Sunday, August 24--Maybe We Won't Starve Afterall

Jim’s birthday was Tuesday, and since we were still in the hotel, the best dessert I could manage was a chocolate pudding pie. Not the same as a birthday cake. So this morning I set out to conquer the Japanese oven. We lucked out and got a model that is large enough to hold a 9” X 13” pan, perfect for making a cake. This oven is like nothing I’ve ever seen before—and I’m not just talking about the size. It is a convection oven/broiler/microwave combination, and you’ve got to push the right combination of buttons to get the function you want. Plus, like everything else outside of the United States, it’s metric—the temperature setting is in Celsius. Luckily, someone had taped a conversion chart next to the temperature knob. I spent 30 minutes studying the instruction manual, with its cartoon-like pictures and sporadic English words handwritten by someone who had taken pity on the American folks who cycle through this house. Finally, I got the temperature set and the oven turned on to preheat, but apparently there is no way to turn off the convection fan. I remember horror stories about Grandma Walker trying to make peanut butter brownies in the convection oven at the school and blowing the batter all out of the pans, so I didn’t have a really good feeling about the outcome of this endeavor.

Once the oven was preheated, I put the pan in and set the timer for the 32 minutes recommended on the cake mix box. I was worried about the fan, so in five minutes I planned to turn the pan around so the batter would blow evenly back to the other side. Well, the oven fits a 9” X 13” pan, but there is no extra room for reaching in with potholders to grab the hot pan. I tried sliding out the rack, but it is not on a fixed track like American ovens—pull it out too far and the whole thing tips forward and crashes onto the open door. Luckily it only had about two inches to fall and I was able to keep the cake pan from careening off onto the floor. After about five minutes of finagling (and letting all of the heat out of the oven), I got the pan turned and was back in business. I checked again in another five minutes to see if I needed to turn the pan once more to keep the cake level, and the top was already looking like a cake that had been baking for half an hour! A frantic run to the internet to look up “baking cakes in a convection oven” and I discovered that I should have reduced the temperature 25-50 degrees from what the box recommended. I turned down the temperature and in an attempt not to have the top of the cake become charcoal, covered the whole thing with foil. I paced nervously back and forth, pulling the cake out about every ten minutes to check for doneness, and finally after about 70 minutes, the knife came out clean. The cake looked more or less like it was supposed to, only a little less fluffy, and a bit lopsided. Once it was cooled and frosted, it even tasted more or less like it was supposed to. The only trouble is, I have no idea how long it really takes to bake a cake in a convection oven. Did it take so long because I reduced the temperature, or because I was constantly opening the door and letting all of the heat out? I don’t see it going any differently next time—I will still have to turn the pan so the batter doesn’t all blow to one side, and I will still be constantly checking to see if it’s done. Will I ever know how long it takes to bake a cake?

A glutton for punishment, I broiled steaks for dinner. Turned out to be much less stressful than the cake baking. The broiler/convection combination is actually a great idea, and the steaks came out perfectly cooked and amazingly tender. Maybe this cooking thing won’t be so bad….