Okay, not really, but I did lose all the hair on my arms and most of the hair in the bangs-area. Thanks to my trusty specs, my eyebrows are still mostly intact.
We had company over last night, and I made baked apples for desert. When there were about fifteen minutes left on the timer, I opened the oven to check them. There was a giant FOOF and I was hit with a huge wave of flame that billowed out of the oven the instant the door was opened, and just as quickly disappeared. The oven looked perfectly normal when I peeked in the door. Presumably there was some sort of ignitable fumes of some kind that were triggered with the pressure change or addition of oxygen when the door opened, but for the life of me, I can’t figure out exactly what happened. It’s an electric stove–I don’t even think we have a gas line to the house.
Mr. Armadillo blames the cinnamon in the apples–but I’ve baked cookies with more cinnamon. Here’s the recipe:
Four cored Gala apples
(stuffed with)
1 1/2 cups brown sugar
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 teaspoon nutmeg
(mixed thoroughly)
This was packed into the core of the apple with a little well on top. I put a teaspoon of melted butter in the well, let it soak in, then packed the top with a little hill of the brown sugar mix. Dripped a few drops of burbon vanilla extract on top, and drizzled them with melted butter.
Then, I mixed 1/3 cup of organic apple juice with 2/3 cup brandy (actual recipe called for 1 cup brandy, no juice), and poured it over the top of the apples and into the bottom of the dish.
Bake for one hour in a deep ceramic casserole dish with a glass lid.
After the torching, I pulled off the lid, poked the apples, put them back in for the rest of the time, and pulled them out when the timer went off, with no further pyrotechnics.
Maybe the alcohol fumes built up inside the dish? Perhaps next time loosely cover with aluminum foil and fumes will burn off as they bake, rather than instant combustion?
So what the hell happened?
By the way, the apples were served with vanilla bean ice cream and were spectacular. Yum, yum. I’ll definately do this again. Maybe wearing a flame-retardant suit next time.