Our 'Peaceful' Valentine's Day

So Ryan and I decided to avoid the crowds and have a nice peaceful Valentine's day at home. We even splurged and bought chocolate cake mix (we don't have the ingredients to make the cake from scratch). It sounded absolutely amazing... we've had very little sweet things since we've been here.

I used my trusty glass cassarole pan for a cake pan. We have no aluminum 9x13 pans, but this pan was (notice I said was) an oval glass pan about the size of a 9x13. Our oven does not bake evenly (the front is MUCH hotter than the back) so we have to rotate things to help them cook evenly. Halfway through, when I opened the oven, I noticed the cake had started to rise above the cake pan. I'd thought that there was plenty of room to rise (the batter had only filled the pan a quarter of the way up the pan's sides), but apparently there wasn't.

Ryan and I considered the issue for a moment (I really didn't want half-baked cake batter splattered around in my oven) and decided to put our cookie sheet beneath the glass pan so that any overflow would be caught by the cookie sheet. We let the cookie sheet warm up a bit (and you have to understand, this is a THIN, CHEAP cookie sheet, so it gets burning hot in about the time it takes you to cough) and then slid the cake pan onto the cookie sheet and set the cookie sheet and cake pan back onto the oven rack.

The oven rack was pulled out for this, and as we slid it back in, it happened. There was this massive POPPING sound, and glass flew EVERYWHERE. The pan had exploded! We both screamed and jumped back, and luckily, neither of us were hurt. Someone was looking out for us... we had our faces down next to the cake as we both worked to manuver our cake around in the miniscule oven.

The mess was incredible. There was glass and cake everywhere in our kitchen and all over our oven! Luckily Ryan thought quickly and turned off the stove (so that the globs of cake batter wouldn't bake and burn in the oven) and turned down our dinner so it wouldn't burn (it was perfect, by the way). I think we were both a bit shocked. The pan shouldn't have just exploded like that. If the cookie pan had been really cold, I could have understood, or if we'd dropped or banged the pan it'd have made sense. But really, it was just a cheap glass pan.

It's kind of proof that you get what you pay for. I've found that true here especially. Back at home I'm always buying off-brands, but not here. Off-brand dishsoap won't suds up and off-brand PAM doesn't spray. You save money, but it turns out to be a waste since you can't use the product and end up buying the brand name item in the end. The pan was one we bought our second day here, when we hadn't learned to shop yet. It was the cheapest on the shelf.

I double checked after the explosion, and yes, the pan WAS rated for use in ovens. It just apparently was only good for a certain amount of uses! Just kidding... I think it was a combination of shoddy workmanship on the part of the company and bad luck on our part. It happens I guess. It just stinks because I used the glass pan all the time... it was a great cassarole dish! Cassaroles are great, because it's only one dish to clean by hand, rather than seven. And they also alway me to make them and cook them at different times- which is great if I have something to do in the late afternoon or early evening. 

I bought another glass pan today. It's not brand name (of course, no store HAS brand name right now) but it seems like a decent piece. And it's not so expensive that I'll feel guilty buying a new one when I see one that's well made. 

Hope you all had a great Valentine's Day! We did have a good day, and I'm sure we will laugh when we think of our first Valentine's Day as a married couple. Looking back, I realize we didn't even give each other cards! There's such a poor selection here, we were going to make them at home... but we got distracted cleaning up chocolate cake batter and glass shards. Oh well, we had fun, and it's yet another memory.