"Non-stick" Cake Pan, My Ass

Lately I've been baking a lot of chocolate cakes.  Like, a LOT. I don't know what's wrong with me, but ever since Millie was born I've been craving chocolate like crazy.  No.  You know what? "Craving" is the wrong word for it.  I should have said, "I now have a biological need for chocolate, which, if not ingested at thirty minute intervals, will result in my head exploding." I attribute the whole thing to hormones.  Before my baby was born, I had the same amount of chocolate-craving-hormones as any other normal person. Now, after Millie's birth, I have roughly the same amount of chocolate-craving-hormones as a bus full of teenage girls with their periods synched up. Last week I baked three chocolate cakes in a 5 day span.  I am not making that up. I think I need a choco-vention.

You would think that my baking skills would at least improve with each subsequent chocolate cake.  You would be wrong.  I blame this entirely on my "non-stick" cake pan, which is a complete piece of shit.  Yesterday, I baked this cake:

Yeah, I know.  I'm an embarrassment.  It's basically just a pile of crumbles arranged in a vague, cake-like arrangement.  As you can see, I attempted to compensate for its disfiguration by sprinkling powdered sugar in a decorative fashion on top.  This had largely the same effectiveness as putting your grandma in a wonder-bra, or decking out your 1985 Yugo with a sweet spoiler and rims.

Last week, I graciously shared one of my three chocolate cakes at a neighborhood potluck. You can probably imagine how classy it looked based on the picture above. I don't know what prompted me to expose myself like this because, also in attendance at this gathering, was TAMMY, QUEEN OF THE CONFECTIONARY ARTS.  Tammy, Queen of the Confectionary Arts, is our neighbor and supreme overlord of all things sugar-based.  If you invite Tammy to your house for dinner with only 30 minutes notice, she will show up with a dessert that looks like it was stolen from America's Test Kitchen, and an entree wrapped in bacon.  Here is an example of a little dish that Tammy recently brought to a causal neighborhood barbecue:

I know.  WTF Tammy?! What are the rest of us to do in the face of such supreme culinary domination?  Sometimes, as I'm cooking dinner at my own house, I gaze across the street at Tammy's house.  I imagine what she is making in her kitchen and then just say "screw it, let's order a pizza."

Hopefully, one day I'll get a cake pan that doesn't use the term "non-stick" ironically.  In the meantime, my hormones were thinking of holding a little get-together at our place tonight.  Tammy, we've been meaning to ask you-- would  you care to join us?  We'll be having chocolate-wonderbra-crumble, and whatever you'd like to bring.