My mother's birthday was August 12. Every year my father would take her out to dinner, and my sisters and I would bake her a "surprise" birthday cake. You would think eventually the element of surprise would be lost, but we managed to mess up her cakes in a new and different way three years running. The first year, being a very young and inexperienced baker, I put the more level cake layer, the one with the slight crack in the middle, on top of the more domed layer, figuring the icing would make up the difference. Nope, the top layer broke in two and slid down the dome. The next year one sister turned off the preheated oven while the cake was in it. This did not turn out well. The next year, for reasons still unexplained, both layers of the cake just flat disintegrated while being removed from the pans. The year after that (and all subsequent years) we made her cake the day before her birthday. Turned out perfect every time.

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