Citrus cat tongue and other baking mishaps

I don't like making anything I can't taste first. That's why I'm a terrible baker. I can't tell you how many times I've contemplated if I could cut out the center of a cake and adequately hide the hole with frosting. Or a raspberry rhubarb crumble - could I just fill it with whipped cream? Add a strawberry for garnish? Tell people Mike can't control himself and he ate it?

My mom always said cooking is an art, baking is a science. And science is basically math. And I sucked at math. I don't do numbers of any kind, (That's why learning to use the thermostat is still one of my New Year's goals - I've been avoiding it like the plague.) and I'm not a perfectionist, which makes me the worst baker in the history of the world. 

I once served pumpkin bread to our guests as soup. 

The bread was burnt on the outside and liquid on the inside. Mike loves batter so I assumed they would too and scraped out the inside, throwing away the burnt parts. Hence, pumpkin bread soup. 

Mike ate it like a champ. My guests were polite, but disturbed. 

Or take just last week. I made a Lemon Tart for 12 people that tasted like cat's tongue. It had the consistency of about 200 grit sandpaper, no flavor and was about as ugly as they come. I was the last one to take a bite and realize the horror of my actions, so of course all our guests had already politely shoved down three bites before I could stop their pain.  

Trying to be nice, one of my friends asked if it was Key Lime. I told her there were three lemons in it. We settled on "citrus." 

Citrus cat tongue. 

After that episode I am now seriously considering hanging up my bundt pan in favor of my skillet. Though I'm convinced I have some of the world's most polite friends, I'm not sure how long their taste buds will survive, let alone Mike's who suffers through my terrible baking every time. Soon I'll have burned through all our friends politeness and all I'll be left with is a loyal husband with no taste buds and a pile of sour cupcake soup. 

Ew. That's a terrible picture. But thanks for sticking with me, Mike. Now keep me away from the oven!