Verily, No Good Deed Goes Unpunished

So, last Sunday one of the older ladies at Mass asked me if I would bake two cakes; one for the funeral reception of the woman from church who passed away on the 13th, and the other for a fundraiser for our local fire company.  Given that I am an almighty and everlasting sucker (and also that both of these are good causes) I agreed to do it.  Even knowing full well that I would have to bake both of them tonight, since on Thursdays I am home for approximately one hour between 9AM and 6:30PM, and no baking is realistically going to happen during either the pre-school craziness of the morning or between 6:30 and when the kids go to bed.  The cakes have to be in by tomorrow early afternoon.

So...kids finally out of my hair, I break out my ingredients and start baking.  One chocolate cake, one spice cake.

The cookie sheet on which the foil pan containing the chocolate cake was resting buckled with the heat in the oven.  The raised corner of the pan had approximately no batter in it by the time I noticed, and the opposite corner was overflowing.  Cake totally trashed.

Then I baked the spice cake, using a different cookie sheet under that pan.  It didn't buckle, but for some reason there was a large, obvious bulge of baked cake in the middle of the pan when that one was done baking.  I did cut that off with a bread knife to level it and then frost the top with cream cheese icing to hide the damage, but WHAT THE HELL?   Two for two on pathetic cakes tonight.

As I type, a third cake (another chocolate one) is baking in a silicone bundt pan.  This is IT...whatever it looks like when it's done and glazed, it is going to the firehouse tomorrow.  Enough already!  If something goes wrong this time, I am officially removing myself from further baking duty, social niceties be damned.