Cake Fail

I started baking last night at 11:15pm.

For a morning gal who has trouble smiling after 10:30pm and enjoys the sunrise, baking so late at night was risky business. But, its been one colossally scheduled week and the cake had to be baked last night so I could frost it this morning for tonight's fun.

I picked out the recipe, propped open my eyelids with toothpicks, and mixed together the ingredients.

Then I realized I had a problem: I don't own cake pans.

So I compromised by deciding to make a two-layer cake with the bottom layer square and the top layer a "heart" (which I was going to cut out of the product of a circular pie pan.)

Then I decided the recipe needed to be altered (I can't stick to a recipe to save my life; it usually works out beautifully). Might as well throw a few chocolate chips on there to make it extra chocolatey.

By midnight, my house smelled like chocolate. There was flour all over me and my kitchen. And my cake was cooling.

But then it didn't want to come out of the pans.
And it was sinking in the middle.
And the chocolate chips were making it fall apart.
And there was no way I would ever be able to cut a heart out of the crumbling circle.

I hope it tastes good.
Cuz the girls are going to be eating it tonight.

Doesn't look so bad, does it? Not as bad as anything on Cake Wrecks. Well, look again...

Pretty pitiful, no? And, yes, that's supposed to be two layers. And, no, one edge does not have any icing. The whole cake would crumble if I tried to stick it on there.However, in my defense: this is the first cake I've made since who-knows-when (high school, maybe?). And, um, despite all my kitchen experiments, this is the first cake I've attempted from scratch.

At least I can laugh at myself. (And, yes, I give you permission to laugh at me, too.)