Bake or Broil?

Yesterday I listened to my Self Absorbed friend talk about how she made Funfetti cookies and oh my gosh, they were so good, and you have to make some, and I can't eat them all, I'll get so fat...blah blah blah blah. But somewhere in the middle of her ranting about getting fat, I actually went to Walmart after work and bought Funfetti cake mix and chocolate fudge frosting. Now, normally I'm a vanilla frosting type of girl with Funfetti cake. To me it just tastes better, but yesterday I wanted chocolate.

Fast forward to about 8:30 p.m. last night. My little brother offers to help me make the cupcakes (mainly because he wanted to eat them). I think it's so cute that he wants to help for once. I let him measure out the ingredients, and even crack the eggs! He even mixes the whole thing together. Then I do the hard part, and spoon all the stuff into two muffin tins. Now, I read the directions carefully, to only fill 1/3 of the way full. But I had so much left over, and I didn't want to dirty another pan, and so I just topped them off.

Meanwhile, I asked my brother to set the oven to 350 degrees. He proceeds to tell me he doesn't know how to do that, and I help him with that. I also ask him to put it on bake. I go on my way, put the cupcakes in the oven, set the timer, and go upstairs to lounge in my comfy bed and read Confessions of a Shopaholic. I'm about halfway through the chapter, when my brother runs upstairs and interrupts my reading time, saying "I think something's burning!"

I roll my eyes and hop out of bed, and check on the timer. It still says it has 13 minutes to go. So, I open the oven and look at them. The ones on the top rack are browned at the top, but the ones on the bottom look like dough. Then I realized what all the burning smell was about. My brother set the oven to BROIL, not bake.

I was really tempted to google "help, I broiled the cupcakes!" but I didn't want him to feel bad. After all, I rarely ever get his help in the kitchen. I just turned the browned cupcakes around, set the oven to bake, and reset the timer.

The broiled cupcakes were still moist in the middle, but were more or less crunchy on the top and the bottom, which actually makes for a tasty cupcake sandwich. I didn't bring them into work today because I didn't want people thinking I don't know how to make Funfetti cupcakes out of a box!


What's your worst kitchen mishap?