My father retired today after working in the New York City school system for thirty-four years. That seems like a pretty big thing, so I decided that I’d bake him a cake. But not just your regular, average, stir-and-bake, pop-open-the-cannister-of-frosting cake. I made a cake from scratch.

I suppose I should start by saying that baking is not one of my fortes. I don’t know what my fortes even ARE, but I do know that baking does not even closely resemble any of them. There are two things I’m good at baking, butter cookies and caramel-filled chocolate cookies, and they’re both essentially foolproof. Still, I feel that maybe one of these days I’ll unearth some sort of cooking talent, and so I keep trying.

I started out last night by dusting off the good ol’ “Joy of Cooking”, the chef’s bible. Opened it up to cakes, and selected a chocolate génoise because I had once seen this French guy on Martha Stewart Living make it and it had looked pretty easy. (Lesson #1: If you see a French chef on Martha Stewart Living doing anything, even washing his hands, it probably is so difficult that you’ll never, ever be able to do it.) The little “about génoise” blurb in the book said that it was best brushed with simple syrup and layered with buttercream icing. Alright. I could deal with that, it was for my father after all.

Today, 11:00 AM: I wake up. I hit the snooze button.

11:09: I wake up again. I hit the snooze button again.

11:18: I wake up again, go to hit the snooze button and realize I’ve already hit it twice before, groan and get out of bed.

I stumbled around the kitchen for a while feeling sick to my stomach, and then got to work. I preheated the oven to 350º, I put Teflon liners in the bottoms of two 9″ cake pans, I started a skillet of water boiling, I sifted the cake flour– wait a minute, cake flour? What? For a while I considered just using all-purpose flour and not telling anyone, but then I realized that if I was going to do this, I was going to do it right (relatively speaking), and I also realized that the egg carton felt kind of light, and so I turned off the oven and the light under the pot of water and I set out for the supermarket.

It was hot and sunny out, and it was noon so there was no shade. The supermarket is about ten minutes away, which isn’t too bad. I got there, went to the baking needs aisle, and… there were ten large cartons of ravioli in front of the flour. Curses. I managed to find unobscured cake flour, and I purchased it and headed home.

Turned on the light under the water, preheated the oven to 350º again. Sifted the cake flour. Opened up the cocoa powder– whoops, what a surprise, not enough. But it wasn’t off by too much, so I dumped in what I had and figured it wouldn’t be so bad. But then I went to get the eggs out of the fridge, and realized that I had been so distracted by the cartons of ravioli that I had completely forgotten to buy more eggs. Well, I only needed six for the recipe, maybe I had that many. Yeah, you guessed it, five eggs.

So, trip to the supermarket number two. Halfway down the block I realized I had forgotten to turn off the oven and the stove, so I went back and did that. On the way to the store, I passed two huge wasps buzzing around a front yard. One of them landed on my leg and I emitted a short, high-pitched squeak followed by the contortionist freaking-out there’s-a-bug-on-me dance, not realizing that there was a car idling nearby in which two people were sitting. Anyway, got to the supermarket, bought eggs and cocoa, treated myself to an Italian Ice, went back home, accidentally intruding upon the wasps’ territory again and crossing the street to avoid them.

Added more cocoa powder. Put the eggs in the bowl (turns out I only needed five after all, because I had extra large and the recipe called for large). Now I needed a cup of sugar. And we always have sugar in the house… right? Actually, for once I got lucky, and I breathed a sigh of relief as I pulled the heavy sugar cannister off the shelf. Then I opened it, and there were bugs in it.

Trip to the supermarket number three! Halfway down the block, I realized I had once again forgotten to turn off the oven and the light under the water. I ran back home and into the kitchen and saw that I hadn’t actually turned them back on in the first place. This time I remembered to cross the street before I got to the wasps. As I picked up a five-pound bag of sugar, I said silent thanks that there were three cashiers. But one of them was this not-so-bright guy named Sparrow who was busy counting coins, so I got on the line of the cashier that I had used the first time. I think she smirked at me.

The rest of the cake itself went off relatively without a hitch, except that I was supposed to whisk the eggs in a boiling water bath until they reached 110 degrees, and they just were not getting past 100. I figured since I was baking the cake anyway, it wasn’t a big deal. Oh, and I only sifted the flour twice, instead of three times. Also, the recipe called for “clarified butter” and I had no idea what it was, so I just used regular butter, and put my babies in the oven. Twenty minutes later they came out, looking decent. Then I had some lunch.

Simple syrup was actually pretty simple. Mix sugar and water and cream of tartar, simmer for a couple of minutes. Even I can’t screw that up.

But the frosting… oh, the frosting. I should have just bought it. You see, I had to put egg whites in a boiling water bath and beat them with a hand mixer while measuring the temperature. Let me paint you a little picture: Big saucepan of water. Bowl whose diameter is such that there is an inch of free space all around when it is placed in the hot water (and floats). Electric mixer that spins very quickly.

Now let me paint you another picture: me, standing over the stove holding the electric mixer in one hand and a candy thermometer in the other as the bowl of egg whites careens out of control, spattering me and the kitchen with meringue. I was supposed to do this until it reached 160 degrees, but I stopped at 140, which was the temperature at which the bowl was spinning so wildly that it kicked boiling water up out of the pot and all over my legs.

After looking up information on Salmonella poisoning (”Only five to seven days of excruciating stomach pain? I can handle that…”) I finished the frosting, beating in some butter that I had accidentally dropped on the floor.

Frosting the cake wasn’t too difficult, except that I accidentally sliced the bottom layer a bit too thin.

5:17 PM: I finish the cake. It’s taken me six hours. I go upstairs and take a shower.

The finished product doesn’t look too bad, except when you examine the frosting up close and realize that those little white specks are bits of cooked egg. And yes, it tastes like it. But if you eat the cake and don’t really concentrate on the frosting, it’s edible. And almost strangely good.