Cake Wrecks nominee?

I am not a cake decorator. I am SO not a cake decorator. In fact I'm not even much of a baker. But sometimes I do bake. Like yesterday - I baked a chocolate cake for my coworker O.'s birthday. Which was today. He works so incredibly hard, puts in such a fantastic effort at work, and is almost always cheerful and smiling and willing to help out ... and I feel that he is sadly also really underappreciated. He's the kind of employee that ... you know, you don't really notice how much they actually do until they stop doing it. If he were to suddenly disappear from work without making any preparations - like say he went skiing and had an accident and broke both his legs - then I think we'd really be in trouble. But anyway.

Today was his birthday and I wanted to do something special for him. I already had a present ready (also chocolate - we have that in common ;-) but I wanted to bake a cake as well. I knew he would never in a million years expect me to do that, so he'd be really surprised and hopefully really happy. I baked it yesterday and brought it in to work without the icing. I put the icing on this morning after sneaking away upstairs with the cake without him noticing, and I also decorated it with a fun little message *cough* ... with sprinkles supposed to look like ice crystals, appropriate since we're totally covered in snow all over the place here. I tried my best.

Fortunately O. is totally on board with the idea that it's the thought that counts. Because I am so not a cake decorator. I mean, look at it. I started far too close to the center and wasn't able to figure out how much space I would need. Which, now I come to think of it, is exactly the same thing that happened last time I tried to decorate a cake! Sheesh. But yes, it is the thought that counts!!

I'm happy to report that he was able to tell what it said as soon as he saw it - HEIA OVE, which means 'go Ove!' (that being his name) - and then that's supposed to be a little smiley face at the top there. I didn't intend to put that there but there was such a huge expanse of emptiness that I just had to fill it up somehow. I know ...

When I brought it out he was super happy and totally surprised, and the cake tasted delicious. So it all worked out alright in the end. :-)

Oh, and Cake Wrecks is here.