bake your cake and eat it too.

Triple layer chocolate birthday cake. some people think baking a cake is just opening the box and adding water, oil and eggs. those people are wise. unfortunately i am not one of those people. i have this notion stuck in my head that i can do it better than a box. Box cake mix has scientists and world class bakers and preservatives on its side. i, on the other hand, have Watson. The only thing she adds to my baking is cat hair.

The fact that the cake was a birthday cake meant a whole birthday could be ruined if this cake didn't turn out. with that weight on my shoulders I began to research. I found the best chocolate cake recipe and accompanying icing. i looked up techniques for cake trimming, layering and splitting. I learned that applying a simple syrup (reduced sugar water basically) keeps the cake moist. I learned to take stock of my tools before beginning such an important task as you can't bake a round layered cake in a square dish- duh. Over the course of my two bake days i also re-learned as i seem to do time and time again to read the recipe in its entirety before starting anything and that not doing this means you are an idiot. It also means you will have to mix twice as long and hard if you add all the dry ingredients instead of alternate between dry and wet. It wouldn't be such a big deal if i had a hand mixer, but unfortunately that was ruined by a baking incident months ago. Manda's sweater and the hand mixer got in a fight and her sweater won. The cake layering process was as annoying as i knew it would be. the cake crumbling as i was trying to ice it. WHY?! i shouted at my cake. so annoying. i finally got it all slathered with a few rough spots. I decided to not decorate it as we were going to go candle crazy instead. We threw a cute little 25 on there and this little singing flashing happy birthday sign. Saturday night we turned off the lights and seven of us (all musically un-inclined) belted out the happy birthday song to Sam. we ate cake (that tasted as good as box cake) with strawberries while drinking boxed wine. LML.