The Beauty of Homemade Cake

Well, maybe beauty is the wrong word in this case.

I baked a cake today. The cake was for a friend's birthday dinner. This was a potluck dinner and I was asked to bring dessert because I have a bit of a reputation amongst my friends for baking. So, I decided to make a from scratch (no mix involved in any shape or form) chocolate cake with caramel-milk chocolate icing. It's a truly awesome cake.

Unfortunately, today was not my day. I neglected to take into account that I do live in Texas where the temp today was around 100 degrees. So, when chilling the frosting, I should have allowed a few extra hours. But no. I didn't, so when I took the frosting out of the fridge, it was a little on the runny side. Okay, a lot on the runny side. But I figured it would be okay, if I just hauled the frosting and cake layers to the party and iced the cake there after stowing the icing in our host's freezer for a while.

That was a good theory. But only a theory. Instead of a beautifully iced 3 layer cake, the cake layers started sliding around. And then the top layer started to crack apart. It was a mess. Thankfully I had set the cake up on a disposable cake carrier I bought at a cake supply place near my house. So, seeing my 'masterpiece' falling apart and in imminent danger of sliding off the plate when I removed the dome lid, I decided to turn the whole thing upside down and turn it into a trifle. I was able to do this because I knew that the cake itself was going to taste fabulous. Because I made it and the frosting from scratch. So, while my friend Debbie had perhaps the worst-looking birthday cake ever, it didn't matter. Because everyone agreed that it was one of the best tasting cakes they'd ever had.

Snatching victory from the chocolate mudslide of defeat. That's what I'm all about.