The F-Bomb Cake (Reader Discretion Advised)

I hate cake.

Perhaps you didn't hear me.

I HATE CAKE.

Still not sinking in?

I freaking HATE CAKE.

Except that while I was making it I didn't say freaking.

I said fuck. A lot.

It started, innocently enough, on Wednesday morning at 11am. I needed a three layer cake and I had a recipe for a two layer cake. My genius solution was to double the recipe and have an extra layer of free cake.

Seems reasonable, right?

Ha ha ha.

No.

Some kind of crazy cake chemistry happened when I doubled the recipe and the first two cakes were mushy in the middle and wouldn't come out of the pans and the third cake came out just fine but tasted like crap, so I threw away all three cakes and the batter for the fourth cake because, hey, I could just make more cake.

At this point I wasn't too worried, being only at the "damn" stage of baking, not the "fuck" stage.

I started over, with a single batch this time. I measured and mixed and poured and baked and took them out of the oven. The cakes didn't come out of the pans. I threw them away.

I think it was right around here that I dropped my first F-bomb of the experience, but whatever, no big deal, I could just bake more cakes.

(Deja vu, anyone?)

So I measured and mixed and poured and baked and took out of the oven. These ones came out. These glorious hunks of chocolatey cakeness slid right out of the pans and onto the cooling rack.

I rejoiced, washed the pans, and started over again.

To recap, at this point in the process I had two cakes sitting pretty on my kitchen counter and had six others down my garbage disposal. The sewer rats were having a banquet and I'd only said fuck once.

Happy it was finally my last batch of cake batter, I measured and mixed and poured and baked one more time. I took the cakes out of the oven and the fucking bastards were glued to the pans like they thought their lives depended on it.

At this point I started ripping the cake out of the pans in giant chunks and yelling fuck every twenty seconds because I was fucking frustrated.

My roommate told me to salvage as much cake as I could and stick it all together with frosting.

I told my roommate to go to hell.

Then I made some more fucking cake.

I measured (fuck) and mixed (fuck) and poured (fuck) and baked (fuck). I took the fucking asshole cakes out of the fucking oven and said fuck a few more times for good measure.

Now, I don't know what majestic cake fairy blessed these particular cakes, but finally, finally, the cakes glided out of their pans and I had four layers of beautiful gorgeous chocolate cake sitting on my counter.

I hate cake.

At this point I had all four layers of cake cooling on my counter (after a mere nine hours) and I decided I deserved some fucking tequila. I downed four shots (one for each fucking cake) and did some very bad singing in the shower, because, apparently, that's what I do when I'm tipsy on a Wednesday night.

On Thursday morning, after my tequila therapy, I got to start the cake process all over again to make the decorations.

I started by melting the chocolate in my ghetto-rigged double boiler.

Then I spread the chocolate out on some plastic wrap and stuck it in the fridge while I mixed the frosting.

So far, so good.

Only problem was, I couldn't find a frosting recipe on the internets for which I had all the correct ingredients, so I decided to wing it. I figured if I used half the chocolate called for in my chocolate frosting and maybe added a little extra sugar and vanilla I would have vanilla frosting with a hint of cocoa.

I was wrong.

The frosting was horrible. Terrible. Really, really bad.

So I said fuck a few times and started over.

I ended up mostly following the directions for some buttercream frosting and even though it wasn't all that great either, I shmeared it on the first layer of fucking cake.

Then I shmeared some more fucking frosting on the second layer of fucking cake.

Then I put the third fucking layer of cake on top and wiped the sweat and chocolate from my brow as any self-respecting melodramatic baker would do.

I decided now would be a good time to take the chocolate out of the refrigerator since it had been in there for a good hour and a half or so and I had to leave in....oh, about an hour and a half or so, and I was still in my pajamas.

I pulled out the chocolate and started breaking it up but the fucking asshole chocolate started melting in my hands because, apparently, it wasn't actually set, so I put the fucking chocolate back in the fucking refrigerator and sulked for thirty fucking minutes.

After my thirty minute sulk I made the chocolate frosting and decided I didn't give a fuck if the chocolate wanted to be melty or not so I crushed it up some more, spread the frosting on the fucking cake, threw the chocolate at it, and declared it done.

Oh, and then I put fucking candles on top of the fucking cake. Because I didn't do any of this for me, I did it for some unappreciative 17-year-old who would have been perfectly happy to have a cake from the fucking grocery store.

And that, my friends, is the story of how I came to hate cake and chocolate and birthdays and cake. It is the story of how my houseplants learned the word fuck, and it is the story of why my stubborn ass will never ever again bake another fucking birthday cake ever again. Because I fucking hate cake.