A Failure to Communicate

Monday was a frustrating day.  Well, it started out just fine.  We awoke to about 6 inches of snow.  Everything was cold and white and lovely outside.  We opted out of our friends' annual MLK Jr. Day walk on Fiddler's Ridge and stayed home to dig our way out of the driveway and our foggy brains.  Besides we had company coming for dinner.  

We had planned a nice dinner of polenta with white Oregon truffles and, for dessert, a cherry pie.  After all, I had put up all those cherries in the freezer last summer.  It was high time to use some.  So I made a nice looking cherry pie with a lattice top and stuck it in the oven and set the timer.  I was busy doing this and that around the house when I noticed a burnt smell coming from the kitchen.  I tried to open the oven door to check on the pie and it was locked!  I suffered a small bout of panic as I looked for and then paged through the owner's manual to see what to do.  I turned off the oven and pressed the cancel button.  I also learned, from the manual, that one feature of this oven is to automatically lock its door if the oven gets too hot.  Now, when I put that pie in, the temperature registered 400º and the knob was set on bake so all should have been well.  But, obviously, it was not.

To complicate the situation, I was just getting ready to leave for an appointment in town so I had to hurriedly fill Paul in on things and run out the door.  When I got home again a few hours later, there sat my pie.  As you can see, it did not look like a dessert to serve to guests.  

I called the repair shop and the person I talked to thinks its either a sensor or the control board not talking to the oven thus the oven kept heating up and up instead of staying at the desired temperature.  We're waiting for the part to come in and the oven to be fixed.  In the meantime, we're living without it, which is trickier than it might sound.  Especially to one who loves to bake.  No biscuits for breakfast for a while.  Sigh.

By the way, we did salvage some of the pie.  After removing the burned lattice and crust edge, the filling and bottom crust were in fine condition.  We ate it spooned over vanilla ice cream...and laughed.