Fudgie the Bail

Welcome to the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

I'm Bailiff Jesse Thorne.

This week, Fudgy the Bail.

Kate brings the case against her husband, Aaron.

Aaron insists on baking cakes for every birthday party or special event.

Kate would rather he focus his energy on helping her with their two young kids instead of baking elaborate cakes.

Who's right?

Who's wrong?

Only one man can decide.

Please rise as Judge John Hodgman enters the courtroom and presents an obscure cultural reference.

I threw it in the bin because I didn't want to present it.

I didn't want John Hodgman to judge the way my case came out, so I'd rather present nothing.

Bailiff Jesse Thorne, swear them in.

Kate and Aaron, please rise and raise your right hands.

Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?

So help you, God, or whatever.

I do.

I do.

Do you swear to abide by Judge John Hodgman's ruling, despite the fact that he recently celebrated his birthday with a birthday pie?

Yes, I do.

Very well, Judge Hodgman.

You may be seated.

In fact, it was an ice cream birthday pie.

Which, is that a sandwich?

I don't know.

By the way, I'm going to jump way ahead here, Jesse Thorne, and say thank you to Jesse Madsen for naming this case Fudgie the Bale, which, of course, is a reference to the old Carvelle ice cream cake, Fudgie the Whale, that I grew up with at many a birthday party.

It is the most tortured and frankly, given the circumstances of this case, inappropriate legal metaphor to suggest that Fudgie has anything to do with bail, but it made me laugh, so I used it anyway.

This does have to do with cakes, however.

So Aaron and Kate, given that is the subject matter, can either of you name for an immediate summary judgment in one of your favors the piece of culture that I referenced as I entered the courtroom?

Aaron, why don't you go first?

What's your guess?

I'm going with a Julia Child reference.

Julia Child?

So that was a quote of Julia Childs of some kind?

Yes.

All right.

She is a very famous culinary television personality.

It's a reasonable guess.

I'm still here at WERU in Maine with guest engineer Joel Mann.

Joel, is that a reasonable guess?

Very reasonable, Judge.

All right.

We'll put it in the guest book then.

All right, Kate.

What's your guess?

I'm going to guess the Baking Bible by Mary Berry.

The Baking Bible by Mary Berry.

What do you think, Joel, reasonable guess?

Too reasonable, actually.

Too reasonable.

I'll make a note.

And now I will compare those, and I will take that note into account, and I will stare deeply into Joel Mann's eyes here in Maine.

And all guesses are wrong, I'm afraid.

First of all, thank you for mentioning Julia Child, one of my very favorite people in the world.

But you're wrong.

You're You're wrong, Aaron.

Kate.

You got close, closer than anyone so far has in

this two-person contest for this particular cultural reference.

Because you mentioned Mary Berry, who, of course, until very recently was one of the judges on what is known in the UK as the Great British Bake-Off.

known in this country as the Great British Baking Show.

Do you know why, Kate?

Because Pillsbury trademark situation, right?

Yeah, Kate knows it.

Pillsbury owns the concept of a bake-off in the United States only.

Kate, since you knew that kind of deep-cut, great British bake-off trivia, you should have absolutely picked up on what I was throwing into the bin for you to pick up out of the bin.

Did you not watch the very famous fourth episode of the fifth series?

Where Ian can't make his baked Alaska.

I did.

And he thinks it's because Diana took his ice cream out of the freezer for a while, and so it didn't set, so he threw it in the garbage bin rather than present it to the judges, leading to him to be immediately disqualified.

Then Diana left the show under circumstances pertaining to her health, I believe, but was vilified for,

it would seem, sabotaging Ian's ice cream for the baked Alaska.

So, Kate,

you are eliminated from this competition, I'm afraid to say.

And so are you, Aaron.

And thus, as you're both eliminated from this competition, we have to go to the main event, which is the case that you have brought before me.

Kate, your complaint is that Aaron is making cakes for your child's birthday party.

What's the problem with that?

I know.

It sounds extremely lovely, and it is.

It's incredibly sweet that he wants to make cupcakes and cakes for parties and events.

However,

there is limited time and limited resources in our world right now, and it causes an immense amount of chaos and stress.

And I just about lost my mind at our daughter's fourth birthday with a tiny baby.

And he's basically completely out of commission for 48 hours because he has to gather the ingredients and practice and,

you know, ponder life or whatever of a baker.

