Cake

My dear husband, like many men, can easily grill up a perfect burger or cook a tasty pasta dinner. Baking, however, is a different story. Maybe even a scary story. (Kids cover your eyes!)
This evening Derek decided that he wanted to bake a cake. And, I don't mean from a box. One of those 'crack open the ol' Joy of Cooking' cookbook cakes. I find baking a simple yellow cake fairly simple. So I didn't think Derek needed any special instructions. I was busy nursing Jack, so I wasn't free to supervise him. It started out with simple questions like, 'Linz, where is the vanilla?' and 'Sweetheart, is this the right sugar?'. After listening to what seemed like normal baking sounds...the mixer whirling, cracking eggs, and the opening of the fridge...I heard a loud 'Dangit!' followed by a 'I hope you don't mind egg shells' proceeded by a 'I'll fish them out later'. A few minutes later I put Jack to bed and walked into the kitchen hoping to see my husband adorably covered in flour. Not quite. First I see a brand new bag of flour opened on the counter...the flour I had bought and put in a bag and placed on a lower shelf to be used for a MOPS donation (somehow the opened bag of flour at eye level in the pantry had been overlooked...oh, well flour is cheap). Then Derek tells me that the cake may end up tasting a bit spicy since he didn't wash the tablespoon measure after I had used it for cayenne pepper in our dinner meal. Tablespoon?? For the bakers out there, you normally don't use any tablespoons of anything in an average cake recipe. Derek then realizes that he had used a tablespoon measurement for what the recipe called for in teaspoon form. Oh great. 2.5 tablespoons of baking soda and 1 tablespoon of salt is going to make this cake mighty....salty! MMM... Oh, well... As he finished mixing up the batter and proceeded to pour it into the cake pan, I noticed that it was going to be a VERY crunchy cake. Numerous egg shells & bits of the paper from the butter wrapping joined the homogenous mixture!
Currently the 'simple' yellow cake sits cooling on the counter. So, in 20 mins I'll either be flossing egg shells out of my teeth or dead.