the great pancake disaster

Music: The Re-Arranger by Mates of State

Yesterday, I just made the worst batch of pancakes, ever.

Blame it on the fact that I’ve been sick for one week and counting, or my kuya’s ridiculous tale (that I cannot even remember anymore), or my sudden culinary inspiration to add cinnamon in the pancake-and-water mix. Whatever the reason, I must have over-mixed the batter (something the instructions on the outside of the box emphasized NOT to do), because when I poured the first glomp on the skillet, the thing bubbled like mad and refused to be apart from the black pan.

When I finally succeeded in salvaging as much as I could from the weird concoction, it didn’t even look like a pancake anymore. More like oversized, mushy bread leftovers. Burnt, oversized, mushy bread leftovers.

I’m like, OMGWTFBBQ.

I have made countless pancakes in my time. Some were close to perfect, others not so much, but definitely edible. The horrid thing in front of me then could definitely cause food poisoning.

I was devastated. I had more than half a bowl of pancake batter in front of me, and I didn’t know what to do with it.

Breathing in and out, trying to calm myself, I listed my options inside my woozy head:

Option one: Add flour to the batter. This will make the taste bland, but I could always add sugar. Problem: I’m not sure if that will work, or if it will make the mixture more horrible than it already was.

Option two: Add cornstarch instead. Problem: Refer to option number one.

Option three: Throw the batter away, and start over. Problem: I don’t like wasting food.

Option four: Be adventurous. Bake the damned thing. Problem: I’m not really much of a baker. Pfft.

I opted for option four. I mean, what was the worst that could happen, right?

(Flashback: When I was in grade school, a friend and I tried baking a chocolate cake for our parents. The cake ended up as a sludge of brown, gooey thing that our parents couldn’t stop laughing and talking about it for days. Another flashback: In college, I baked a batch of brownies for (and with) my best friend/crush. We ended up with a batch of hard cookies instead. To be fair, I blame it mostly on the flirting in the kitchen.)

I poured a tablespoon of cooking oil in the batter (no, the original instructions did not require oil so I didn’t bother), took out a rectangular baking tray, poured the batter in it, and popped it in our oven toaster, setting the timer to fifteen minutes.

As I waited for the thing to finish baking, several scenarios went through my head:

Scenario one: The batter will be overbaked and inedible, and not only have I wasted precious food, but I wasted electricity as well.

Scenario two: My sisters will not like the taste, but I can always force them to eat it. Or I can finish it up myself, and suffer from a stomachache later.

Scenario three: The glomp will actually turn out okay, coming out of the toaster as a decent-enough-bread-thingy that I can serve for breakfast. Or a late snack. Since it was already, like, close to ten a.m. then.

Sceanrio three happened. I was saved.

And to make things better, several hours later, my sister came out of her room, went to the kitchen, looked at the empty plate where the pancake-turned-bread used to be, and asked, “Wala nang pancake?”