Day 22: Birthday Cakes and Akashi Fails

Summary: Kuroko's birthday is tomorrow, and Akashi wants to make him the best birthday cake that he's ever had!

Kuroko's birthday is tomorrow and Akashi can't wait to make him his present.

Yep, he said make his present, because Akashi knew immediately that he was going to make Kuroko a delicious birthday cake. The redhead wanted to do something new, something unexpected for Kuroko's birthday, and as much as a romantic date or birthday sex sounded, he was sure that Kuroko would not expect his significant other to bake him something for his birthday.

Akashi had to admit that he's never actually baked before in his life. However, due to the technological, internet age that they live in, the redhead decided to search online for the best birthday cake recipe that he could find. Recipes always contain not just the necessary ingredients, but also instructions on how exactly to make the dish, so Akashi knew that even though this would be a first for him, as long as he has the recipe, he can add baking to his numerous list of things that he excels at.

20 minutes of web searching later, and Akashi finds a brilliant recipe on how to make a stunning vanilla birthday cake with old fashioned vanilla butter-cream, or at least that's what the recipe says. Though with the pictures alongside the recipe, the cake looked simple yet delectable. Kuroko loves vanilla, so Akashi knew for sure that he would absolutely love this cake.

So with that, Akashi begins. He prints the recipe so that he doesn't have to carry the laptop to the kitchen and begins to read the recipe carefully.

The 2 cups all-purpose flour, spooned into measuring cup and leveled-off with back edge of knife

The recipe included these ingredients: baking powder, salt, unsalted butter, granulated sugar egg whites, whole milk, vanilla extract and almond extract. And that was just for the cake part.

There was even a separate set of ingredients for the butter-cream which were: unsalted butter, cream cheese, confectioners' sugar, vanilla extract and salt.

Egg whites? So not the actual yolk? And what even is almond extract and confectioner's sugar? Isn't it the same as regular sugar? Any professional baker would be extremely disappointed in Akashi's lack of knowledge, he was sure of it. He's eaten eggs hundreds of times, however he has no idea what it means to just have the egg whites.

Does this means I have to separate the yolk? Now how the hell do I possibly do that? Akashi thought, eyebrows furrowed in frustration. This was going to be a lot harder than he thought.

One trip to the grocery store later, and now Akashi has all of the ingredients necessary to start making the birthday cake for his beloved Kuroko.

He's grateful for the step-by-step instructions as well as the pictures on what each step should look like, because otherwise the redhead would be at a total loss, someone who once called himself the absolute emperor does not want to go through again.

So with the oven pre-heated to 350 degrees and his pans sprayed with cooking spray and wax paper placed on it, he was ready to begin baking.

He began with making the cake batter, whisking away at the flour, baking powder and salt like a pro, or at least fast like a pro. He almost spilled the flour onto the kitchen counter from his rapid whisking, so he had to be careful. However eventually, the contents were whisked and it was time to separate the egg whites, something that Akashi had to admit that he was regretting.

It had taken him 5 tries before he was successfully able to separate the yolk from the egg whites. Each attempt either resulted in him putting the yolk in the batter, causing him to fish it out with his hands, accidentally dropping 2 eggs onto the kitchen floor, or the yolk is too mixed into the egg whites that he has to toss the egg otherwise it messes up the cake batter.

The milk was quickly added and the egg whites and milk were whisked together. After a minute, they seemed pretty mixed together so the redhead deemed it satisfactory.

Next up was to mix them together via the mixer. A small portion of the flour mixture was added along with another small portion of the milk mixture, so that the two mixed together. The instructions said that Akashi needed to stop and scrap the bowl after a little bit before he added more of each mixture, so he did just that. The process was repeated several times until the entire flour and milk mixture was mixed together.

The end result was a little grainy, causing a bit of worry on Akashi's part. Was it supposed to be like that? He eyed the recipe, to which it cleared up that it was fine if the mixture was a tad grainy, sealing Akashi's worry. He grabbed the 3 prepared pans, one for each layer and began to carefully pour each mixture into each pan. His pouring was a little rushed and his hands were too low, causing some of the mixture to drip onto his fingers but he ignored it. Smearing the tops evenly with a spatula, he finished by placing each pan into the heated oven and set the timer for 35 minutes.

The cake batter was complete and now there's the butter-cream.

