South Cove County Park, Seneca, South Carolina
Then he reached out his hand and took the knife to slay his son. ~ Genesis 22:10 Oh my! How could God ASK such a thing?!? How could Abraham DO such a thing?!? And how could Isaac willingly SUBMIT to such a thing?!? The writer of Hebrews at least gives us a little insight as to what Abraham was thinking, “By faith Abraham, when God tested him, offered Isaac as a sacrifice. He who had received the promises was about to sacrifice his one and only son, even though God had said to him, ‘It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned.’ Abraham reasoned that God could raise the dead, and figuratively speaking, he did receive Isaac back from death.” (Hebrews 11:17-19) It doesn’t get any more foreshadowing of the events roughly 1,800 years later, that culminated in Jesus’s willing sacrifice, than this.
When they warn you for days that there’s 100% chance of rain all day long, it’s a good bet the weatherman’s gonna be right. And they were. And this is why Blaine, in all his wisdom, moved us a day early.
Unfortunately, we had a desperate need for a few groceries, so about mid-morning, Blaine donned his raincoat and took off for a nearby WalMart. When he returned, he brought a lot of extra precipitation into the coach with him. But now I had what I needed to bake the cake we’re taking to Bruce and Donna’s tomorrow – among other things.
And the rain continued to pour. Non-stop, all day, and most of the night, with the last bout of storms rolling through about 3:00am.
We promised to bring dessert to Bruce and Donna’s tomorrow, and my dark chocolate cake recipe (found on the back of Hershey’s Special Dark cocoa can) is simple to make. Especially since I have it typed up and stored in my laptop so I don’t have to try to read that microscopic print on the back of the can. 😊
Since the only oven I have is a toaster oven (I very much dislike the convection oven that came with our microwave), I can only bake one round cake layer at a time.
When the time was up on the first layer, I pulled the cake out of the oven and discovered that not only was the entire cake sunken in, it had also spilled over the edges like lava! (although thankfully, only one drop hit the bottom of the oven) What in the world???? I’ve never had that happen before! It turned out that the one cup of boiling water I was supposed to add to the batter at the end of the mixing process was still sitting in the microwave. Ugh! Who knew what trouble forgetting a little hot water could cause?
you could see the cooling rack through it!
As Blaine cleaned up the massive mess (stuck on cake, and another batter-filled pan, I began again. It’s a good thing I had started with a brand new can of Special Dark, otherwise, we’da had to come up with Plan B. Such a waste of time and resources!
I didn’t forget the water the second time. 😊
By the way, since I produced such a flop, I looked up why you need the hot water. Here’s what I found:
The hot water is added at the end of the mixing because the flour is effectively coated with fat (the oil and eggs), thereby reducing the amount of gluten that can form (flour + liquid). The reason the water is hot is because hot liquid (water/coffee) helps “bloom” cocoa powder, creating a deeper, more rich chocolate flavor. When mixed with water, baking powder will produce air bubbles. As cakes bake in the oven, the air bubbles expand which leads to the cake rising.
No water? No gluten. No air bubbles. No rise in the cake. Not good!
Thus ends your baking (science) lesson for today.