And so it means that I'm doing everything else, all of the logistics and all of the child care for that 48 hours.

And it's just a challenge.

So I would like to just buy them.

You would just like to buy cakes and get just check that off the list.

Correct.

And you guys live in Austin, Texas.

Do I understand that correctly?

We do.

So I don't understand why you're not just going out and getting a brisket from Franklin Barbecue and just having a meat cake.

That's a great idea.

That sounds pretty good.

Yeah, it is a really good idea.

I only have the the good ones.

For four-year-olds.

They would love it.

So you have two children, a four-year-old daughter and a baby.

How old's your baby?

He's almost nine months.

And tell me about the most recent birthday party.

What went down that broke this camel's back?

So Aaron decided to

make

bat girl cupcakes.

Bat girl was the theme, and Maya, our daughter, wanted it to be pink and purple.

And so we.

Quick question.

Which bat girl?

Oh, Barbara Gordon or Stephanie Brown.

Oh, I think Barbara Gordon.

That's the redhead, right?

Yeah.

I mean, but I'm not quite sure.

That's my.

If you hear me, I'm coming to a quiet judgment.

Yes, I can tell that was the wrong answer.

No, I'm just.

No, it's a pretty mainstream Batgirl party.

That's all I'm saying.

I mean, yes, it was definitely very mainstream.

Was it an insult to the development of the character Barbara Gordon, who had been, who had been paralyzed by the Joker, but developed into the much more interesting character of Oracle, ceding the cowl of Batgirl first to Cassie Kane and then to Stephanie Brown, fan favorite, only to have that taken away during an ill-advised reboot to have Barbara Gordon not only become Batgirl again, but now be able to walk?

Yes.

That's not a rhetorical question.

I'm answering it.

Yes.

I was wrong.

Yes.

I understand.

Most people think of Barbara Gordon, Batgirl, Yvonne Craig from the TV show Batman.

So, all right, what were we talking about?

Cakes?

Pink and purple cakes.

Okay.

So it was deeply insulting to all things because really it was just pink and purple party with the bat girl symbol.

That's pretty cool.

That's pretty cool.

Whose idea was that?

That was my, that was our daughter's idea.

She likes Batgirl?

Oh, yes.

I mean, you know, she goes through phases.

So in that moment, she was into Batgirl.

There have been times when my daughter demanded to be referred to as Batgirl.

Like, would not respond to any other name.

It didn't get that bad.

But she does have, she's a very opinionated child for sure.

So she planned this to a T.

So she wanted pink and purple.

And so

Aaron decided that he was going to make the

cupcakes from scratch and he was going to go and literally buy the ingredients to dye the

actual frosting.

So he wasn't even going to buy any kind of of pink and purple frosting.

He was going to make it himself and buy all of the

sprinkles at this very fancy bake shop and like the whole nine yards.

Wait, by the ingredients to dye the frosting, do you just mean food coloring?

I think so.

Or are you talking about he was like grinding up cochineal or something?

There is very specific food coloring for, as you would know from watching the Great British Baking Show, there's very specific food coloring that doesn't add additional liquid to your mixture.

So we went and found that food coloring.

And by the way, she picked out the colors, the exact ones that she wanted to.

That's adorable.

Why do you hate food coloring so much, Kate?

Okay.

So

when he took her to the baking place, that was great, right?

Because that was a break from me having to clean the house for all of the family who was going to arrive and doing all the grocery shopping and all of that good stuff.

So that part I enjoyed.

But then when he takes himself sort of out of rotation of the parenting and cleaning and other preparation, you know, cycle to just then bake for 24 to 48 hours, that is the challenge, right?

It's about timing.

The intent is fabulous.

It's the timing and how he likes to live his life like a reality show where it's, you know, down to the last five second count.

And that makes me absolutely insane.

Like I can barely even watch it on television because it just stresses me out so much, let alone live that that reality.

I just want to have everything done, you know, so that when there's diaper blowouts and all of the things that happen in life, it's just not that we're late to our own party, which has definitely happened multiple times.

Did you say 24-hour project or 48-hour project?

I mean, I think the whole thing was like, including the shopping, it was probably 48 hours.

It's 48 hours.

It involves a trip to Costco as well to get a 50-pound bag of flour so we can get everything just right and like 10 pounds of cream cheese to make it just right too.

So

it's a little bit of a peak.

It's a 100-pound bag of flour.

How many pounds?