Luckily that was much easier, only requiring the electric mixer again. Thanks to the mixer, mixing the cream cheese and butter was easy. The only hard part was gradually adding the confectioner's sugar, which he learned was actually powdered sugar, so that he didn't pour it too fast or too slow. The beating of the vanilla and salt confused him a bit, like did it mean that he actually beat them with his fist or not. So in the end, he just dabbed them into the mixture and that was that.

In the end, the butter-cream looked exactly like it was supposed to, and Akashi couldn't help but feel a little bit of pride for what he had achieved. If the butter-cream was made to perfection, surely the sponge cakes would be just as perfect?

The timer on the oven went off suddenly, signaling that the cake was finished baking. Akashi couldn't help his anticipation. Even though the process of actually baking the cake was more tedious and messy than he expected, he still knew that overall that he did a decent job of baking a cake for it being his 1st time ever doing so.

He turns off the heat in the oven as well as the timer before putting on oven mittens and opening the oven door. The 3 sponge cakes were pretty even, well risen and they looked like they were perfectly cooked to the redhead, so he decided to take the cakes out one by one and then placed them onto the kitchen counter.

It was at this point, while the cakes were cooling on the rack where another dilemma occurred, how was he supposed to get the sponge cake out of the pan? The pans were sitting on the cooling rack and the cakes appeared to be clinging to the sides, making the chances of them falling out easily to be slim. Akashi had to give those professional bakers some credit, the fact that they make these beautiful, perfect cake slices while removing them off the pans without the chances of them ripping apart was pretty impressive.

5 minutes have passed, and now Akashi needs to transfer each cake layer to the giant cake plate that he has prepared on the kitchen table. Well it's now or never. He might as well do his best so that the cakes look text-book perfect. He takes one pan and transfers it to the pate, flipping it over upside-down so that the cake can just fall onto the cake plate.

Which it didn't.

Akashi frowned, he's had enough struggles making this damn birthday cake and the stubborn treat was going to go on the plate whether it wanted to or not! He began to tap on the pan, hoping that the added force will allow the cake to fall onto the plate. However that failed.

So he kept trying, again and again and again. Until success arrived and a chunk of the sponge cake fell onto the plate.

Wait a chunk? Akashi frowned, flipping over the cake to realize that about ¼ of the cake fell off into a chunk that landed on the plate, and most of the cake still remained sticking onto the pan. How could that be? He added cooking spray onto the pans and he added wax paper.

Akashi retreated towards the ingredients and re-read them, only to realize his mistake. He was supposed to add nonstick spray onto both the pan and the wax paper. He only put it on the pan, meaning that the cake was stuck on the wax paper.

Well damn, there goes his perfect text-book birthday cake. However, Akashi can be rather stubborn. He doesn't want the last hour of running to the grocery store, baking the stupid cake and waiting impatiently for it to cook to be a waste of time. This was a birthday present for Kuroko and damn it, he's going to get a birthday cake that he made himself with lots of love and effort!

Driven by impatience and stubbornness, he takes a spatula from a nearby kitchen drawer and carves out the last of the cake forcefully onto the cake plate, using his fingers to maneuver the two chunks so that it appeared to be perfect, ignoring the evident seam that separated the two chunks.

Before moving onto the next 2 layers, he takes the butter-cream that he luckily did a better job at than the cake layer and smears it onto the 1st layer, because not only would it taste delicious, it would hide the evidence of Akashi's epic failure.

The process repeats 2 more times, Akashi trying and failing to remove each sponge cake perfectly onto the already butter-cream coated layer and smothering his failures with delicious vanilla butter-cream. He covers the sides of the 3 layer cake with the butter cream as well, trying his best to make it look pretty while in reality, the smothering of the butter-cream was a bit uneven and sloppy.

There's only one thing that he needs to do, and that is to write the happy birthday message onto the cake. Taking a pastry bag filled with blue frosting that he bought at the store earlier, he begins to write his message. Akashi's penmanship is the epitome of perfection on paper, so of course his penmanship on a cake would be just as perfect.

Nope, he was dead wrong. The writing was sloppy and uneven, fitting the unwanted theme of the birthday cake. The words were too big and too long, causing Akashi to run out of room when trying to write his loving message. Instead of a pretty "Happy Birthday Kuroko," the barely readable message was written as "Happy Birthd Kurok."

