Cakes - Faugh!

[mlerules]

Thinking of giving up on cakes entirely and sticking w/cookies & brownies (and mebbe venturing into pies). When I regaled the captive audience this w'end w/my recent cake misadventures (I ended up going to the bakery a few blocks from my casa to pick one up as time got too tight for rebaking and my efforts to reconstruct the lost bits ended up badly, even if amusingly - they tasted good though), the ex-H reminded me of the "3-2" cake I created for his 30th b-day way back when. 'Twas another disaster. Ended up as a lopsided mishapen mutant cake w/3 layers in some places and only 2 in others, sorta crennelated or dagged but upside down (turretted perhaps). Again, tasty but fug-ugly. (He was very understanding at the time and I took his belly-splitting guffaws of laughter for what they were: grand amusement and appreciation.) And I'm also reminded of the Well Cake from 4-5 years back, which was really more of a frosting problem - eggs whites w/only the teensiest bit of yolk will NOT whip into hard peaks, no matter how long you try - we'd already used up all the eggs in the house so I decided 'twas a Well Cake and dug pits in't into which I poured the sugery/eggy/booze-laden foam/syrupy goo - tasty as sin but NOT as intended. And then there's the failed attempt at recreating the Castle Cake pictured in my Boys & Girls Betty Crocker Cookbook way back when my l'il bro was a kid. So, I have a long history of cake mishaps and cannot think of a successful one, although perhaps there've been some but they're just not as memorable as the mistakes. So, this all being said: I WANNA DO IT AND GET IT RIGHT, DAMNIT. Future attempts will be made over the next few weeks.

EDIT: This mood indicator icon look like Ren recovering from a bender...not 'xactly what I'm feeling, thank you very much!