Published in On Our Selection News February  27, 2014

Success can take shape in many forms.

For some reason, I volunteered to make a cake for an Hawaiian themed housewarming party on Saturday night. I had grand visions of the baked perfection taking the form of an oversized pineapple. But this treat would also be a trick – instead of the pineapple flavour partygoers would expect, they would be blown away by a coconut taste explosion. The plan was simple – I’d make 4 round coconut cakes, stack them and cover with layer of yellow icing. The pineapple illusion would be completed with some leaf-shaped pieces of green cardboard stuck in the top.

However, when it came to the actual creation of this masterpiece, things were less than ideal. The first batch of cake mixture seemed a little thicker than usual and appeared to have a much greater volume than the single cake tin The Women’s Weekly assured me it would fit inside. It wasn’t until I closed the oven door that I realised I’d added an extra cup of flour. Assuring myself that a biscuit-cake hybrid would add a delightful crunch, I continued on. I was determined to present this pineapple. Imagine, if you will, the entire baking session as a montage to Rudimental’s Not Giving In. Unfortunately, four from four of my cakes came out of the oven looking like they’d been dropped several times. With a slightly deflated ego, I went to finish what I had started, hoping to hide the atrocity in a blanket of icing. Due to the sheer size of my tower of shame, I had to use two batches of icing, one much runnier than the other. The results were horrendous. Surveying my handiwork, I was hit with the realisation that I’d spent four hours of my Friday night making a yellow abomination.

This “cake” would have been better described as The Leaning Tower of Pus. It resembled a stack of dried pus scabs, with the ooze of infection dribbling over the top of it, collecting in a pool of sticky yellow gunk on the plate. It looked like the Michelin man, if he was suffering from severe jaundice and put in the microwave. Basically, it was a pile of failure. Worse still was that this nightmarish confection was slightly taller than the cake container, meaning that it was squashed, as well as grossly deformed. I was disheartened, but I’d promised cake, and dammit, I’d bring cake.

Thankfully, the party had started hours before I arrived. The hostesses were doing so well at keeping their guests hydrated that the mound of yellow disappointment was received as a golden cylinder of awesome. Guests flocked to the cake, using whatever tools were at their disposal to consume it. Some used knives from the cheeseboard, while the pull for others was so strong that they plunged their (hopefully sanitised) fingers into the cake’s moist layers and scooped the coconut sponge into their mouths, not unlike the motions of Bruce Bogtrotter during that infamous scene in Matilda. And while I watched the eating orgy unfold, I swelled with pride. Although this was not the grand unveiling I had hoped for, seeing grown adults abandon socially acceptable behaviour to consume my creation was still pretty grand. Sometimes, success is not how you imagined it would look like, but it still tastes as sweet.