Cake Death

Tragedy has once again touched the lives of the Manning family, at my domestically challenged hands. I was entrusted to make the dessert for Easter dinner tonight. Sadly, that led to a casualty. In situations like these, you may have heard of the 5 stages of grief. These have been adapted for the death of a lemony dessert.

DENIAL: Thinking to myself, "Yes, I have had baking failures in the past, but I have grown since then. I am a mother now, and a mother should know how to do things like bake a cake. Yes, it sounds difficult, but Easter dinner is a special occasion, so what better time to try a new recipe?" I was in denial of my domestic shortcomings, which led to this.

ANGER: This stage of grief was mostly felt by Reo. As I stood staring in shock at what was to be my first baking success in history, Reo became angry at my Bundt pan, the cooking spray I used, and the recipe in general.

BARGAINING: Bargaining is not a very effective stage of grief in cake deaths, as one can only assume that God is not interested in making a deal with me to bring my lemon cornmeal cake with a lemony glaze back to life, and it seems quite petty to even try to bargain in the first place, so I quickly moved on to.

DEPRESSION: This stage lasted the longest. I had invested at least 2 hours and an entire load of dishes in the dishwasher to this cake, so I did not take the loss easily. Tears were shed. Lots of them. Finally, I recovered.

ACCEPTANCE: Going through 4 previous stages of grief takes a while, and now it was nearing 11 PM. I was not about to attempt another recipe (with most likely similar results). So, I sucked it up and did what I could with what I had. I covered up the barren spots as much as possible, and turned the cake into what is kindly referred to at my house as a "Pac Man" cake (this is not the first time something like this has happened....)

In this particular instance of cake death, I felt it necessary to add a 6th stage of grief. I was not quite ready to forgive and forget, so I bring you

REVENGE:

That Bundt pan will never be able to hurt me again!