Amelia Bedelia pound cake

I like to think I have some pretty awesome moments in the kitchen when everything is flowing, the sauce is coming together or the cake rises and doesn't fall when cooling.  These successes do happen for me in the kitchen.  I  admit that I have not so awesome moments in the kitchen too.  It happens most often when I am multi-tasking with the girls or trying to cook something too fast.  I'm a messy cook and things get extra messy when I'm in a hurry.

The other day I browsed my cookbooks for something I could have to enjoy with  my coffee in the morning.  I settled on a sour cream pound cake with lemon juice and zest.  I was moving right along with the recipe doing pretty well.  Rushing once I noticed the bake time was an hour, but I still hadn't messed anything up. Ashlynn woke up right after I'd creamed the butter and sugar.  She was in a cuddly mood and wouldn't let me put her down to finish the batter.  I decided to press my luck and hold her in my right arm while I cracked the eggs into the batter with my left.  I got way too cocky and the single left-handed egg cracking went oh so wrong. Holding the split-shelled egg in my left hand, I tried the professional trick where one finger pries open the shell and lets the egg slide out.   I went from complimenting myself on being such an accomplished at-home baker to berating myself for being so stupid in two seconds as the egg and half the shell fell in the mixing bowl.  Worse was that the mixer was on when it happened and with Ashlynn in my right arm I couldn't turn the thing off quick enough before the shell got crunched in the batter right along with the egg Amelia Bedelia style.  Words my 7 month old shouldn't hear were uttered more than once as I used  my fingers to pull out all the egg shells. I was thorough about my shell hunt and it helped that I was using brown eggs.  The little treasure hunt would have been futile if the shells were white.

I finished up the batter by completely skipping over the part where I was supposed to alternate adding the flour mixture with the sour cream/lemon mixture until it was all combined.  In the end, it looked and tasted pretty good so I threw it in the oven and had to rely on Eneye to take the cakes out when the knife came out clean since it was time to go pick up the girls from school.  

I got the full experience of my Amelia Bedelia pound cake this morning as I munched on a slice with my coffee (which pairs nicely I might add-at least I got that part right) and a piece of egg shell crunched right in my back tooth.  Egg shells in your baked goods are like turds in swimming pools.  Both completely ruin the experience.  Am I right or am I right about this?  I guess I should just be thankful I was the one who got the shell. I knew I'd bombed when both girls squealed with glee about the cake on the counter but then I caught Bella with her face in the trash can spitting out a huge mushy piece of cake and Addie's uneaten slice was found dried out the next day.  Oh well. No cook is perfect right?