You ever start something and then, about halfway through, realize that things are going HORRIBLY wrong? And yet still you solider on, hoping that it’ll get better even though there’s no snowball’s chance in hell?
Yeah.
That’s the story of me and my Boob Cake.
Let me just start by prefacing this story with the fact that I’m married to the most wonderful annoying, perfect and obnoxious man ever. He shall be known as Jethro, in honor of the immutable hottie that is Leroy Jethro Gibbs, Special Agent for NCIS, played by the still adorable Mark Harmon.
Not only do I have a jones for this silver-haired fox, but my husband has a Gibbs haircut which is a holdover from hubby’s A&M Corps days.
Plus, said hubby has sort of a man-crush on Gibbs, though he will never admit it.
Now, Jethro is picky when it comes to food. Like 5-year-old boy picky. You know how most of us keep our college-age diet when we get older? Jethro has kept his grade-school diet. Give him a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, chicken fingers or macaroni and cheese and he is a happy camper. I, however, am not. One of the things I derive joy from is trying out new recipes and cuisines. And I’m not talking about strange culinary arts; I mean simple things like making my own mayonnaise or lasagna cooked in something other than a microwave. Things that normal people would like and appreciate being made homemade.
Nope, not Jethro.
Let’s take pimento cheese. I find the stuff vile; he eats it like it’ll give him superpowers. So I, being the dutiful bride that I am, find a fail-proof recipe from Kitchen Bitsch that I can make for him from scratch. No scary fake mayo or cheese made from oil here, just fresh ingredients and lots of love. Even I found it kinda tasty.
But what does Jethro do?
Eats a just little bit of it. And later, when I question the large tub of leftover handmade-with-love pimento cheese in the fridge, he confesses that he doesn’t like it as much as the other stuff.
The OTHER STUFF, meaning the orange-colored two steps removed from Crisco stuff. That stuff isn’t healthy…that stuff isn’t made with LOVE….
But this is the man that I married. And I must love him and not try to change him.
At least not in obvious overt ways that he’s aware of.
So, one night when Jethro was sick and passed out in bed, I decided to make him dessert. Instead of making him a strawberry tiramisu with hand-whipped vanilla cream, fresh strawberries and homemade lady fingers that I made for a previous boyfriend (and you thought they were only with me for my good looks) I made him his favorite; Box chocolate sheet cake, white frosting from a can and “nothing fancy.” (Which is Jethro-speak for “Don’t add shit to make it interesting for you and then get pissed when I’m not impressed.” We’ve been down this road before.)
While making this boring normal cake, I decided that I should decorate it with something fun because:
- He never said anything about fancy decorations.
- He’s not the boss of me.
- There may have been a three-quarter’s empty bottle of Pinot Grigio involved.
Because it was late and I did not have any real cake decorations, I decide to make Jethro a cake with his favorite thing in the world on it…boobs. (Again, Pinot Grigio was involved.)
Now, if you would like to re-create your own boob cake, it would go something like this.
- Take chocolate candy melts and melt them down, mixing in some white chocolate ones to get the right color. (What? I’m half-black, I wanted my husband’s boob cake to vaguely resemble my boobs.)
- Keeping mixing until you get the right color. Peek down your shirt occasionally to double-check.
- Decide to mess with it one more time.
- Burn the damn melts so that they are lumpy and gross.
- Cuss.
- Drink some more wine.
- Make a new batch. Be more careful this time.
- Burn them again.
- Cuss and drink more wine.
- Mix again and finally get it right.
- Carefully spoon the melts onto the cake.
- Realize the candy is too hot and is melting the frosting.
- Cuss and drink more wine.
- Pull out wax paper and create the boobs on there.
- Spend too much time trying to get each circle of a boob to be perfectly symmetrical out of deep-seeded self-esteem issues.
- Realize that while they are fairly symmetrical, they are also lumpy and misshapen.
- Pour the last of the wine and stop caring.
- Make darker chocolate areolae.*
- Allow candy boobs to dry, as you sway and sing to Patty Griffin. And Boyz II Men. (God bless you, Pandora.)
- Place boobs on cake.
- Giggle.
- Realize that they are missing nipples and you’ve burnt all the candy melts.
- Find a stale bag of M&M’s.
- Realize the brown M&M’s can’t be seen and will have to be pried off.
- Cuss and drink more wine.
- Use the red ones for nipples, as you curse the man for not making tan M&M’s anymore. (Those were my favorite as a child.)
- Realize when all is said and done, they still don’t really look like boobs.
- Finish your wine, mix some food coloring with frosting, write “BOOBS” in crazy serial killer strokes at the top of the cake and call it a night.
Did my Boob Cake magically cure my husband?
No.
Did he look at the cake and become amused at my whimsical nature?
No.