There's thousands and thousands of cupcakes.

What are you making?

Cake for your entire pirate ship?

There's a lot of cake action that happens.

Both ovens are going in the toaster oven.

So there is some.

There's some stop talking.

Stop talking.

Now, answer this question: How many cupcakes did you make?

Oh, I would say probably

150 to 250.

How many guests did you have?

Oh, well, no, that was like the prep cupcakes.

The cupcakes for the actual people was, I think we made 60 cupcakes.

Wait a minute.

So, Kate, when you said that he had to practice making cupcakes, you meant that literally?

Literally.

Because he never done it before.

How many times, Erin, did you make cupcakes before you made the actual cupcakes?

Actual cupcakes are in my mind watching the Great British Baking Show.

I don't want to to know what it's like in your mind at all.

Maybe once.

Maybe never.

Maybe twice.

Yeah.

It's not very.

No, I mean, during this particular weekend, you made like two practice rounds.

She made two practice rounds.

No, I think he means in my life before that.

No, I mean during the time that you were not available to be a father.

Oh, probably.

Well, I made about 150 or so of them.

So

I don't know.

Probably for about seven, eight hours.

Hang on.

Let me ask you this.

After you made, in your 150-round cupcake-making practice sesh,

after you hit 75 cupcakes, didn't you kind of know what you were doing at that point?

Like, was there an appreciable difference between cupcake number 75 and cupcake number 149?

Well, Judge, all I can say is the output.

All of the cupcakes were gone at the end of the party.

All 150?

Plus the 60 that you made?

No, no, I took about 60 to the party.

The 150 went down.

They didn't make it to the party.

Those were testers to get the ingredients, right?

The first 90.

I've noted out the children at a birthday party ate the cupcakes that were served to them.

That doesn't prove anything.

It doesn't prove that your procedure procedure was necessary.

But that's what I'm trying to determine.

And my question to you was: if you made 150 practice cupcakes, is that correct?

Yes.

All right.

What did you learn between cupcake number 75 versus cupcake 150?

Well, the big thing I learned about it was there was a couple of big lessons learned.

And it was around the temperature of the butter.

When you put butter into the whole mixture and get it going, it changes the way the cupcakes rise.

And then sifting the flour.

One time I didn't sift it and I was like, you know, it's not really lifting.

I lifted the sift of the flour.

So

there was definitely some lesson learned.

And I stopped when I was like, all right, this is the good batch.

This is how you do it.

And that was after 150 cupcakes.

That's when you brought it up.

Well, there's 24 in a 10, and I'm just guessing it was about six batches in those tins.

So it was after batch six.

That's where you really felt like you got it.

That's where it was nailed.

Yep.

And what did you do with all those cupcakes that you didn't bring to the party?

Oh,

they didn't make it into anyone's mouth.

So

they weren't used, unfortunately.

Some were burned, some were undercooked.

You binned them.

Yeah.

Were you following a recipe?

I was.

I was.

You shouldn't have to think that hard about that.

Do you know what a recipe is?

Well, I've learned from Kate that baking in particular requires a recipe.

You can do technique within the recipe, but you need to have the right, don't mess with the measurements, mess with the don't mess with anything.

Get a recipe.

Use it.

Make the cupcakes.

Find someone you trust.

A baking book that you trust.

A cupcake book that you trust.

Follow the recipe.

What recipe were you using?

I think for this one, I think I was using the

Cook's Country, the

Seasons one.

They had a best cupcake recipe in there that I used.

Huh.

If only you could have found a recipe where they had made hundreds upon hundreds of cupcakes ahead of time to refine the techniques.

Yeah.

If only they had some sort of test kitchen right here in America where they could have practiced and tested and checked.

to see in what manner you should make those cupcakes.

Not only do they have a test kitchen, but it is specifically in my hometown of Brookline, Massachusetts.

That's a state in New England, Jesse, a Commonwealth, actually.

There's a slight difference.

I'll tell you about it later.

And that's where Judge John Hodgman, listener, and litigant Afton works.

You are insulting the work they do there, sir.

That's all they do is make hundreds and hundreds of the things to look at and be persnickety about until they get to the one that works.

So did you follow the recipe?

And what happened when you followed the recipe?

I did.

I followed the recipe and it came out okay.

And then I made a couple of tweaks in the way that I prepared the recipe and that's and but I stuck to the same amount of flour and sugar

and butter.

How dare you tweak an America's Test Kitchen recipe?

