Gourmet's yellow cake with chocolate frosting circa 1987

Matt's birthday cake is a case of what should never have been--as in, this cake should not have existed after what I put it through.

Here is a brief list of things I did wrong:

1. undercooked all three layers of cake.

2. tore two of the layers trying to get them out of pans.

3. completely finished making the frosting and even put it in the refrigerator to cool only to then spy 9 oz. of chocolate I had left out entirely.

4. didn't give frosting long enough to come to room temperature so that when I began spreading it, I further mangled the cake layers.

Gourmet's version:

 our version:

This cake is like that lucky person that walks away from a horrible car accident without a scratch. Well, let's be honest. There were a few scratches.

Icing a layer cake reminded me of the crappy first draft in writing. You kind of just need to to get the cake covered with frosting no matter how messy it is and even though crumbs will be everywhere and you will start to doubt why you even thought you could do this in the first place.

But eventually you'll get there.

Ten days after the actual date, this should finally close the chapter on Matt's birthday meal. Let's not close the chapter on Matt though. Because there's still so much more to share.