Vanilla Bean Bundt Cake

Where do I begin? How about with how I was all excited for my first time making meringues...and how they came out great...and then were ruined. OR, about how I got my positive vibes back from the failed meringues and decided to throw this Vanilla Bean Bundt cake into the oven at 9:30pm, only to return to it to find my oven WASN'T HEATED. And not because I forgot to turn it on or anything like that, but because it's broken. MY OVEN IS BROKEN.

More on how this cake was a miracle later on...

OR, we could talk about non-baking related issues, like the sound on my TV suddenly not working???

Can I just hide in a cave for a while, and when I come out, I will have a brand new gas range, double ovens (maybe just a whole new kitchen), and I will know how to bake everything, and I can do so while watching my 60" 4K Ultra HD TV. Is that too much to ask??

Okay, okay, first things first. The meringues.

So, I was all pumped because I had found an easy starter recipe for meringues. I know meringues can be finicky things, so I read the recipe about 4 times. And, I even researched some more on meringues. I made my meringues, baked them for 2 hours, let them sit in the oven another hour and they were all dry and peeled off the Silpat mats with a couple of sticky ones just to make it more of a challenge. I then let those sit for a while. I made sandwiches with them and some chocolate ganache. I then boxed them up and set them aside. So where did it go wrong?

Setting them aside meant moving them to some open space on the counter. That space is over the dishwasher. When I run the dishwasher, the counter gets warm. Warmth causes humidity and humidity ruins meringues. I ended up with sticky, chewy meringue cookies.

What else did I learn from this? When piping meringues, your hands really heat up the meringue, which makes it lose it stiffness and not pipe as pretty. See my photos below.

First sheet all piped out

See the difference in the top, which was piped early, and the bottom which was after the heat from my hand softened the meringues?

All baked

Sandwiched with chocolate ganache

Boxed up...before they were ruined

To redeem myself from this meringue failure, I decided to throw a cake in the oven at 9:30 last night, just because I needed to feel accomplished. So, I preheated the oven...it beeped...I put my cake in (not fully paying attention that it's not particularly warm, let alone 350), and then set the time. I return in 35 minutes to find a cold oven and a pan of cake batter.

Panic sets in. Dan gets up to investigate. After laughing at me for looking like I was about to cry, he tells me to bake it in the toaster oven, and he will see about the oven tomorrow. Except he's gone Sunday-Wednesday from 7:00am to 10:00pm. So when I remind him of this, he says if we need a new one, we'll get it Thursday.

No oven for 3 days (or longer)?!?!?!

I was able to salvage my cake in the toaster oven. It came out a little denser than it would have in the regular oven, but it was still pretty good. I cut into it just to be sure it was okay before I dusted it with some powdered sugar.

Vanilla Bean Bundt Cake
from Tartlet Sweets

1/2 cup butter, room temperature
1 cup sugar
3 eggs, room temp
1/2 cup milk
1 tbsp. vanilla bean paste, or one vanilla bean scraped
1.5 cups flour
1 tsp. baking powder
pinch of salt
powdered sugar for dusting

1. Preheat oven to 350. Butter and flour a bundt pan.
2. Cream the butter and sugar together. Add the eggs, one at a time, mixing between each egg. Scrape down the sides of the bowl as needed.
3. Add the flour, milk, vanilla, baking powdered, and salt and mix until very smooth.
4. Pour into the bundt pan and smooth the top of the batter. Bake for 30-35 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.
5. Let sit in the pan for 10 minutes, then flip over onto a wire rack to cool completely.
6. Dust with powdered sugar and eat!