Who are you, sir?

How long have you been baking?

Not long.

Not long.

Permission to treat the witnesses hostile.

I grant it to me.

But with friendliness, of course, you understand.

Let's take a quick break.

When we come back, we'll hear more about Aaron's baking process and why Kate wants it to stop.

We'll be back in just a minute on the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

You're listening to Judge John Hodgman.

I'm Bailiff Jesse Thorne.

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Let them know Jesse and John sent you.

Welcome back to the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

You're listening to Fudgy the Bail.

Aaron wants to continue his tradition of baking for family birthday parties, but his wife Kate wants to keep it simple and buy cakes at a bakery.

Why does Aaron insist on baking?

Let's go back into the courtroom to find out.

How long have you been baking that you've been developing all these new techniques to change recipes on the fly?

Well, I'll say I bought my first 50-pound bag of flour to figure out how to make a great chocolate chip cookie.

And that was probably about three years ago.

Can I give you a tip on how to?

I've done a lot of experimenting with chocolate chip cookies.

It's probably my favorite baked good.

Can I give you a suggestion on how to make a great chocolate chip cookie?

Yes.

Follow that Cook's Illustrated recipe.

They already tested it.

America's Test Kitchen.

They did it a thousand different ways, and they tell you how to do it.

It comes out great.

Yes.

Well, let me ask you this.

As an inventive improviser in the baking kitchen, what did you do right that our listener and litigant Afton Cyrus did wrong on these cupcakes specifically?

What did you change in the recipe?

I didn't change anything.

The first few batches, I didn't make sure, I didn't follow what I learned from the chocolate chip cookie with the butter.

And so the butter was too

cold and didn't really mix into the batter well.

And it was just not smooth.

And so I did the butter thing.

And then the next one is I went and I got a flour sifter to make the ingredients, like the baking soda and everything, running it through with the sifter, just made the whole like ingredient, not changing the ingredient, but running it through a sifter made it fluffier.

Mm-hmm.

Kate.

Are you still there?

All right.

I'm still here.

I'm having a moment.

Tell me about the moment you're having.

What's your reaction to this?

Here's the situation.

I should say Aaron is an amazing cook.

I mean, his barbecue does not rival Aaron Franklin, but it is excellent.

And it's how I decided to marry him after two dates because he made a pot roast on our second date and I was sold.

So he's a great cook.

With that caveat said, these cupcakes were not very good, even after many, many, many tries.

Mary Berry would say, I believe, that they were too close textured.

Definitely the vanilla ones,

they just didn't taste right.

They tasted like they were trying to be angel food cake, but not quite.

So I think there was some sort of like...

too creative choices around the sifting and butter and such that probably weren't exactly the recipe because they were a little firm on top and then smushy inside.

The chocolate ones were better,

but

these were not so amazing that they needed to happen.

They certainly didn't justify, to your mind,

him taking himself out of commission on his own daughter's birthday to finalize the cake.

Aaron, why don't you make,

you know, I appreciate that you do a lot of stuff in advance, but not enough, right?

Why don't you make these cupcakes

three days in advance so that you can be available on the day of the birthday?

That's definitely an option.

But the cupcakes won't be, you know, they'll be sticking around for 24 hours.

So I don't know if they'll taste as good.

I just, but to be fair.

I already heard from your wife, they don't taste good to begin with.

How do you feel about her assessment of your Bat Girl cupcakes?

I would say the proof is in the cake because I'm pretty sure she had one.

That's not the same at all.

Are these cup puddings or cupcakes?

They're cupcakes.

Tell me how your wife is wrong.

Well, she had both cupcakes and she looked like she was enjoying them.

So I'm thinking maybe history is rewriting itself right now.

False.

May I remind you that your wife is an individual human being who knows her own mind?

It's true.

And she's under oath.

Aaron, you did 75%

of this baking for purposes other than serving at the party.

Why didn't you do that 75% of the baking two weeks beforehand or say

once a week for the preceding three weeks so that among other things, you could actually eat the cupcakes that came out, even if they weren't perfect?

Can I just say something, Bailiff Jesse Thorne?

Yeah.

Great question.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

Go on.

I agree.

I've been preparing for next year, too, just already thinking that

I'm going to win this, or that the judge will vote in my favor or give a judgment in my favor.

I've already started baking for

the next birthday party.

And what are you going to do for the next birthday party?

