My heart, how it sings

Sigh. The ultimate tower of chocolate cake I visualized all yesterday afternoon turned into the ultimate tower of equal parts FAIL and SUCK when it came to execution. I’ve been wracking my brain trying to figure out where I went wrong. Greased pans, check. Floured? Damn, how could I forget that? Was that the misstep? Maybe. Or, more likely, in my haste to get the party started, I just didn’t let the layers cool long enough before taking them out of the pan. In a fit of rage, I crumbled most of the mess into tiny little pieces.


This was going to be a celebration cake for my dad, a “thank freakin’ God cake”, really. The good news we got yesterday regarding his cancer status made my heart grow 100 times bigger in my chest. But, because I am a firm (and oft times, misguided) believer in signs – granted, my own made-up ones (a hummingbird came out of nowhere and grazed my head – obviously that means I’m going to be a millionaire!), it’s got me worried again. What does it REALLY mean when your cake falls apart like that? When you think you've done everything right and it still doesn't turn out the way you'd hoped? I've baked this cake a million times and have never had any problems before. But now, rubble is everywhere - the floor, the table….my hair. Destruction. Creation. Life. Death. Transformation.

From the 3 nine-inch cake rounds, I salvaged enough of the solid pieces to create a small chocolate heart filled with vanilla butter cream. It certainly isn’t very pretty, but it’s intact and it’s moist, just like a cake should be. And even though I didn’t get to build my ultimate tower of chocolate, I still consider it a celebration cake. I’m still so thankful for everything…everything....for a heart that’s been left whole, unbroken.

(The rest of the crumbs are in my fridge. I know this sets the stage for cake pops, but I hate cake pops, so I’m going to stretch the boundaries of my creativity to come up with something else. Was the invention of cake pops similar to the origins of the chocolate chip cookie? An accident? How could it not be? Why on earth would someone ruin a cake like that? Genius, though. Seriously – I see those things everywhere).

Photo by my talented friend, Bebe B.