happy mother's day - a cake disaster story

My mom is awesome.  She's my best friend and she's fabulous and beautiful and smart and I love her!  I've learned a lot from Lizzie B, but I think the best thing that she's passed on to me is my love of cooking.  Growing up, I spent a lot of my time in the kitchen.  I remember sitting at the kitchen table and doing my homework while Mom fixed something delicious and homey for supper.  She's a pro at mac and cheese, her meatloaf is unbeatable, and she mixes a mean cocktail!  I loved helping out in the kitchen and have now come pretty close to perfecting or at least replicating a few of her famous recipes.  And these days, I like to call my mom whenever I make a fabulous dinner to brag that the student has become the master and my meals are now better than hers.  Of course, she's still better than me at some things... she has, after all, been slaving at the stove a bit longer than me.

little liz with her first set of utensils

Well, to thank the lovely Liz, I decided to bake a special cake in her honor.  Thankfully, I also sent her flowers so the fact that the cake was a disaster did not ruin her special day.  I won't be sharing any recipes this time around, but I will share a photo story so you can get the idea.

It all started when I came up with the most amazing flavor combination and decided to bake it into a cake.  After a few hours of comparing recipes and using my basic math skills to develop a concoction full of all my substitutions and subtractions, I thought I had it down.  I even recruited Justin to help out since the lady of honor is, after all, his mom-in-law.  He was in charge of juicing.

'i have to juice all of these tangerines?'

While he juiced, I mixed and poured, ground, zested and infused.  Everything seemed to be coming along perfectly.  And holy cow did the kitchen smell amazing!  I poured the batter into the pans and popped them into the preheated oven.  Easy enough, right?  Well, then I opened the oven to check on them and saw this -

I thought to myself 'hmm, those cakes look like they might overflow.'  But I decided that, no, they were probably almost done and everything would be just fine.  Nope.  A few minutes later, when I opened the oven door again to test the done-ness of these two cakes, I was bombarded by smoke billowing out at me.  The smell of burnt cake was overwhelming.  Justin's arms cramped up from waving a towel around trying to get all the smoke out of the kitchen as I sat, devastated that my mom's present was ruined.  I haven't had this kind of a baking disaster since I tried to bake a vanilla cake for Joey McIntire's birthday and my Easy Bake Oven exploded.  I was seven.  I tried to salvage the mother's day confection, but to no avail.

It still tasted pretty good.  Yes, that's right, I ate the failed cake I made for my mama!  It was the only solace a sad daughter could find.  Mom, I promise to perfect the recipe by the time your birthday rolls around.  I love you and hope you had an absolutely amazing mother's day!  You're the best mom ever.  Love, bean

bff

And for all the other wonderful moms out there, a happy day to you ladies as well.  This goes out to all of you, especially my grandma, Tess, my mother-in-law, Denise, Big Joan, Aunt Donna, Aunt Patty, Aunt Kathryn, Aunt Carolyn, Aunt Kim, Aunt Pam, Aunt Terry, all my gal pals with your broods of babies, and my many surrogate mothers.  Thanks for always looking out for me, for all you've taught me, and for all you've given me.  I love you all and hope you got your Red Door!