My Tonys are going to hate me tonight!

I'm a big fan of birthdays. Really. Ask my mom. I celebrate my own birthday the entire week prior to the actual date. Back when I first started at the Police Department, my squad used to celebrate the birthdays of my guinea pigs officers with an ice cream cake, though since I've started baking, I've found that I usually make something in honor of their birthdays. And it's changed from baking for five or six guys to baking for about forty two.

I know. Crazy, huh?

This past week, one of the guinea pigs officers had a birthday and I missed it. Well, I didn't technically miss it. I told him Happy Birthday and promised that I'd bake him a cake, but I was short on time Monday night so I made him the German Chocolate Cookies instead and I think I might have hurt his feelings by doing so.

So in an attempt to make him feel better, I decided I'd make him a German Chocolate cake tonight and surprised him at work.

Though I used the same recipe as before, there were quite a few differences in the way the cake turned out. The last time, I made a layer cake. This time, as my nifty little cake carrier is missing, I decided to use a 13x9 pan that way I had something to carry it in. I used the bake times specified on the recipe, but the cake looks burnt to me. I didn't even bother to take pictures tonight because I'm so unhappy with it.

Also, I had to use the frosting that I've been using for my German Chocolate cookies because of a stupid mistake I made at the store. I made a list of the ingredients I needed to make this cake and when I was at the store, I read the list wrong and ended up with condensed milk instead of evaporated milk. I don't even know if there's really a difference between the two, but I was so worked up about getting the wrong stuff that I ended up burning my sugar and butter mixture in the pot.

Luckily, I had everything I needed to make the frosting for the German Chocolate cookies and decided to substitute.

I'm still going to take this down to the PD tonight and hope that it tastes better than it looks but I'm not hopeful. This is definitely a 'cake wreck' as far as I'm concerned, but I guess that'll teach me to bake when I'm in a not-so-good mood.