Disaster Cake

Ben's party went very, very well. Four children called at the last minute to say they could come, which made me very happy, and we still came in right at the number of attendees that we estimated for the Mad Science people. Our Mad Scientist was funny and engaging, and he managed the kids wonderfully. They were very well behaved, so he didn't have much to do in that regard, but he had a good grip on how to allow them to call out without it turning into chaos. There was only one problem all day. Me. I was a completely klutzical mess. I think I spilled, dropped or broke at least five or six things throughout the course of the day. The most embarrassing was when I was bringing out the cake (more on the cake in a minute) covered with sparklers and steaming potions, then hit the cake tray on the inside of the doorway and spilled one of the potions all over the floor. But that was nothing compared to the Disaster Cake. I decided I was going to make the cake myself. So Saturday night I baked one sheet cake and realized it looked kinda puny. So I baked a second one. Sunday morning we were doing final preparations with the guests due to arrive around 1:30, and I decided around 12:00 to go ahead and ice the cake. I iced the top of the first sheet cake, put the second on top and began to ice it. And you know how when you bake a cake it's kind of domed on the top? Well I didn't bother to cut off the tops of the cake because it seemed like a waste. However, because the flat side of the top layer was sitting on top of the domed bottom layer, the top layer started to bend until I had a literal canyon running down the center of the top layer. There wasn't enough icing in the world to make it look like anything less than a disaster. Dan suggested we just take the top layer off and put them side by side. I could ice over any mess. But as you can see by the photo below, it was too far gone. So at 12:30 I ran to the grocery store and nearly shook the bakery girl by the shoulders while crying, "You have to help me!!!" In moments they had a perfect yellow 1/4 sheet cake with white icing that I could take home and decorate with a mad science theme. Unfortunately I don't have a still photo of the finished cake, but Dan promises me he did get some video. And the Disaster Cake was a good chatting point during the party because I didn't want to throw it out...it still tasted fine! We did have to come inside because it began to drizzle during the last half hour or so, but everyone who wanted to did get to swim for a while. And for the most part the weather was gorgeous. So aside from my embarrassing moments, which I think weren't that big a deal to anyone but me, the party was a success. And then I had a beer. PS: I finished a pair of socks this morning.