Valentine’s Day & the Cake of Broken Dreams

I hope everyone had a happy Valentine’s Day! I wanted to post something fun and gorge for the day, but it just wasn’t going to be! I have a lot of wonderful neighbors and one of them had a luncheon for the ladies of the area.

Valentine’s Day & the Cake of Broken Dreams

I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to make a Tres Leches Cake from one of our local cafe/bakeries. It would be great for the blog, for Valentine’s and for our little party.

I made it twice, which I usually do for recipes on the blog. At least twice. One recipe on my blog I made 56 times over a six month period, modifying it each time before I thought it was good enough to go on my blog!

Valentine’s Day & the Cake of Broken Dreams

But back to the cake. The first test was great, but I didn’t take any pictures. I thought my decorating skills were a little lacking. Then I looked at about a dozen cake decorating videos on youtube before I made it again! It really was looking pretty good…until I dumped it off the cake stand!

Then I thought it might be fun to show the results and talk about failed food! I bet there are some people who will never want to eat at my house after seeing some of these pics!!

Valentine’s Day & the Cake of Broken Dreams

This isn’t the first time I’ve had total food fails! There have been dozens upon dozens. It used to be Gibson (one time I turned my back and he was licking the bowl of soup I was getting ready to shoot, which I had placed on a low table!) He was a consummate carb addict and ate countless items!

How he managed to eat this Wayside Inn Carrot Cake while wearing a giant cone is still a bit of a mystery! He was wearing the cone because he was recovering from a surgery after getting into the garbage someone left out!

Chance is still not to be trusted and he is usually confined to the bedroom when food’s around. There’s no way I could watch him and take a picture of any food at the same time! Just yesterday he snatched an Italian Beef Sandwich off the counter as I was letting him out through the kitchen door.

He managed to snatch one of the Mardi Gras Scones, too. I pried his mouth open and retrieved it, whole. He was trying to hide that giant scone in there! Into the garbage that went!

Ha! The game is on!

Even Homer has to be watched. Cats are sneaky little devils. She’s always wanting to be right there when I’m taking my pictures. She’s pretty good and wouldn’t DARE to get up on the kitchen counters, but…

Sometimes, I carry food around the house chasing the light and I think she feels a little more like it’s ok if the food isn’t in the kitchen. In this shot, I turned my back to fiddle with something and *bam* there she was! Very delicately giving this Fromage Fort a little sniff.

Homer wanted to see what was going on with all that cheese!! She knows she’s not supposed to be on the table!!

But my human family members have been just as bad. Outrageous, even. Getting into things that had to be refrigerated, even if there’s a note on them. I mean, really, who eats chocolate pudding from the fridge at 9:00 a.m. in the morning?

Or 12 of the 14 muffins that were just baked and cooling on a rack? They were there for an hour. An hour!! Twelve muffins!! Or grabs a fork and digs into a whole pie? Or eats all the decorations off the top of a layer cake?

Cook's Illustrated Lemon Meringue Pie

This lemon meringue pie looks a little funny – because Gibs knocked it off the table and ate half of it before my pics!! I was able to salvage a couple pieces for the picture.

Honestly, you’d think everyone was starving to death, animals, and people! Which I can assure you, isn’t the case! Funny, now that I think about it, Chance is the only one that couldn’t stand to lose any weight. Maybe someone should confine ME to the bedroom when food is around! It’s a new diet, folks!

Anyway, I hope you all had a wonderful Valentine’s Day, and as my neighbor said, Valentine’s isn’t just about sweethearts, it’s about love and we could ALL use a little more of that. 🙂 And hopefully, a few chuckles!

53 thoughts on “Valentine’s Day & the Cake of Broken Dreams

  1. Hello Frungal Hausfrau
    I love pets especially puppies and kitties. they look very cute when they are small. but sometimes they make me angry when they damage food in my home. so I avoid pets mostly.

    • FrugalHausfrau

      Oh you are so right. They can be quite the handful! And they’re a huge investment in time and attention and no matter how well trained, they’re still animals with all their animal instincts!

  2. I love that you post about your food bloopers. We all have them, so why not share & have a good laugh? One year, I made dozens of Valentine cut-out cookies, frosted and decorated them, and left them out to dry a bit before mailing to my kids. Somebody who shall not be named (I’m married to him) let our Labrador in the kitchen. There were only 7 cookies left, and lots of dog-barf to clean up later.

