally, it kind of made me laugh about attacking the Miracle Oven last night and taking no prisoners! Ha.

The Miracle Oven is, well, not that much of a miracle. But, it is sort of brilliant, I guess. It is basically this pot that has a base with a heating stone in it. You set it on top of the burner on the stove, and you put what you want to bake in the pot, and it functions (basically) as an oven.

Don't kid yourselves, though, it is not the same. For one thing, it has a giant hole in the center, so anything you bake is going to be in the shape of a ring with a giant hole in the center! For another, there aren't any temperature settings. You're just setting a pot on top of a gas burner, so you just have to adjust the burner and take your best guess at what might be a reasonable level and amount of time to bake whatever you have put in the pot.

No one here has a "regular" oven. We may, at some point, get a toaster oven, but for now, this is the option we have for baking, so since today is Alana's birthday, I decided that last night I would conquer the Miracle Oven! Haha, plunder I shall take!

Tom bought a cake mix at the store, and I mixed that up, greased up the Miracle Oven, and baked it. I checked at one point, and it was still all gooey. Less than 10 minutes later, it had burned a little. :( Thankfully, it wasn't too bad at all, so I just trimmed a bit out of the center where it got a little too dark.

Now, if the Miracle Oven had been my only challenge in making a birthday cake, it wouldn't have actually seemed that amazing of a feat. But, then comes the frosting. They don't sell frosting here, which is ok because I much prefer homemade frosting anyway. Except, confectioners sugar is a rarity here. We expected that challenge and, on the way home from language class, John and I stopped at a grocery we hadn't been at before that we heard had some other stuff that is harder to find (like cow's milk cheese, which we also obviously had to bring home with us!). They did have "icing sugar," which is what it is labeled as here, but it comes in very small packages. I think they were 100 grams each. Not that grams holds any frame of reference for me, and for those who are with me, it was maybe 3/4 cup in a bag. Luckily, it wasn't too expensive, so we bought four bags and brought them home. So, I was basically going to make a buttercream frosting. Well, the "icing sugar" seems way less sweet than our confectioners sugar, so after dumping in all four bags (expecting I could get away with only 3), it still just tasted like butter AND was way too think to stir, which brings me to the other significant challenge in making frosting--no electric beaters. It is very challenging to beat butter well enough with a whisk, not to mention that the only whisk in the house has a handle that falls off, so you have to hold the handle onto the whisk while trying to whip this all together. Um, it did not look or taste that great! I had to add some milk just to be able to stir it, but then it was too runny, so it just ran all down the sides of the cake. Well, I put it in the fridge, and by this morning, it had firmed up enough that I could put the extra on it, scoop up what had run down the sides, and cover the cake reasonably well. I sprinkled some regular sugar on top, hoping to give a little boost of sweetness, and hoped for the best.

We cut into it this afternoon, and it tasted like a cake, which all things considered, is rather remarkable! It's no airplane cake, but I have to say, I felt a little proud of my conquest! In fact, I'm eating another piece now to celebrate. :) Happy Birthday, Alana!