Release the Caken!

Not a lot to say today -- yesterday went completely nuts on me. Busy at work, dog needed grooming, shopping, company coming, making food... and at the end of the day, baking a cake. Yes, we have a birthday celebrant as a guest, so it was placed on my shoulders to bake a cake from scratch, with filling from scratch, and icing from scratch. Three recipes I'd never tried before.

Three recipes... for disaster.

And if you want to see real recipes for disaster, then you ought to be familiar with the site CakeWrecks.com, home of the worst supermarket cakes available.

"I... am Mister Ded!"

The site's take on the song "The Christmas Shoes," with accompanying cake photos, was so touching that it made my wife sob, weep, cry, helpless with laughter.

Needless to say, there are also books.

My cake was not that bad, although I had trouble getting the filling to set properly. Stayed up late working on it. It got there, but it was driving me to distraction. Seriously distracted -- I had been gnawing on some extra chocolate chips, and decided to take some chewable Advil for the pain in my stiff neck. The problem is, there is no chewable Advil, only Advil Liquid Gels, which should never be chewed. And I found out why. Ibuprofen, Stewart Adams's wonderful invention, A) Tastes like iodine; B) Burns your mouth with some kind of mild chemical action; and C) Renders your taste buds inert for a period of time.

I hope our friend likes the cake. It came out looking great, thanks to the guidance and participation of the Mrs. during assembly. But the proof of the cake is in the eatin'.

Your takeaway from all this? Learn from Fred's mistakes. That's more than I usually do.