Cake, candles but no matches
We were staying in an appartment over the summer holidays and thought we’d bought in all the ingredients – the flour, eggs, baking powder, cocoa powder, and so on. Ooops forgot the icing sugar, that’s ok, quick rush to the shops before they shut, yep, got the icing sugar.
Now it’s a chocolate microwave cake, so it can be whipped up in 10 minutes. Please don’t gasp, I know, not baked, but sometimes convenience must over-rule!
So the cake was made, tick, now the icing… no scales. OK let’s just sprinkle the icing sugar then and slowly add butter until the right consistency. (With butter you can guestimate the amount as often you will find markings on the side of the pack helping you work out what 50g is and so on).
It’s getting late, but we must sing Happy Birthday.
Candles, yep, let’s put those on, candle holders, yep. So on they all went. Now it’s close to 9pm Sunday night. Shops are shut.
No-one is about.
Matches…. Where are the matches…?
Who’s got the matches?
We turned the appartment upside down. There are candles in the lounge, dining room, dotted all over the apartment by the landlord, but no matches anywhere.
We looked in all the logical places: kitchen, dining room, sideboard, on the shelves, inside pots. Nothing. Not a match anywhere.
Lightbulb Moment No 1:
“I know”, I suggested, “let’s use the hob, and light one of those wooden skewers you use for the BBQ.”
Hubbie muttered something under his breath, far from convinced… So into the kitchen we went, wooden skewer in one hand. Turned the hob on full, you know those induction ones, that immediately heat up. Nothing. Tried again. No heat, nothing. Some safety aspect or something.
The ring only heats up if a pan is on it, so we placed the pan on the ring, and waited. Nothing. Hubbie is too impatient.
We quickly abandoned that idea.
Lightbulb Moment No 2:
I had already another suggestion waiting in the wings – “What about the cigarette lighter in the hire car? Let’s try that.”
So this time, we all went down to the car, King Julien with the cake in one hand, me with the wooden skewer in the other, Tuna, Spike and hubbie too. By this time, all in jarmies and it was pitch black too.
So you can imagine, the photos are just total darkness…
The cigarette lighter pinged out, ready to light…
Hubbie impatiently tried to get any kind of paper to light… Nothing…
OK let’s try with a bigger piece of paper… Ping, the cigarette lighter pinged out.
Seconds ticked by, we waited holding our breath, will it light?
No-one said a word, just hubbie broke the silence… “It’s not hot enough…” he growled.
Another stupid idea…
So I am afraid it is not possible to light a birthday cake without matches… We could not find flint either, otherwise we would have tried that…
Lightbulb Moment No 3:
Ask the neighbour in your best french…
Success at last! They handed over the matches. We lit the cake and sang Happy Birthday!
So you can imagine, we have never forgotten that birthday adventure of cake, candles but no matches. We laugh about it when we look back…
So what cupcake disaster have you had? Have you ever had cake, candles but no matches?
Can’t wait to hear your tales…
Thanks so much for reading. If you are looking for more recipe ideas, do hop over to our Lunchbox World recipe section.
The Lunchbox World Team x
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