Instead, he wandered in the kitchen the next morning, looking like death warmed over, looked at the cake and said, “What the hell….oh. Boobs. Heh. Mmmm, cake,” and then cut himself a massive piece. Which is probably all the reverence that a box sheet cake with misshapen candy boobs deserves.
And as Jethro walked away, my poor sickly prince with his “not-magical-but-made-with-love-and-whimsy” cake, he turned back at me and said, “Hey. You didn’t do anything FANCY to it, did you?”
***NOTE***
If I get 25 comments on this post, I will post a picture of the boob cake.
25 DIFFERENT people commenting. I know you, you cheaters…
*The title of this post was previously “Boobs.” It has been suggested on Twitter that the more appropriate title is “Bewbs.” I concur.
**Yes, according to Wikipedia, areolae is the plural of areola. This here is a high class blog.
*** Want the reveal? Go here.
Kind of a Mess 
aaahahahahahhaha oh please people, get this post to 25 comments. we’ve got to see this.
Just as long as you promise not to be disappointed when you see it.
And don’t assume that my bewbs look like that.
probably not possible to disappoint me with this kind of thing. and I’m totally going to assume your bewbs look like that.
What did I tell you?? You’re an effing blogging genius. Good bye all my readers, welcome to the best blog ever!! You crack me up hard core.
She has to say stuff like this. I threatened to tell all her secrets that I learned at Alt….
For serious! GENIUS.
And please please please post without the 25 (though, I bet you get there) … we’ve been good! We deserve it! Right?
Oh hell … good think you like us anyway. ::winks::
This made me laugh out loud this morning. Thank you for that.
I think we need to see a picture of this cake.
It’s…unfortunate. Like not even Cake Wrecks-worthy…
Ohmygawd. I laughed SO hard on this one. Alyssa, thank you for making my morning full of smiles and cheer. I am psyched about this blog and can’t wait to see what comes next! 🙂 Now let’s see some boobs(cake)!
PS, Lauren, we still adore you too!
Thank you! I am glad that my dessert disaster at least was good enough for a laugh. 🙂
MUST SEE THE BOOB CAKE!
So glad to see you with your space on the web, Alyssa!
Do it woman! Whip ’em out!!!
I think this is my first comment on your site, and I feel really bad that it’s only to solicit a picture of your sweet, sweet BEWBS.
Don’t worry, I’ll redeem my comments soon! 🙂
Oh, wow, I’m still sitting here shaking with laughter! (I said I’d come read it after I was done working for the day, but I lied and I’m supposed to still be working and will get in Trouble for laughing out loud right now.)
I love the bits of Jethro’s personality that come BLARING through this piece (and yours! but we already know you).
Also very much like “Kind of a Mess”. ❤
Please, please post a picture of the cake!
Oops! I totally thought this was Rachel’s blog!! Well, either way, I’m intruiged!
ahahahah ❤ you Sheila. I will think of a reason to show my bewbs on my own blog tee hee.
Doing my part to bring boob cake to the interwebz.
This is hilarious and something I’d totally do. I’d love to see a pic! 😉
YAY that was AMAZING.
PICS OR IT DIDNT HAPPEN. (C’mon, totally fit with the bewbs theme….)
Oh my god, this just made me laugh loud enough for my co-workers to hear it. I must see a picture of this cake. This is a clever, clever way to get us to share the blog love!
Hilarious.
Okay, I want to see the pictures like everyone else. Let’s do this thing.
I plan on changing my boyfriend in ways he is not aware of also. 🙂 and for my friends sake SHOW US YOUR BOOBS!!!!
You are high-larious.
And I think that you need to post the pictures anyways.
I want to see pictures of the boob cake! Show us your boobs!
Anthony is my husband, btw. He may have posted slightly under duress, as I told him he was commenting because I wanted to see the boob cake. He did read it though. Well, I read it allowed to him anyway. Close enough, right? And he laughed. A lot. And says that he likes Jethro.
He also said this, when I asked him if he was sure if he wanted to say “Show us your boobs” to another man’s lady –
“Well, maybe he’ll get made, and come up here and we’ll get in a gun fight. That could be fun!” I married the very picture of a pacifist, did I not?
I love that you made your husband post for boob cake! I had to poke mine with a stick to even read my post…
And he’d totally be down for a gunfight, though I think a dance fight would be more fun for us, no?
I think that even if I poked mine with a stick, he still wouldn’t read my blog posts. But other peoples… I did promise him that he would laugh though, and laugh he did. I like the idea of a dance fight way more myself. It would be way more hilarious. I doubt mine would get as far as actual gun fighting anyway. He’d say “oh, you have a …” and then talk about guns for two hours.
WE WANT BOOB CAKE!
This reminds me of a story from our honeymoon. We were at some botanical gardens and there was this spherical fountain that was, well, shaped like a giant boob. But we couldn’t get it to turn on. Until our friend yelled “GIANT BOOB ACTIVATE!” Water immediately started flowing from underneath the nipple.
