It looked like it was straight of a crime scene. Caramel sauce was smeared across multiple surfaces, including the stackable washer-dryer and the side of the fridge. It was starting to pool on the cake platter. Peanuts littered the floor. Icing adorned the cabinets. Chunks of cake lay haphazardly on the counters as if hacked away by a maniac. And I was on the floor, covered in a layer of flour and defeat.
In hindsight, I should have known this was going to end poorly.
Reason 1) I was attempting to make a cake I had never made before.
Reason 1.5) It was a 3-layer cake.
Reason 1.75) Anytime I have attempted in anything requiring 2 or more cake rounds in my shitty gas oven, it has utterly disastrous results.
Reason 2) This cake was the dessert for our Friendsgiving and Murphy's Law exists.
Reason 3) I started to late and rushed things. This one is all on me. That morning I went to a Gem and Mineral Show (nerd?) and was expecting to be back around 12:00 or 12:30. This would give me plenty of time to bake this cake I’ve never attempted before, shower, and show up presentable at 6:00. Wrong. I left the show at 2:45.
Reason 4) My roommate and her fiancé also started late and the three of us were trying to cook/bake three dishes at once. As mentioned in a previous post, my kitchen is a 1.5 butt kitchen. Having three butts is just asking for it.
Reason 5) SOMETIMES THE BAKING GODS JUST LIKE TO MAKE YOUR SOUFFLÉS COLLAPSE, YOUR BREAD NOT RISE, YOUR FROSTING NOT SET, CAUSE YOUR CAKES TO FALL APART, AND BASICALLY POINT AND LAUGH AT YOUR MISERY LIKE SEVENTH GRADE BOYS.
So aside from running slightly behind, and having to redo my caramel sauce again because I burned it (caramel is a bitch), everything was going quasi-okay. The rounds seemed like they had all baked completely (WRONG), and all three came easily out of their pans. Disaster really struck when I tried stacking and frosting the layers. My fatal flaw was not shaving off the slightly domed tops because I was in a hurry. So they were unstable when I stacked them. Then the middle one formed a small crack which when the weight of the top layer was added, formed The Great Cake Divide.
I tried to trim off the domes and make them more even, but the cakes just crumbled. So I tried to frost as quickly as possibly. But my icing wasn't thick enough because the caramel sauce was too hot when I added it. Cracks became so deep not even cake botox could fill them.
With no other options, I finished my shitty crumb/top coat, poured my runny caramel sauce on top and sprinkled peanuts and prayed for the best.
The best did not come.
Fast-forward to my roommate and me trying to push this thing back together with spatulas, spoons and our minds. But this cake was not having it. At that point I was so distraught about my poor cake, I started to use my hands to push it back together. I manhandled that poor cake, but ultimately it could not be saved. It fell apart faster than Kim K’s first marriage.
After a minor freak out and my lovely roommate talking me off my ledge, we took the cake and chunk by chunk put it in a casserole dish, and covered it with whip cream, caramel drizzle and more peanuts.
Then I showed up 20 minutes late, looking semi-presentable with my Franken-cake, which surprisingly turned out to be a hit. Or people were so full of other good, properly presented food, that their tryptophan-soaked brains didn’t know how to comprehend what they were tasting.
I'll take what I can get.