Lavender Honey Crepe Cake RECIPE FAIL

If you've been around here long enough, you know I love to try new recipes. Cooking is super fun and my family usually enjoys trying them out (usually.) Not to brag but some times I feel like no matter what I make, it comes out good. I hardly try and the food isn't just edible but tasty. Must be the Puerto Rican in me.

So obviously you know I was surprised by this disaster:

The beautiful photo at the top of this post is not mine. I wish it was though. Sadly, the photos after of the sloppy cream infested wannabe-pancake-thingy belongs to me...oh the joy.

Okay, here is how it went down. I had decided to do some baking since there were ingredients leftover from David's 2nd birthday party. Plus we just started growing a garden (more on that later) and we have this gorgeous lavender plant I've been wanting to use in something. Mother's day was over the weekend and it would be so great to show up with such a lovely crepe cake, pretending to be all fancy and what not. So I thought it was fate when this post and pic from +The House That Lars Built lit up my Instagram feed. I mean, it is gorgeous right? I thought, perfect! I can do this! (Apparently not...)

Confession: I was so angry, I almost threw the pan across the room. But one of the biggest perks about having a two year old is self-control and accountability since he was watching me huff and puff the entire time. Plus after a tantrum, there's always a mess to clean up. For these reasons, I just took a deep...deep...deep breath. Here's a couple of my after-math notes in case you wanted to try this recipe and do it the right way (which we now know is not my way):

- The crepe batter is not like pancake batter. Beat that thing like a wasp in your shorts. You want it really smooth.
- When spreading the batter in the pan, make sure it is really thin. This is only my second time making crepes and I failed both times. Maybe three times is the charm? Or just a third fail which would just mean another post for us to laugh at.
- Wait until the crepe completely cool before layering. Yup. All the way.
- It is also probably a good idea to let the whip cream cool before layering as well. Sitting out on the counter while you do other stuff is probably not the best idea. I was distracted, in my defense.

There you have it. My first published fail. After the anger died down and my veins went back to normal, a little light bulb went off. Why couldn't I still take pictures even if the cake was exploding lavender whipped cream and ruining my prop table? Who really cares if it doesn't look exactly like a professional made it?

REAL LIFE IS NOT PINTEREST, PEOPLE! And I'm not just saying that because I failed. That is only half true. I'm saying that because at least I tried. And we try so hard to be the best at everything that when we fail, we don't want to document it. We hide it, delete those pictures, never post our faults and failures. So when we see someone else's amazing crepe cake photo, we forget there were probably a dozen bad ones. That this may not be their first rodeo around the kitchen. That before the photo approach to our eyes, it's edited, cropped, changed, altered...perfected.

Sounds silly but this actually taught me something really deep. To not care about sharing the failures but embrace them. We often feel we can't measure up because we are always being fed the positive and the pretty. No one really shares their mistakes but that's how we relate to each other.

Have you ever had an epic recipe fail? Please make me feel like I'm not alone by sharing in the comments!