Kitchen F#!% Ups

As chiles go, poblanos are fairly mild. Still, it's generally not recommended that you rub your eye after you've been seeding and slicing them.

I've made this cake twice with few issues. So why did it turn out so weird tonight? It cooked for an hour, after which it looked set in the middle. I took it out to cool in the pan, on a rack, for fifteen minutes before I turned it out onto the rack. As soon as I turned it out, I could tell it wasn't cooked all the way through. It was cooked more than a molten chocolate cake, but definitely not enough to hold up to frosting. I stuck a spoon into the side and it practically melted. In the end, I served it without frosting or glaze, in bowls. It was still delicious. Just ugly.

• Chocolate-Amaretto Heart

I've been wanting to make this delicious-sounding poundcake that Sweetnicks kindly posted on her blog.

It smelled delicious as it was baking. Mmm, the aroma of butter and bananas. And burnt cake mix - it started leaking out of the bottom of my tube pan, which has a removable bottom. I knew I was going to have problems removing the cake from the pan, but I had a plan.

Once the cake was a lovely golden color, I removed it from the oven and left it to cool on a rack in the pan for ten minutes. When I went to remove the cake from the pan, boy was the pan hot. My initial instinct was to leave it in the pan longer, but I was tired and wanted to get things moving along.

I should have just trusted myself - impatience is rarely a good thing when it comes to baking. I used a small, thin knife to loosen the cake where it had leaked out. Most of the cake dropped nicely onto my plate, but one big chunk was still stuck to the pan.

Banana Pound Cake (Sweetnicks, January 16, 2006)