I am not even kidding.
“Giant boob activate” might be my favorite new phrase.
I love this story.
this made me laugh the whole time!
Oh my god. The directions are my fave part. “Cuss. Drink some more wine.”
I like “fancy” stuff with my food too. I just suck at cooking. I’m married to a foodie, who likes to cook. Good for my taste buds. Bad for my budding cook’s self-esteem … (I’d rather my taste buds win.)
You are so going to like tomorrow’s post…
Oh Alyssa, please never leave me. This was stupendous and I’m really excited that you’ll be blogging now!
I’m not going anywhere! Unless I start to get boring. Then I need to go, because there’s no excuse for that
Sarah told me to.
d.o.n.e.
SHOW US THE BEWBCAKE!
This was a great post. Thank you so much.
Picture! Picture! Picture! Picture! Picture!
I.must.see.a.photo.of.this.cake!!!!!! Haha I was laughing so hard reading this James asked what I am doing. 🙂 Hehe
Yes! Finally, you listen to your mother. 🙂 I promise not to judge and I only slightly cringed when you said the f word, (secretly thinking, yes, there’s the outspoken woman we know and love) Mwah!!
Um, who do you think taught me the f word, lady?
And it figures that the boob post is the one you comment on. I love you too, Ma!
I love it here. bewbs and uniballs and all!
Bring on the PHOTO already! It is clearly demanded by the masses. Plus, according to a twitter status of yours (which I realize may be outdated since I just read it 12 hours after the fact), you only need one more new comment. I would be honored to be that new comment. BRING ON THE BEWBS!
It’s up!
This is great! I want to see the pinot bewbs! And I love “kind of a mess”. I’m definitely a mess.
DUDE. I totally do things like this to my husband all the time, so I almost snorted my cereal out my nose reading this. If you ever want to hear the story of the Charlie Brown Christmas Cake, let me know.
Um, YES??
I’ve been trying to come up with an idea for my husband’s birthday cake… the boob cake is clearly genius.
Ok, seriously Hi-Larious post. Brilliant. Show us a picture so we can copy! I feel strangely compelled to try to make such a cake for my hubby’s upcoming birthday. Seems genius to me, combining man’s 2 favorite things in one.
I totally want to make a boob cake tonight now… mostly because I want to eat cake. 🙂
My husband once made my mother and I a penis cake… complete with VEINS. It was the grossest and most amusing thing I’ve ever seen.
I laughed really hard at “write BOOBS in crazy serial killer strokes”. I feel like I’ve had many totally genius inspiration cracked out moments like that.
Where’s the pic? Am I blind? Is it hid?
Also, kindofamess.com looks like kind of famous.com. Oo la la!
It’s the last link in the post, or the nest post in the archives. People demanded it pretty quick.
PS: a friend of mine made a boob cake for another friend’s birthday (both women). It was two large half-spheres, with big ol’ nips and everything. And really? The precise symmetry looked a little creepy. But it was delicious nonetheless.
love this! can’t wait for the photo! you are such a great writer– loved the post on APW today 😀
Ha! At least not in obvious overt ways that he’s aware of. Well said.
Jo, that’s the line that most stood out to me, too! Finding out I’m not the only one who does that (whatever “that” might be in any given situation) is one of the best reasons to have Internet friends–especially other recently-married ones!
Heh, I like that y’all noticed that. 🙂
And honestly, he does it to me too. I went through a phase where I desparately wanted baby frogs. Considering that I had fish and hated them, he didn’t think they were a good idea. So instead of telling me no, he just slowly put me off until I’d done enough research on them to realize I probably didn’t want them anyway.
Which he knew would happen
He’s sneaky sneakerson in his own ways too…
Hey, have you ever considered making a short video of yourself cooking a fancy recipe? Because I think it would be funny and great and lots of people would like it 🙂
Nah. I can blog in my pj’s with blotchy skin eating cherrios. Videos require eyeliner and I’m lazy. 🙂 But thanks!
I.Love.This!! Seriously, this is the best ever. I enjoy the honesty and break down of actual events (such as the small detail of staring down your shirt to get the color right) – genius!
One time I made a penis birthday cake for a friend. Since he had galstones I made sure to include them as well. It consisted of huge gobs of white frosting looking as though it was coming from the enormous penis head. I’m sorry if that’s TMI, but this reminded me of that, bottle of wine and all.
awesome. my husband now wants me to make him a boob cake, but said that he would lewdly lick the m&ms. my husband is icky sometimes 😛
I’m so glad you tried the minnercheese, and major props for the boob cake. 😀
Major giggles! Love it. May have to try that…Although, I’m not a big fan of white chocolate, so maybe I can make “noir boobs” or “boobs in shadow”…heh.