Seriously, there are hits and misses in baking. The first person who went "Oh, I shall make a cake!" or did so by accident, probably didn't hit a home run every single time.
I have really bad luck with cake.
Not cake out of a box, mind you. Cake that you put flour and various things together in a bowl, mix and voila! I read somewhere once that doing homemade cakes is sort of ridiculous because home cooks just don't have the same ingredients to give that lovely tall, tender, soft and (tasty!) cake that one can get out of a box (or professional kitchen). Of course, this is a taunt to me. I want to try! I want to master, and do, and, etc. The first totally from scratch chocolate cake I made ended up as a 1/2 inch floppy Failure. Failure, capital F. It wasn't even edible. Then, there was the cherry cornmeal upside down cake, which I have done once (gorgeous!) and then twice (similiarly gorgeous and delicious and I'd eat it all day long!). And there was the Boston Cream Pie which was, ehhhh....could have been so much better. And. Then. Tonight I tried a chocolate cake with chocolate ganache "frosting." Well, the frosting which was basically chocolate and heavy cream was
divine. The cakes, which rose fine, and etc, sort of settled out into flat little plains of mostly tasteless, decidedly non-chocolate-tasting non-delight. I'm going to go back to my How To Cook/Bake book to settle this, because, see here, world. Cake cannot possibly be this hard.
( In which I prove that there are good times and bad times )