The Best Laid Plans

Do the weathermen/women in your city get really, really excited when a storm is approaching? They do in here in our city. They start talking really fast and waving their arms around, and use phrases like, "winter ice storm of 2010", "catastrophic power outages", and "locked and loaded to the jet stream." It really makes me giggle. But, in spite of all their weather induced hyperactivity, they are right. Today we've seen freezing rain, sleet, and snow. All of these things equal a snow day at home. Woo hoo!

Now to the point of my blog post......what to do on this lovely day at home?

Read? check

Laundry? check

Movie? check

Play games? check

Build a zoo with wooden blocks? check

And BAKE! I always go into super baking mode when snowed in for the day. After looking through my Southern Living cookbook, I decided to make this.....

Chocolate Pound Cake. Sounds good right? I thought so. After gathering my ingredients, I called for my two helpers. And all started off well.
My smiling assistants stirred, mixed, cracked, poured, and measured happily. All the while wondering what this delightful concoction would taste like when finished.

Lucas supervised the whole event from his baby papasan chair (which he is obviously getting too big for). Yes, his shirt reads "The Godfather." Mike's nickname is The Don, which is a story for another blog...Ok, back to baking.

Licking the beaters was a sweet reward for all their hard work.

The batter looked yummy and chocolatey and ready to pour into a pan.

And after an hour and fifteen minutes, I have to say that I was really proud of the final product. Oh and the smell....so divine. My whole home was perfumed by its sweet aroma. I even resisted the urge to dive right in, and let the cake cool completely before running a knife around the edges to loosen it up. Then came the only dreaded moment. I had to flip the cake over and hope it came out in one beautiful piece.

*Insert drumroll here* Annnndddd......

Disaster. Here's the final product. About half of it looked normal. The other half looked like a dinosaur decided to chomp on it for awhile. If you had been in my house when I dumped it over, you would have heard a loud, "Noooooo!" escape my lips. Mike came in to see what I was yelling about, and when he saw the sadness that was my cake, he said, "I'm sorry." Then the two of us started laughing.

It may have looked terrible, but....

it still tasted delicious.