That sinking feeling

I’m making decent enough progress on the marking to intersperse it with some baking, and the occasional squinty-eyed foray into the garden sunshine.  It’s not all good though.

Remember the last post about all the cakey-baking?  I knocked out 4 chocolate cakes last night, all good.  Today’s kitchen excursion was to make 2 or 3 banananana cakes from the el cheapo ones that I froze last week.  Which was working well, or so I thought.  I had noticed a bit of odd behaviour from the digital scales as I weighed and measured- numbers kept jumping up, then down, then back again.  Twice I took everything out and started again, leaving floury/sugary/buttery messes everywhere.

I chucked it all into loaf tins, and left it to get on with baking.  Some time later, risen, browned…but wobbling like banananana jellies.  This is not normal.  I’ve been making these cakes for YEARS with no ill effects.  I turned t’oven down, and gave them a looooong time on a low temperature.

This is what I got.

There has been some swearing.  Wife [who insisted on ‘upgrading’ my ancient tatty scales] will be made to eat the sunken messes.  Hang on, that’s not actually much of a punishment, these will still be tasty as pudding with custard.  Dammit!

I did some more marking, then banged out 2 lemon drizzle cakes.  They are fine, because I DID NOT use the digital scales.

Meanwhile, on the marking front, apart from having googly eyes, I think I need to buy one of these:

Ah well, the garden’s looking gorgeous.