Oven Failure

I recently talked about how a recent string of my cupcake failures was explained by baking powder that was expired by 3 months.  That was just Part I of my problem.  For the past couple of weeks I've noticed a bright spot on our oven's heating element, but not knowing anything about ovens I disregarded this warning sign.

I did get new baking powder, and was anxious to try it out.  Little did I know that that day I used my new baking powder was also the day the oven's heating element would konk out.  I chose the sour cream chocolate cupcake recipe from the book Cupcakes!, which was a Christmas present.  I put them in the oven for 20 minutes, took them out at 20 minutes, but they instantly started to fall and eventually sank, creating a huge crater in the middle of each cupcake.  They weren't done, I realized.  And I was confused by this.

I was, however, positive that the baking powder worked - even though the cupcakes were not totally done, they were soft, moist and tasted very taste, unlike my previous ones made with the old baking powder, which were flat, short, tasteless and rubbery.  I dusted the cupcakes with confectioners' sugar and ate them as is.

Later, I searched online for what a bright spot on the oven's heating element could mean.  I found out that it meant that the heating element was about ready to konk out; a bright spot on the element would mean uneven and improper heating.  So this explains it!

For dinner that night, my daughter wanted pizza.  I preheated the oven and went away for a while to let it heat up.  A few minutes later I was back in the kitchen for some reason or other and saw sparks, lots of sparks!, shooting out of the heating element in the oven.  Luckily the sparks died when I turned the oven off.

So now I just need to wait until we can get the heating element replaced, and then I believe I will be back in business.  Stay tuned though, as I made those chocolate/oatmeal/peanut butter no-bake cookies (since we obviously can't use the oven) and will be posting info, recipes and photos about them.