He wanted to write "Happy" and "Birthday" next to each other, which turned out to fail massively, as he ran out of room after writing the 'd.' He could've wrote the rest of the word below it but he gave up, deciding that his beloved was smart enough to understand the meaning of the message. As for his name, he should've began writing near the end of the cake but for some reason, he began in the middle, causing the redhead to once again, not have enough room to write his full name and now it looks like he doesn't even know how to spell his lover's name.

In the end, gazing at his final product, Akashi could conclude that this birthday cake was a big, epic failure and baking was not going to be something he excelled at anytime soon.

His heart sank even further when he heard the sound of the front door open, and the yapping of Nigou accompanying it.

"I'm back, Akashi-kun!"

Kuroko was home. His lover was home and Akashi hadn't even begun to clean up the catastrophe in their kitchen, nor hide the evidence that he just made the worst birthday cake known to mankind, and there wasn't anything Akashi could do about it.

"Welcome home, Kuroko!" Akashi called from the kitchen. He didn't have time to clean up. His clothes and hands were a mess, the kitchen was a disaster, plus there wasn't time to put away the cake.

Well I guess Kuroko is getting his birthday present a little early.

"Akashi-kun, where are you?" Kuroko questioningly called, his voice growing louder and louder, meaning that he was coming this way. Akashi quickly rinsed his hands, dried them, and grabbed the cake plate containing his fail of a birthday cake and was only able to walk around the kitchen counter, before Kuroko walked into the kitchen. He turned towards his lover; let's just say that his once deadpan expression opened up to a face of shock. Baby blue orbs widened in shock.

"Akashi-kun? What happened in here?"

Akashi sighed, lowering the cake and changing its angle a bit so that Kuroko could see it better, but not enough that it would fall off the plate entirely.

"I wanted to make you a cake for your birthday, so I tried to make you one. I think you and I both know just how well this turned out," he admitted. The man wasn't the kind of guy to fully proud of his disaster of a birthday cake, but he's also not the kind of man that knows that it could've been worse, and the last thing he wants to do is shyly beat around the bush regarding his failures.

Kuroko blinked. Once, twice and a third time before his lips curved into a smile and laughter began to ensue. At first Akashi thought he was mocking him but when he saw the playful expression of his beloved, he couldn't help but smile in return. Kuroko could just be too adorable when he's laughing.

"That was really sweet of you, Akashi-kun. I love it," Kuroko replied, that sweet, contagious smile adorning his face once again. Now the redhead couldn't help but become a little playful himself.

He smirked, "Really? Even though it looks like something ran over it?"

"Of course I love it, because you made it."

If it weren't for Akashi's pride, he would've admitted that he felt the blood rush to his cheeks. Kuroko can be so sweet even when he gets a present such as his failure birthday cake.

"I know my birthday isn't until tomorrow, but can we eat the cake now?"

Akashi was surprised by the question, not expecting his lover to actually want to eat the cake.

The redhead smiled, hiding his genuine surprise. "Whatever the birthday boy wants, the birthday boy gets," he responds before placing the cake onto the dining room table so that they could enjoy it together.

The couple ate the disaster of a birthday cake together, Kuroko teasingly joking about Akashi's frosting skills as well as his handwriting and spelling. Though Akashi was upset that it wasn't perfect, just the fact that Kuroko enjoyed the cake and was very happy to have received it from him, that made Akashi forget his frustration and just be proud that he was able to make his lover happy for his birthday.

The only question remaining was the cake tasted like? Well, despite the disaster of Akashi's presentation, the cake itself was actually pretty delicious.

Notes: So I have a question, when I post this Days onto my AO3 and on Tumblr, I also include a summary before the actual fanfic. Would you all like me to do the same on here? Now what I would do is that I would go edit all of the other Days before this one to include a summary of what each Day is about at the top before you read the fanfic, just so you know what the fanfic itself is about. I know that I haven't done this here yet and even though I haven't gotten any questions about that yet, I still think it's kind of unfair that you are all reading my fanfics not knowing what to expect while my Tumblr and AO3 readers already have an idea.

Just let me know if you think that's a good idea or not.

Also here's a link to the recipe that I reference in this fanfic in case you were interested: .

So anyways, with all of that out of the way, reviews, comments and so forth are encouraged and appreciated! :)