Banana Cake

I am foolishly attempting to bake yet another cake in my oven. Our oven cooks very unevenly and I never know what temperature is being achieved inside. Right now, my banana cake is cooking too quickly on the outside and too slowly on the inside. I just knocked the temperature down 25 degrees to see if the middle can catch up. The cake still has another 20 minutes to go.

I was beginning to think that the oven is 50 degrees hotter than the control but now I think it's 75 degrees hotter based on how quickly that cake is cooking. It could be cooking unevenly because I'm using a bread pan instead of a square pan like the recipe spelled out. Who knows? If not all of the cake is delicious at least some of it will be. The last one I made was burnt on the outer edges but perfectly edible once those edges were trimmed away.

What should I be doing instead of baking a cake? I should be ironing. I hate ironing. But I'm starting a new work cycle this week and my wardrobe does need to look somewhat put together. I'm working the first week of previews for Curtains starring David Hyde Pierce. It's a murder mystery by Kander & Ebb creators of Chicago and Cabaret. This may be the first time it's being produced on Broadway, but I'll find out more about it later on. I'm excited to see Karen Ziemba in a show again. I missed her in Contact but did get to see her in Chicago way back in the late 90's. She's a treat, a real good performer. The show also stars Edward Hibbert, most memorably from Frasier but more recently from The Drowsy Chaperone where he played the snippy butler and romantic foil to the character played by Georgia Engel.

Is that the smell of cake burning?