All was going well. I baked the two layers of the cake one day ahead of eating time (the husband’s birthday.) They baked perfectly evenly and with a little coaxing they even came out of the pan without too much damage. On the big day, I was feeling pretty confident on my cooking efforts: the cakes looked good, I stopped at the store for some lemon curd for the filling, and expertly ordered a pizza. All that was left? The frosting; the meringue of the meringue cake.
I mixed the sugar and water in a saucepan as instructed, heated it until it boiled, and then stirred until the sugar dissolved. I turned down the heat to let it do its thing as it thickened into syrup. Meanwhile, I separated 3 eggs and beat the egg whites with cream of tartar. I beat and beat, waiting for the “moderate” peaks to form. The syrup was only supposed to heat for 4 minutes, but that quickly turned to 7 because of my unresponsive eggs. After 10 minutes, I gave up on the eggs and slowly added the syrup to the mixture while still beating with my electric mixer. The mixer seemed to jam. I figured it was just a minor setback and pulled the beaters out. I thought maybe I imagined it and put them back in the mix and started beating again. Talk about “egg on my face” and my coffee pot, on the floor, and all over the counter too!The “syrup” solidified as it hit the egg mix and created a candy around the beaters. The mixer jammed and sent my would be frosting all around the kitchen.
As I stared at the mess, trying to think of a solution, my phone rang. “Hey, I’m on my way home!” said the birthday boy cheerfully. “OK!” I said equally cheerful. Now what?1. Clean up the evidence of the disaster.
2. Find the ingredients for fall back frosting (a/k/a buttercream frosting).
3. Concoct butter free buttercream frosting.
Why butter free you might ask? I don’t know how to cook with butter after so many years of being allergic to it and I threw away all of the Crisco because of my current soy allergy. That left…Spectrum (the palm oil butter substitute and my frosting saving grace) added to my favorite flavoring – vanilla. Voila! Frosting!
I spread the store bought lemon curd on the bottom layer and then gently placed the top layer over it. Then I did my best to frost the cake. Of course, bits of cake crumbled and spread throughout the icing, adding to the already brown tint from the vanilla. But hey, it was frosting and it was a cake. 
My disaster turned out to be delicious: a light fluffy cake, with a sweet yet sour lemon flavor in the center, topped off with an extra sweet vanilla frosting. Lessons learned?
1. Never use old cream of tartar
2. Never boil syrup for too long
3. Never take yourself too seriously
4. Be flexible enough to stray from the roadmap of th recipe
5. Disasters can still be delicious
