Celebrate with Mac & Cheese and What Resembles a Cake!

In true Canadian fashion - serve with ketchup!

Yesterday was our 2-year wedding anniversary, and unfortunately my husband had to be at school until 9:30. It was already in my plan to make my famous Mac 'n Cheese for dinner. It really doesn't relate to our wedding in any way except that we both LOVE it! I also had the brilliant idea of re-creating our wedding cake as a surprise. Not the decor aspect, obviously, but the chocolate/raspberry goodness that was inside.

The second my husband was out the door to go to school, I was off to the grocery store. I picked up white cake mix, chocolate frosting, and fresh raspberries. Now let me preface this story with the fact that I'm actually good at making cakes from cake mixes. It's easy, I've done it a million times...no big whoop. When I was a kid I would make layered cakes and have no problem.

OK, that said, as soon as I got home, I whipped up the mix, poured it in 2 cake pans, and baked it exactly according to instructions. I also did the 'ol toothpick in the center of the cake trick to make sure that it was perfectly done. I let those mothers cool for 15 minutes before removing them from the pan and putting them on the cooling rack. While they were cooling, I made the Mac 'n Cheese and got it in the casserole dish. I was feeling pretty damn proud of myself for this multi-tasking awesomeness.

Cake Fail

Once the cakes were thoroughly cooled, I prepped my fancy-pantsy glass cake dish that I got as a wedding gift. The second I lifted the first cake and put it on the dish it cracked down the middle...big time "uh oh." This sort of thing has happened before, I could hear my Gram saying, "Just put more frosting there, you'll be fine." I frosted the top of the first layer, then for extra yums, I put a layer of my mother-in-law's homemade raspberry preserves. It was looking pretty damn good. Then I lifted and placed the top layer, and the cake just started to come apart. I pushed as much of it together as I could, but it was looking pretty grim. I thought, "well hell, I gotta keep going." So I started frosting the top. It was like each time my knife touched the cake, it fell apart more. I just kept frosting the cracked parts hoping it would mask it, and then I realized that the top of my cake was all frosting, and there was none on the sides. Super cake fail! What to do? I guess put some fresh raspberries on top...I thought maybe it would take away from the fact that the cake looked like someone attacked it. It was at that point that the cake started to fall off the dish, so I had to throw the cover on it to keep it all together.

Needless to say I was pretty bummed and frustrated. I mean, It's an effing cake mix! I'm better than that - and I've NEVER seen anything so messed up looking before. Long story short, my husband came home and laughed when he saw the cake dish with the mutant cake bits, but he was very pleased and happy with the surprise. I also had 2 helpings. We used a spoon to get it on our plates, there was really no point in trying to cut it. So much for my wedding cake-cutting set!

The funny thing is, my husband reminded me that at our wedding, the caterers forgot to get us cake once they cut and served it. So by the time we got our share, it was basically a pile of cake bits that really looked like the monster that I made. Maybe I should have said that was my plan all along.