Bake OFF

If you don't know what this is a picture of than good for you, your day may have been better than mine. 

Hubby and I were just trying to do the nice thing for his parents. At least once a week we make a supper for them. That is, Jim makes it and I often times add the sweet stuff. 

So today he's whipping up some cajun chicken noodle soup (Jim's own yummy concoction) and I chimed in that I could bake a small batch of cookies. So I turn on the oven to 350 and get the dough on the pan and into the oven. Since I am a bit of a perfectionist and need both sides of the cookies to bake evenly, I always set the timer for halfway through or so I can turn the pan around. While doing that with the first ones in there today, I noticed the temp was below 350 so I turned the dial to 375. I kept checking it every 2 minutes and realized the oven was losing heat, not going back up. 

Needless to say, it took a long time to bake that first pan. They were good, though. I put in the second pan and it never had a chance. Took that out and rather than looking closely at the oven, I Googled the problem. 

Turns out an oven often loses heat if the heating element isn't working. I take a look and what do you know, our "bake element" is looking crispy and burned like it was "baked" and it shouldn't be. Thank goodness for Google.

Well also because even though I'm accused of saving EVERYTHING, I couldn't find the owner's manual for that 20-year-old stove. Found the serial number inside the broiler drawer thingy and was able to find it online, figure out the replacement part, and order it. (According to the video tutorial, it should be an easy installation job, too.)

After that, I took the cookie dough off the second pan, put it in a container, and will take it out to bake in approximately two days. If Amazon prime delivers on time.

Maybe I should have changed the shipping label to Betty Crocker!