A Laughable Disaster!

Well, it happened, and happened spectacularly! Yes, it happens even to the best of us ;-) *SNORT*, and it totally warrants many few cackles of glee through the internet community: look at her mishapen volcano! Is it a science experiment?! What the heck happened to that thing? Yes, even my own mother paused before murmuring 'ummmmmm. Hmmmm'.
Witness the Disaster Cake! Yeah, you wouldn't believe this was supposed to be a lovely, decorated birthday cake for a friend, would you? No? Really? I'm surprised.

So - witness what happens when you decide to halve a recipe to make in your funky new floppy silicone bakeware, but forget to use self-raising flour, realise just before throwing it in the oven, scrape out the entire mixutre and add 1 teaspoon EACH of baking powder and bicarb. Noooo - not for me any checking of quantities for a half-mixture of cake! Noooo - I'll have none of that fact checking and quality control! I'll just chuck in a bagload of chemicals!
And, hence, I'll witness my cake mix rise like Lazarus and begin erupting like Mt Vesuvius. It was fascinating to watch. Just like a car crash. I couldn't tear my eyes away from the carnage of my mixture bubbling and boiling out of its mould all over the oven.
I couldn't save it, because by the time it was cooked it was sloped like a ski run and had no interest in releasing itself from the mould. The final sad creation looked as much like a cake as Big Bird does, and I was left with little time, little patience, and great annoyance.

However, in the past years I've developed my own intestinal fortitude, and no longer want to dissolve into a quivering mess, so I decided to just go with it. The solution? Turn it upside down, put it in a bowl, cover it with chocolate icing and call it a 'chocolate pudding'. We'd eat it with spoons! And I know my friends would laugh with me......and maybe only a little bit at me. :-) I did go to pains to explain to the one girl we didn't know that I am usually pretty good at this sort of thing....and waited for the confirmation from A. It took a distinct silence and severe glare before he came through with 'Oh! Yeah. Her stuff's usually good.' Wow. Thanks. :-P

But, you know, chocolate cake has a magical power, that even bringing a sad, misshapen, laughable creation as mine to finish a lovely dinner party, can't diminish. People love any chocolate cake, and I could have told them I scraped it off the back porch and they still would have been impressed that they had homemade chocolate cake on the table. Maybe not have eaten it, but you never know - some people aren't fussy...
So, we laughed, we served it with spoons and we drank it with coffee after an excellent dinner party.
Happy Birthday Vaughan :-)