Well, my chocolate chip cookies are really getting good.

And

so I'm thinking like a chocolate chip cookie cake with melted butter in the center and then some ice cream on top.

Do it that way.

With melted butter in the center, please.

Not melted butter.

With melted

milk chocolate in the center of the cookie.

Molten chocolate in the center.

Yeah, not to burn kids, but just

to scald them a little.

At no point in this conversation did I worry that your intention was to maim children with your bakery.

We knew all along that you just wanted them crispy on the edges and chewy in the middle.

Why did you just get these chocolate chip cookies?

Chocolate chip cookies are perfect.

Just make the perfect chocolate chip cookies and then give them to the kids.

It's true.

In my

in well, in the preparing, I've started making my own ice creams so the whole cookie thing and then some homemade ice cream so

do they go together well

the ice cream is not so great

it's pretty melty town

she's right I have about six more months to get it right though You have to put in a little tiny bit of like xanthan gum

and then put it in the freezer for a few hours after it's made.

And the xanthan gum will help keep it from crystallizing if you leave it in the freezer.

But the extra freezer time will help it firm up.

He wrote that down.

Thank you.

Bailiff Jesse Thorne, I thought that was starting out as a snarky crack, but it turned out it's legit advice.

That's just serious ice cream talk.

That's something about which I feel very passionately.

Okay, so Aaron, when is this next party happening?

Well, the baby turns one in October, so we have to have that situation cleared up.

Yeah, that's true.

We We have two birthdays now.

Yeah, that's why we're here.

Oh, huh.

I was still.

Did you not realize that your younger child also has birthdays?

Well, yeah, so at the first year birthday, it's not as no, I guess I hadn't yet.

I really hadn't thought about it.

He's a very busy dude.

You have to kind of compartmentalize as well.

I'm excited, though.

I have two opportunities, hopefully,

to bake and share.

Kate, in the time that your partner spent making 150 cupcakes for this party.

What efforts did you make on behalf of the party?

So I was doing everything else.

So I had to buy all the food, and

I had to, this is where things get a little bit tricky because I had to supervise Erin's sister who does all of the decorations and the party favors.

And she's amazing.

She's literally a saint, but she takes it to a level that is so far beyond where I would ever take party favors for a four-year-old.

I would literally buy them at the grocery store or go to a place that provides them for you at the venue, you know, as part of the package deal.

But she hand-made

30 different colored bat girl and bat, I guess, boy capes.

She, I mean, it really, really goes beyond all out for these things.

This is Aaron's sister?

This is Aaron's sister, who's amazing.

So she's possessed of the same mania that Aaron is possessed of?

Correct, which is this sort of reality show level,

push it till the very last minute.

For example, she said she was going to come in on

the night before,

but then she changed her mind to come in the morning of the party, which begins at 2 o'clock.

And it's a four-hour drive from where she lives.

So we were going to have less than an hour together to kind of combine all of our various know, decorations.

Wait, are you taking her to court now too?

She's not even here to defend herself.

No, it's just it's it's a relevant situation because I then have two people who are racing around at the last minute in chaos, which is what makes me want to cry.

Okay, so now you have two crazy reality show contestants in your house while you're trying to get everything else ready.

Yes.

And does he contribute to taking care of the baby or the four-year-old during this time?

No, because he's making cupcakes.

Aaron, how do you answer to that?

I say that the

situation is not completely correct

or accurate to the way that it actually went down.

Our daughter, Maya, is pretty particular about her color of her cupcakes and the consistency of her cupcakes too.

So she spent a significant amount of time doing some quality control for cupcakes and also for the color of these cupcakes and the consistency of the frosting.

So I would say if I was in there eight hours, our daughter was probably in there for an hour.

But she's turning four, so she'll go from sitting nicely with him working on the cupcakes to then like finding a permanent marker somewhere and destroying my couch.

You know how it goes downhill very quickly.

She still has to be supervised.

Aaron, saying that she was with you,

defending yourself to say, no, I was helping take care of...

our daughter on her birthday.

She was adjacent to me for a whole hour out of eight that I was hiding in the kitchen.

It's not a defense, is it?

I don't know.

But, Kate, you did hear how Maya was going in there and adjusting the colors and being very high quality control.

How do you feel now that you realize that she has inherited at least half of her dad's reality show DNA?

I feel pretty bummed out about it.

I mean, it's incredibly sweet, right?

