Adventures in Chocolate Cake

*Before I start, my apologies for the terrible picture. When you have cake exploding all over the counter, you don't quite have time to capture just the right lighting. 

So this week we celebrated E's birthday - he's getting up there! It was another time to celebrate and have the family over for dinner and of course, birthday cake! 

I had purchased a new cake mix, one that I am not used to, from Fresh and Easy. It seemed simple enough...butter, water, eggs, and mix. My plan was to have to cake completely done and finished, icing and all, by the time he came home from work in the afternoon. So I came home from work that morning and got started. It was just as I had thought, easy as pie cake to make and before I knew it they were out of the oven and cooling on the counter. So I went to take my nap. 

At 2 I woke up and got started making the icing, also a mix from F&E that required just butter (a lot!) and water and mix. That done, it was time to flip the cake. I couldn't get it un-stuck from the bottom of the pans... so I tried and tried, and finally decided to just try to flip it.  Now... go back and look at the picture above. Yeah. That's what happened.

It was so flaky and crumbly that it was everywhere! That's just the middle part of the circle in my hand. Everything else was everywhere else.  In a panic, I called my mom who suggested trying to piece it together.  It was worth a shot, but the icing was too thick and the cake too crumbly. I thought that if the bottom layer was messy, I could still cover it with the top layer and more icing, and maybe it would be salvage able. I mean, that's a lot of cake and icing to waste, not to mention it was now 2:30 and I had only two hours to get it completely ready...and start cooking the other food.   I plopped the next layer on...or attempted to. And below is what happened.  I'm not even sure where the rest of the cake pieces are in this picture... most likely on my hands and on the floor.  

What a disaster. I threw everything into the sink and grabbed my keys for an emergency Albertson's run.  I bought the cake mix I am used to and by 4:30, the cake was iced and beautiful. 

Here's an instagram shot my brother captured. We're singing, so please ignore the weird face  I am making.  You can't see the top of the cake for all the candles (I told you, he's getting up there!), but you can see that it's pretty fabulous, if I do say so myself. 

Happy Birthday Husby!

XO