    • I started thinking of all the recipes I’ve made that have just been absolute flops, either from my error or a bad recipe! I think I might start keeping those pics, lol! Talk about disasters! 🙂 Like foodie bloopers, ,haha!

  3. OK Mollie– my question is –did you take the cake to the party. I wouldn’t hesitate to eat a slide of your cake even if it were a little wobbly!! I left a carrot cake in the middle of the dining room table when we went out, thinking our smallish dog would never get up there. wrong. Glad you’re so intrepid– so we get to see the very best versions of all these dishes. And– what did you redo 56 times?? I’m trying to imagine… hugs hugs!

    • lol! I’ve been known to just slice off the “dog eared” portions of food! It seems to have happened with such regularity that I’m barely phased!! And no, I didn’t take it. But I have a friend and her two daughters that I need to have over, so I’ll just whip it out again!

      It was my copycat recipe for Chipotle’s chicken. The last few times, I was just taking the chicken and dividing into quarters and varying the spicing in each one, so it really wasn’t quite as bad as it sounds!

      • Hi Mollie– so did you crack the Chipotle code?? (it’s my favorite fast food place– do you know that if you go in and just have one veggie taco, it’s only $2.69 with tax? ) OK, stay warm!! xox

        • Good to know!! I usually have a burrito when I go, but then they’re so huge, I’ll save half for later! I’m not sure if we have the “rajas” here or not yet, it’s been so long since I’ve been.

    • Thanks, it was, but I was pretty disappointed!! And yes, the bipeds have been pretty destructive, too! Just gotta keep that sense of humor, right, and remember it’s more about the eating and sharing than the pics.

  4. A pound of butter and half an apple crisp have been just two of many unattended food items lost to canine appetites at my house. The dogs have always waited until they thought they were alone to help themselves. The cats have no cool at all and will jump up on counters to see what I’m doing or even attempt to sample from plates as you eat. Love the post. =)

  5. This is so funny! And so true. My cats will eat anything thst is left, unguarded, for more than two seconds. They have even tried to swipe my toddler’s tea whilst we have both been sitting right there at the table! I hope you had a very happy Valentine’s day in spite of the mishap (you got a great post out of it so that must be a strong silver lining at least). May I ask what is a tres leche cake exactly please? I have never heard of one and am intrigued 🙂

    • Homer is timid, but our old cat, Bob, used to snatch things away from my son when he wasn’t paying attention! Hi was a big, sleek grey cat and kind of a “ninja!” Tres Leches is wonderful! It is a white cake soaked in Three Milks, usually, it’s evaporated milk, condensed milk and heavy cream, so it is incredibly moist, then this one was topped by a whipped cream frosting.

  6. Brilliant!!! Weirdly Bob is not a great eater, unless he’s faced with sweet potato. He LOVES that stuff and will dance around when it’s on offer 😄😄😄
    Happy Valentines Day, lovely Molly xx

  7. Joanne

    Omg you are the best.
    Year’s ago I worked cleaning houses. After 3 days on a fruit diet. (I know, crazy silly) I took the most beautiful turkey sandwich to my clients home for lunch. Took one bite, set it on the counter, turned my back, watched it disappear into the mouth of their beautiful but devilish hound😅😅😅.
    I was crying then.
    Joanne….Happy Valentine’s Day.🐕🐱

  8. Nancy L Janssen

    Reading this brought back sweet, funny memories of our Labs, or should I say, the walking garbage cans? Zeus is a beggar but doesn’t counter cruise, but he does love bread…with butter, if you please. Thanks for the giggles, Mollie!

  9. Hysterical! My dogs are too short to eat anything off of counters, but what I worry about the most is tripping over them as I’m settting up for a photograph, while carrying something hot….

  10. This cake still looks delicious! I’ve thought about making a Tres Leches cake too.
    Speaking of food failures, I made a Smores Pie once that caught on fire while in my oven. I wish I’d taken a pic of it! Just image black ash over top perfectly good marshmallows!

  11. Food fails due to pets and family aren’t something you can always prevent even though it sounds like you try very hard. The last cake picture with the wedge taken out looks pretty good. (I don’t always mention my food fails … pictures can hide as much as they reveal.). 🙂

    • Honestly, I thought maybe I could take a pic of a piece of cake, but it was all cracked up through the inside! My Mom always said, “Never apologize for food!” because I used to worry about things. The older I get, the more I realize she was right!!

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