Kitchen Wars

Yesterday, my mother and I engaged in our annual battle over the kitchen as we prepared for my birthday party. My task: Make the cake. Her's: Make everything else (My mother can't bake, and I really enjoy it).
The battlefield:



My weapons (This year's cake was too be a superfudge cake with cream cheese frosting):



Blood was shed. Nails were broken:



My mother and I had several disputes about what was good baking and what wasn't (she did get me to agree that using a toaster to soften butter was not a very intelligent idea).
Here's an action shot of me splitting an egg:



Now, those of you who did not witness my cake last year, you will not understand why this battle is important. I do not have photographic documentation of last year's cake, but if I were to try and assign three words to describe it they would be: Gray, molten, and blobby. These words do not a good cake make, so this year I was bound and determined to prove my skills as a baker. Now, everything seemed to be going peachy keen (I got the layers baked beautifully, despite slight burning around the edges of two):



I even turned them out well:



And the icing looked delicious!



But then...DISASTER!
In my confidence I became careless, and placed the second layer of the cake on top of the first without any icing placed between them! Realizing my mistake, I made an attempt to rectify it by removing the second layer:


(Yes, I love you all enough to put a picture of myself in a bathrobe on the blog)

But alas, these efforts were for naught, as the layer began to brake apart...I was not pleased:



This was not my proudest moment.

Upon realizing the hopelessness of it all, I simply iced the cake, leaving the space between the first two layers uniced.



It was DELICIOUS! Victory was mine, and joy was had by all (except for the people who didn't get cake because the slices were too large, which was NOT my fault because I did NOT cut the thing!).

I got so many gifts, but I think that my friend Bethany got me what was by far the cleverest gift, and the one you will all appreciate the most:




Thing to be grateful for today: My yarn fund jar, and all of the wonderful gifts I received, but most of all, all of the lovely people who came to wish me a happy birthday.