If You Bake a Boyfriend a Cake…
It was bound to happen. And I knew it was bound to happen which is why, upon deciding that I would be the one to the bring the cake to The Wedding Date’s birthday dinner, I got in touch with his BFF to see which sort of cake of prefers and decide upon a nice, simple, dark chocolate, courtesy of Dunkin Hines.
I thought about rifling through the book of chocolate recipes my last boyfriend got me to find something a bit more decadent—maybe something made with ginger or orange zest. But I knew better than to attempt a new recipe at 6:00am the day of The Wedding Date’s birthday dinner, especially as I’d be meeting all of his friends for the first time and driving straight from my students’ rehearsal to the restaurant, thereby ensuring that I would A) arrive late and B) get lost along the way.
It’s not that I’m a pessimist; I’m a realist. And even though I love to bake, I know that baking under pressure is a recipe for disaster. You end up doing things like walking all the way to the grocery store only to discover that you’ve forgotten your wallet, then you have to beg the cashier to keep your items at the register, walk back to campus, get your wallet and pray they haven’t restocked everything because you’ve got a mid-term to study for and you can’t afford to spend another hour searching for condensed milk.
Once you’ve finally lugged everything back to campus, you realize that someone has used your saucepan—your only saucepan—and they’ve burned something in it. You grab someone else’s saucepan (which you wouldn’t do ordinarily, but desperate times call for desperate measures…) and finally get down to business, only to discover that this imposter saucepan is cheap and the enamel is melting into the fudge. Not wanting to poison your boyfriend, you have to start over. Which means another trip back to the grocery store.
Additionally, there’s some universal law (I think it’s a law of physics, actually) that says if a girl spends hours making cupcakes/fudge/brownies for a boy she likes, she will inevitably trip during the delivery process, thereby sending said cupcakes/fudge/brownies onto the ground, icing-side down.
Can you blame me for electing to create a simple cake-from-a-box for The Wedding Date?
At any rate, I get up at the crack of dawn, grab the box of Dunkin Hines mix and get down to business. For a boxed mix, it is, actually, a bit fancy (there’s this pouch of “fudge” and dark chocolate chips that must be mixed with water and allowed to thicken, then “spooned” atop the batter and “swirled”) but I get the entire thing in the oven ahead of schedule and head back upstairs to pack my overnight bag.
Forty minutes later, I begin to smell chocolate wafting up the stairs so I race back down to the kitchen to pull the cake out of the oven. It’s… well… a bit wonky looking. The fudge “swirls” have turned rather extraterrestrial and the entire thing looks more like the surface of the moon than a birthday cake.
“You still have to turn it upside down before you ice it,” my mom reminds me. “It will be fine.”
“I don’t know. It looks all… all wobbly.”
“That won’t affect how it tastes,” she assures me. “He’ll love it.”
I’m not so sure—I wanted this cake to be PERFECT—but I put it on the counter to cool and head back upstairs to take a shower. There, I brainstorm all sorts of ways to rectify the situation: I can just slice a little off the top so it will like flat, or I can fill in the wonky bits with extra icing so that it won’t wobble. I might need to make a quick run back to the store to grab some extra icing but I’ll have just enough time to get there and back if I hurry.
When I return to the kitchen, however, I find this:
The culprit?
Message me if you’d like to give the white one a home. I’m just about ready to put him up for adoption (which is exactly what I screamed at the tops of my lungs upon finding The Wedding Date’s cake half-devoured upon the kitchen counter…)
Kat Echevarría Richter 
27 Responses to “If You Bake a Boyfriend a Cake…”
Now, now, now…the white one just thought it was HIS birthday 😉 I was worried about him getting sick when I heard about it, but apparently he is one dog that can consume chocolate with no problems. It is kinda funny though…and it is payback for the time you and chauffeur gas lighted me about my favorite baked goods.
I think a trip to a fancy cake shop / patisserie and a quick transfer into a ‘home’ container is needed here. Let them marvel at your ability to whip up a mille-feuilles or a Saint Honore!
Haha! If only I could pronounce any of the yummies you mentioned…
Oh no! I wouldve killed those dogs! I hope the chocolate didn’t make them sick, but geez. I hope this story has a happy ending.
Wow, this was fantastic! For some reason I never considered my future-dogs would consume leftovers… dummy! This means that rather than throwing away scraps every night (being single is all too wasteful), I can just feed it to my future-dogs. Awessoooommmmmeeee!!!!
I agree with The Prof… Her solution A: Lets you look Really Fancy!, B: Protects the goodies from the puppies, and C: Protects the puppies from you!
We are obviously on the same wave length!
poor you. I have a food hound, too. can’t leave a morsel of ANY food within reach or it is gone.
Did the dogs at least give you that, “I’ve done something bad, but look how cute I am with my big sad eyes” look? I’m a sucker for that look.
No! They have no moral compass whatsoever!!!
I bet Dusty (we can use dog names on here can’t we) just grabbed pieces of it and gave it to evil belle. She told him to get it for her.
Quite possibly… maybe it was like an Adam and Eve sort of thing. Belle IS an evil genius.
I have a similar problem at home, except the culprit is usually my other (I’m not going to say better) half.
Chin up, it could have been worse… The dog could have chewed your outfit while you were in the shower. Now that would have been a disaster!
Great post!
True- at least he didn’t get my shoes!
No worries now about serving a wonky cake, though. Dog saved you, plus you’ve got a funny story. Of course in the funny story the cake was PERFECT, not wonky. Many happy returns, WD.
This reminds me of the time I made Dale a pecan pie for his birthday. My apartment had a really tiny kitchen, and I was cooking a lot of food that evening, so I set the pie on the lid of my trash can to cool. (I told you my kitchen was tiny!) I guess the heat of the pie caused the plastic lid to warp, and the pie slid off the trash can onto the floor. Pie everywhere. Everywhere!! At the time, Dale was sitting 3 feet away from the kitchen and made a valiant attempt to save it, but he dove too late. He still talks about this pie incident. Seeing a perfectly good pecan pie demolished before his eyes traumatized him for life. LOL
Oh no! That is sad 😦
come on, now – don’t tell me this is the first time your dog has counter-surfed? He looks far too contented with himself to have been a first-crime. I agree with the plan of describing the amazing cake you made that was destroyed by a terror of a dog. “oh, but look, I found this cake that looks almost as beautiful as the one I made, at this charming little bakery that does all local-organic and handcrafted cakes. They grind their own flour, you know”
Haha– I’ve never heard the term “counter surfing” before but I love it! And you’re right, he’s definitely not a first time offender, but I did think I’d put it back far enough to keep it out of his reach!
You are lucky they left you as much as they did.
You sure it was not chauffeur or landlord?
I thought it might have been Chauffeur, actually, as he does sometimes eat things I’ve made for other people without asking first but the bite marks were way to savage for any human to have made!
Good detective work
it was not chauffeur, but due to Dusty, I did get to eat the half he left, had he not gotten into it first, I would have not gotten any. “Good Dog” We are a good team.
Puh-lease. I bet you put him up to it! In fact, I thought you and Landlord were still in the living room when I took my shower– it’s not my fault that you left the house without telling me! You should have been keeping watch!
I approve of your decision to go with the box cake mix. The few times I have attempted to do a fancy chocolate cake I have been sorry. The only exception is the German chocolate cake recipe that comes on the inside of the German chocolate baking squares. Very yummy. Imagine how incensed you would have been if you had slaved over a homemade recipe. I’m glad the Dusty is ok and that he still has a home.
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Hahaha… are you sure that’s not a picture of MY dogs?