Cooking Maestro?!?!?!?

Yesterday was Marty's 14th birthday (please, please, pretty please go wish him a happy birthday) and I spent a good portion of the day cooking. At one point, I had my handheld beater in one hand making the whipped cream/mousse filling for the cake and, with the other hand, I was pulling the cheddar garlic rolls out of the oven. I think that qualifies as multi-tasking. The dinner alone qualifies me as a cooking maestro. I mean look at this meal...

The only thing better than looking at it was eating it. The rib eyes practically melted in your mouth. The sauteed onions and mushrooms were divine (Gabe and Joey will always disagree on that). The green beans were crisp and flavorful. and the mashed potatoes were loaded. It was a meal fit for a king or a bottomless pit of a 14 yr old.

Then, I think I got my maestro status at least temporarily suspended if not revoked. Last year, I made Marty an amazing Chocolate Raspberry Mousse Cake.
Not only did the cake look good but it tasted so damned good that Marty wanted it again this year. I made one fatal error this year though. I decided to follow the instructions that have you slice each layer of the cake in half so there are more places to put the yummy mousse and raspberry filling. See, last year I decided I didn't want to deal with the crumbs that always come when you slice a cake and I just made three round layers for the cake. It went together perfectly.It stood up perfectly. It was awesome. This year...not so much. I guess when I sliced each layer into two layers, my cuts must not have been straight enough. It made the whole cake horribly unstable. I bet you bakers in the crowd can guess what happened. The construction of the cake started out ok...

but with each added layer, the layers below started to give out and collapse. By the time I was done adding layers, the cake had spread out a whole lot. In fact, I think one of the layers had completely split down the middle. Cutting it just made it worse. In fact, cutting destabilized it so much that I gave up and scooped the rest of it into a bowl. It was not a pretty sight people.

If it wasn't for the divine flavor of this cake (?!?), I'd have to say dessert was a complete fail. As it is, everyone thought it tasted good enough to devour, despite it's homely appearance. In fact, we decided to claim we created a new dessert. Marty wants to call it Birthday Pudding. My sister by choice Jennifer voted for Chocolate Raspberry collapse. I went for Chocolate Raspberry Birthday Cake Pudding. Which name do you think fits it the best?

BTW, welcome to all you wonderful ICLW people. I have some links that give you a good overview of my life and my story up above.