First time is never a charm

Mostly...the first time I attempt something...it just doesn't work out the way I plan.  This is especially true for cooking.....but not as often for baking.

Today was definitely not one of my better moments.

I bought a cake pan....that has two distinctly different little houses and a recipe for gingerbread cakes. 

I mixed up the batter, filled the pans, and had some batter left over so I filled a small, round, Pyrex bowl and baked the rest of the batter.  Then I went upstairs to shower, while it baked.  When I came downstairs, there was the unmistakeable odor of burning gingerbread.  I turned on the oven-light and saw, to my great consternation, that I had over-filled the pans and that great clumps of batter had spilled over, some was being baked onto the racks and hanging in cool formations, like stalactities.....the rest of the spilled mess was rising like stalagmite mountains from the bottom of the oven.....(Now, I get the stalagmite/stalagtite thing, all messed up -- so you figure it out, and if it's wrong, don't tell me....I don't really care -- you get the picture, that's what counts....)

As I watched, a beautiful flame erupted in my oven.....which was not so beautiful....I've never had a fire in my oven before.  But there it was, and what to do, I did not know!  So, I turned off the oven, and let it burn itself out, the oven filled with smoke, so I left those cakes sitting in a smoke filled oven.

When the smoke dissipated, I took the pan out, and left the oven door open....hoping to have the oven cool down faster....

Now, I'm sitting here, smelling once again the tell-tale smell of burning gingerbread as my self-cleaining oven (thank goodness), cleans its-self!  I did, however, clean the hard bits of batter out of the oven before I turned the cleaning mode on....no need for another fire....is my motto.....

So here are a couple of pictures, of my poor less, than perfect, falling-down, gingerbread house cakes.....

In theory -- they are very cute!

And the gingerbread tastes good!

The only one that turned out.....the little, round one, cooked in the pyrex bowl....

Note to self -- DO NOT over-fill the cake pans!