This month was Mr S’s birthday.  His request? A chocolate cake with white icing.

Awesome. Love me some chocolate cake.

Here’s how we made it:

2:00ish Find cookbook.  Discover that “cakes” begin on page 152 and I’m missing p. 153-156.

2:15 Flip back and forth in my other, fancy, too-complicated recipe cookbooks.  Decide on a recipe.

2:16 Find 3 eggs in fridge.  Recipe calls for 4 eggs, and the frosting I want to try calls for 2 egg whites.  Back to the drawing board.

2:18 Decide to send kids to store for a dozen eggs.

2:22 Locate wallet.  Wallet is empty because I spent the egg money on a large iced tea earlier in the week.

2:25 Remember I have Ener-G egg replacer in the freezer. Phew. Locate chocolate cake recipe that only calls for 3 eggs.  Set butter on counter to get soft.

2:30 Teach Miss E how to separate eggs.  We’ll use 1 egg, 2 egg yolks, and 1 fake Ener-G egg for the cake, and 2 egg whites for the frosting.

2:31 Teach Miss E how to fish eggshells out of separated eggs.

2:32 Locate suddenly screaming baby.  Feed her.

2:45 Go back into kitchen to bake cake. Discover horrible, awful, no good mess in pantry caused by irresponsible teenaged son.  It involves an open bag of bulgur that spilled from the top of the pantry to the bottom.  Texas bugs love crumbs. This is a problem.

2:46 Force teenager of PS3 and into kitchen to clean up.

2:50 Empty shelves in pantry and wipe down shelves.

2:55 Contemplate all the ways pantry is not working and formulate plan for reorganization.

3:00-3:45 Reorganization spreads like a virus and eventually includes extra pantry and a cupboard.

3:45 Yes!  All I need to do is containerize these plastic food containers and everything will be perfect. The pantry will be organized for peak efficiency.

4:00 Hmm, there aren’t very many containers to organize.  Where are all my containers?

4:05 Start dumping old leftovers from the fridge.

4:10 Start dishwasher- second load today.  Get text message from Teh Hubs.  Tweet.

4:20 Start cake.

4:21 Come to a grinding halt at the “grease pans and line with wax paper” step.  Search for scissors.  Finally decide to use hair cutting scissors, since it’s a birthday emergency.

4:30 Actually put ingredients in mixer.

4:45 Put cake in oven.

Dinner.  Right. Brief three hour interlude involving Teh Hubs coming home from work, making dinner, and serving it.

7:45 While the kids eat, make frosting.  It’s 7 minute frosting and promises fantastic, artistic swoops that will cover a dark cake.

7:46-7:56 Look for cream of tarter which I KNOW I have.

7:56-8:00 Consult internet, and decide that since I’m using it for egg whites, cream of tarter is unnecessary.

8:07 Hmm. Been 7 minutes, but frosting doesn’t have much volume.

8:14 Now I’ve been beating for double the time.  Frosting still flat.

8:15 Decide this is as good as it’s going to get.

8:30 Cake is frosted and ready to serve.  A sad, sad cake but it’s tasty!

10:30 Really, really regret feeding all the kids birthday cake at 8:30pm.