They can't all be perfect

The day started out great. I slept in, I went out for brunch to a great place with a good friend and after walking around a bit in the rarely beautiful Chicago weather we came back to my house so that I can bake the second cake in the Star Wars series for the same birthday boy...and this is where the problems started. I had an idea for a cake. I was going to make one of the ships, don't ask me what they're called, so I whipped up a batch of earl gray chocolate cake, poured it into a pair of ball pans and the leftovers into some mini loaf pans and went to chat with my friend. I checked in on my cake a few minutes before I needed to take them out and I was greeted by something reminiscent of a crusty Jabba the Hutt. It seems that my trusty recipe backfired and tried to escape the pans. I decided to switch tactics and try something simpler for a design, so my friend and I started scouring the internet for more ideas. Finding nothing inspiring we took off for the nearest Michaels...then WalMart...then Jewel and finally back home without much of an idea of where to go next and a pair of small toys to use just in case all else failed. I started over and made a batch of chocolate pound cake from the Art & Soul of Baking, figuring that it can't hurt to leave this in the hands of a true professional. The cake came out very dense and chocolaty...so far so good, but it still needed to be decorated. At this point my friend had to go, seeing as how at this point we've already been at this for several hours, and I was on my own. The last resort option was a pair of crossing lightsabers, using the figurines to help the illusion that this was a credible solution to the problem, and I think it came out okay, but I think given slightly worse weather or slightly better luck, this could have been something great. Oh well, I guess Star Wars holds no sequels for me. Here's what came out of this whole ordeal: