Either Way You're Only Getting Half a Pan

I learned a hard lesson......you don't leave cast iron items in the oven while baking.

For one thing, they make it so that the oven takes forever to heat up.  I left a skillet and a grill pan on the bottom shelf when I was making banana "snack cake" and later on in the week I made magic bars for the karate picnic.  Yes, I made this mistake twice.

The edges were the only cooked pieces on the banana cake, I was able to salvage this much and throw the rest away.  The boys loved it, though.  Will asked for a taste, and then took the piece from me with a big smile and a "Mine!"  :)  It's going to be the first recipe I write into The Notebook in a while.

 Good Cake.

Bad Cake.

The magic bars edges were destroyed.  Not only because of the cast iron roommates hogging space in the oven, but because I thought that the first step of melting butter in the pan would be enough to grease it.  Yeah.....not so much for the sides.  This is how much I had to throw out, and I despise throwing out food.

So....lessons learned and shared from me, so you don't have to learn them for yourself.