The case of the crumbling cake

It was a miserable failure!

Last week, my mother in law remarked about how hungry she felt for something sweet like cake. She is allergic to wheat and yeast and I have been baking yeast-less bread with all kinds of different flours which taste pretty good.

"That's easy," I told her. "I have an applesauce cake recipe which is very good. I'll just substitute oat and white rice flour instead of the wheat flour and it'll be great."

NOT!

I bought the applesauce and raisins, then mixed up the batter. It tasted wonderful because apples and oats go well together. But when I baked it, it became a crumbly mess. It broke into five pieces when I took it out of the loaf pan. Then whenever I tried to slice it, each piece immediately crumbled. The crumbs were very tasty, but who wants to eat a plate of crumbs?

After doing some research, I realized that the oat and white rice flours need to be mixed with another sort of starch - like cornstarch, potato or tapioca starch to perform better. An extra egg white would have helped as well to serve as a binding agent.

"Well," I reasoned, "Why waste perfectly good and tasty cake crumbs?" So I bought a bag of apples and made an apple crisp, using the cake crumbs as topping. Yum!

I had to laugh at myself as God reminded me of the truth of the situation. When I try to take short cuts and to do things myself without God's help, it often results in a crumbly mess that falls apart (or I end up falling apart!)

I can only function when I add healthy doses of His Presence to my life. He holds me together and keeps me on track. And when I fail, He always brings good things out of my failures.

Thank You Lord, for being so patient with me!