“Failure is only the opportunity to begin again more intelligently.”  ~Henry Ford

So it was Saturday afternoon and I decided to take LuLu and Little Man to Bed, Bath, and Beyond. I just felt like doing something domesticated, and instead of opting for Wegman’s this time, I would actually BAKE a cake for my sister-in-law’s birthday!

I went to buy a cake pan, but LuLu saw the giant cupcake mold and squeeled, “Mommy- LOOOOOOOK! It’s so awesome! Aunt Danielle will love it!!!” Ok, her excitement was enough to sell me on the giant cupcake mold, and I started imagining all I could do the decorate it beautifully. In my mind, I was Martha Stewart – delicately placing little sugar pearls over a robin’s egg blue icing.

In reality, I don’t even know where to find little sugar pearls??

So, we got the giant cupcake mold and headed to the grocery to pick up ingredients to bake the cake. There were no cute decorative toppings (other than spider man made out of sugar), and certainly no robin’s egg blue icings.

But, yet I again was faced with options- cake mix or make it from scratch? frosting in a can? in a jar? homemade? chocolate cake with white icing? white cake with pink icing? chocolate with pink? LuLu and Little Man were screaming for the pink cake mix, so I took 2 boxes of the mix and I then headed over to buy flour and dark baker’s cocoa to make a dark chocolate cake from scratch.

With ingredients and kids in tow, we went home to bake this giant cupcake. How hard could it be? Make a batter, pour it in the mold, bake, cool, ice…simple, right? I set up the man with coloring books and a Mickey in the background. Figured he’d be busy and Lu and I could focus on the baking.

The giant cupcake mold came with little instruction- just said follow the baking instructions on your cake box. The pink cake box gave times for your standard pans, but no mention of how long to bake a cupcake 25 times the size of a regular one????

30 minutes. Not done. 40 minutes. Not done. 50 minutes. Almost done. 55 minutes…the Little Man is now covered in magic marker, and toy boxes have been dumped all over my living room. Flour on the floor. Egg on the counter. Sink full of batter-covered dishes, mixers, spoons, and still no cake.

I put the toothpick in, it seemed to come out clean. “I’ll clean while it cools.”

My husband’s a chef, and he would have been MORTIFIED at the sight of my kitchen. He’s mastered the art of keeping it neat as you go. So, the 3 of us put a full court press on picking up the house. It was back to normal, kids clean and bellies full, time to ice this giant cupcake.

LuLu was beyond excited, and the kids huddled around me as I removed it from the mold.

F-L-O-P

And then, the tears. Not from my children- from ME!!! I couldn’t believe the cupcake flopped, and my 4-year old daughter had to talk me off the ledge.

“Mommy, it’s ok. You tried really hard. We can just make another one. It will be better next time!”

Huh. She had a point. Tears stopped, we danced around the kitchen singing “If at first you don’t succeed, try try again!!” And we ate the crumbly cake, which still tasted delicious.

In the morning, I got up early to tackle the giant cupcake mold again, and it came out just fine. In fact, it tasted even better because I was able to use the dark chocolate!!