This is what happens when baking recipes tell you not to open the oven for a full hour. Open it, they warn, and your cake will deflate. Hmm…what would be worse than that?

I decided to make my coworker this Guiness ginger cake for his birthday, as he is of Irish descent and has been known to throw back a stout or two.

The burning smell would normally alert the baker that his cake has oozed all over the floor of the oven, but this stupid cake smells so good that the burn smell isn’t noticeable. After about fifty minutes, I thought, well, it wouldn’t hurt to just take a peek. At which point I had a complete meltdown, and mice across the Village probably came skittering to my building to await their midnight snack.

(Despite all the drama, the cake probably isn’t ruined. I’ll turn it out of the pan tomorrow morning. The part that stayed in the pan doesn’t look burnt.)