Happy Birthday Disaster

I had such high hopes for the cake I was going to bake for my friend's birthday.It started out good.Unfortunately I can't even upload the pictures regarding this. It's like the whole project is against me!!!!!

It is blurry  but you can see it's the Duncan Hines butter cake, along with sprinkles and butter. I did everything according to the instructions (well except for the sprinkles) I added half a cup which I thought would be fine. It wasn't.

The butter part was fine. I diced it to make for easier blending. This is the batter

The batter looks fine. It was fine as I poured it into the two inch eight inch round cake tins The problem was that the batter super rose and got all over the oven floor. Could it be that I whipped too much air into the batter, thanks to my new Proctor-Silex beater? Maybe? The batter didn't set on one layer. That went directly to the birds when cooled.

I made a traditional butter cream for the remaining layer, 

As you can see the cake is in the pan and is too soft to be lifted out of it. Just a plain icing graces it, hiding the mistakes in the upper right side. I used Wilton's Sparkle Gel icing to write happy birthday. If it had come out OK, , it would  have been a blue and green ombre, but alas it wasn't.

Will I use Duncan Hines again? Maybe. Maybe not. Will I bake butter cake again? Probably not  but never say never. This has been an eye opener in a usually idyllic and problem free baking season. I will try again - but not so soon. I think I need to get the bad taste of a flop out of my mouth.