More about peppermint cake...WARNING, humor ahead

So after I labored intensely last night and arrived at school this morning, I told the teacher about the cake I made for her. She was keeling over laughing so I thought I would share here.

Lessons learned:
1. When the recipe says "boiled water" it really means boiled water. Even if it's just a 1/2 a cup. Cocoa powder does NOT melt unless it meets boiled water.
2. When the recipe says to place waxed paper inside a 9 inch spring form pan, it means you better put the paper in there! I have never used a spring form before and I found out the hard way, that without the paper, the cake WILL leak out some leakage point and "tsss" on the bottom of your oven.
3. When you poke the middle of a round cake with a knife to see if it's done, it will usually collapse. Bummer.
4. When the recipe says "marshmallow frosting" and you make it from scratch....NEWSFLASH!!! It will literally be marshmallow! And, just in case you were wondering, a glass bowl as a substitute for a double boiler works, but gets very hot (use hot pads!). And, also if you were wondering, you might want to make sure you have more than 5-7 minutes to beat egg whites and karo syrup. And just to be safe, it's a good idea to make sure your beaters actually work and stay inside the beating handle thing while beating. P.S. you will be trying to beat marshmallow creme/fluff. Ever tried it? NOT easy.
5. When the recipe says "stiff peaks" it means it. But....GOOD LUCK. If your beaters can make it, then awesome. If not, (like mine didn't) then you'll have to settle for runny, goey, sticky, pink marshmallow goo that will look like it is going to stick like frosting, but 5 minutes later it will be slowly running everywhere...not on the cake. If you refrigerate it, this slows the running process.

I think that's about all the things I learned while making this cake. Scott said it best when it was all over "Honey, can you please never make that cake again?"

Amen, baby. Amen.

p.s. it did taste good! And it set the whole kindergarten team into a fit of giggles as I was explaining my trials. They were pretty impressed. I am amazing.