Alotta Monkey Business

Not So Easy Bake Ovens

Prompt: National Easy-Bake Oven Day - Remember those? What did you bake in one?

I never had an Easy Bake Oven growing up, if I wanted to bake something it was in the big oven, and not until I was old enough to read the cookbook and clean up my mess. Most of the time it was sugar cookies from my mom's Betty Crocker Cookbook, but once in a while I'd get brave and try something a bit more challenging. One of my favorite recipes was tarts, and another was pudding. My younger brother didn't like Pistachio, so I'd make vanilla pudding and add green food coloring so he would eat any. It may likely be all that green food coloring that has left me a bit eccentric in my later years.

But, the prompt is for Easy Bake Ovens, which, if you didn't know, I didn't have growing up. However, I did get one for my daughter while she was growing up. It came unassembled, so I had to try to put all the parts together, which wasn't very difficult once I referenced the directions.

One part was missing, however. It did not come with a light bulb that served as the heat source. I don't remember but think it was supposed to be a 60-watt, but it was Christmas Day and nothing local was open. I didn't want to drive an hour looking for a light bulb, and she was a bit impatient to mix up one of the packaged delights we had purchased with it, so I looked around and ended up using the light from above my workbench.

The problem was the bulb was a bit bigger than it recommended; it was 150-watt! No problem, I thought, just reduce the baking time. Not so. She happily mixed up a mini-batch of brownies and put them in to bake. I figured we would check them at about half the recommended time, but before the timer went off a fire erupted from the little oven.

I unplugged the contraption, grabbed it with oven mitts, and threw it outside in the snow. It soon went out, but the entire time my daughter was crying. After I brought it back in, I discovered the batter had bubbled over and burned all over the inside, so I had to take it all apart, clean up the carbonized mess, and put it back together. I also had to drive for over an hour to find a store that was open and buy the proper light bulb for it.

By the time I returned, I had missed Christmas dinner, but she was happy and ready to use her new oven and didn't even seem to mind the burned paint and scorched interior. She also felt bad that I had missed dinner, so she offered to bake me a Christmas dinner. I accepted, sat back in my chair, and left her to her creation. Little did I know she was going to try and bake me a frozen pizza in the little thing. She had cut, folded, and packed it into a little pan, baked it for about five minutes, and served me with a smile.

Some of it was still frozen, some was doughy, and it was all terrible, but for the sake of a little girl on Christmas, I choked it down, complimented, and thanked her. She was so delighted she made me seconds...

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