I mean, it's a very sweet tableau of the two of them together for that five minutes.

But then, you know, it's just an overall chaotic mess because then the sister-in-law is coming in with all of the favors and she needs to put it all together.

And I've bought three different kinds of hummus because I was getting different feedback from two different people about like what was the hummus situation for the party.

You know, so it's just utter chaos.

And that is just not how I rule.

And I think a lot of people, yes.

Get in your car and drive away.

That's my ruling.

Abandon your family and your town.

Don't abandon your family.

Please don't do that.

But I will tell you this.

You have enough going on in your life that you do not need to be doing hummus taste tests for your picky friends.

Who was giving you flack about the hummus?

No, it was the question of whether or not we had hummus.

I was getting different answers.

So I got hummus and then I put hummus back and then I got less hummus and then more hummus.

That was sort of the situation who was giving you the bum hummus info

well i texted aaron to say do you have a list from your sister and so he sent me a list but then she sent me a different list that had fewer things on it so i was just getting multiple texts and i'm at walmart with the screaming baby and it was horrible because walmart is the worst

i don't want to hear anything more about the sister

This is just between you and Aaron.

This is I understand she's as terrible as he is.

And you have a lot of things you need to vent.

They're both wonderful.

Let me just add, because I know I sound horrible.

They're terrible.

In my defense, Judge, Maya and I, I know it was only one-eighth of the time of her birthday that we spent together in the kitchen.

But that one-eighth of the time, it continues to pay in daddy-daughter time now.

So we bond over watching cooking shows, and we come in the kitchen and she's gotten to the point where she says, Daddy's the best chef in the world.

And I ask her, like, you know, how's it, what makes it amazing?

And she goes, it's your secret ingredient, Daddy.

It's love.

And so I'll make more cupcakes for that.

Yeah.

Kids are adorable.

She's wonderful.

It is, of course, lovely that you're baking for your daughter and sharing time in the kitchen with her and sharing this interest in.

Do you guys watch cooking shows or cooking competition shows?

Cooking shows.

All right.

Yeah, that's wonderful.

Enjoy this until she becomes bored of it and moves on to something else.

And all of a sudden, she's like, I need you to make scallops in the theme of Jason Todd, the red hood.

She's almost there.

I don't understand my daughter anymore.

And that's where I am now.

There's no question that the hour that you had with her on her birthday was great, but there was a party going on that you were absent for.

Were you in the kitchen throughout this party because you were trying to hide from people?

Do you have party phobia or maybe some people in the family that you'd rather just not deal with so you're going to make an incredibly arduous task that really shouldn't be as arduous as it is in order to opt out of the social interaction of the birthday party?

Well, I am guilty of that other times, but not this time.

The party is actually was at a

kids' playhouse kind of place.

And so all the cooking had to be done before.

And so I did complete all the cooking before and participated in the actual party.

So it was all in the lead-up to the actual party.

Yes.

It's not like you had your sister and then like your dad-in-law out there and you can't stand talking to him because he believes the opposite about politics or whatever.

And so you're going to create this busy work for you.

All right, I got it.

Well, you know, I can't eat your baking, but I am going to have to.

This all comes down to whether or not

the high quality of your baking justifies your absenteeism as a co-parent.

You're not absent to your daughter, but you're being absent to your wife who wants your help and is asking for it.

And you are not only not providing it, you're not even managing to give her an accurate inventory of your hummus.

So, since I can't eat your cupcakes, I'm going to have to feast with my eyes on evidence that's been submitted by Kate.

I have these photos here.

We're going to share them, obviously, at the Judge John Hodgman page at maximumfund.org.

Here we have an adorable photo of,

I'm guessing that's Maya on the right.

Is this her second birthday party?

Yes.

All right.

And who's that snowy-haired fellow sitting down on the couch?

That is my father.

Oh, this is the famous father-in-law.

He seems like such a nice guy.

He's amazing.

He's just smiling at his granddaughter, drinking a can of Mountain Dew or whatever.

It looks more like a Schweppes ginger ale, maybe.

And then there's some other people.

Who else is in this photo?

That's my mom and then one of Maya's friends.

It's the only picture I could find with the Elmo cake because I didn't find it to be particularly, you know, camera-worthy.

Okay.

Right.

So let's forget.

Thank you, Kate, for keeping me on

focus here.

I'm sorry that I was asking questions about your family.

Let's forget about all those human mannequins that are surrounding what really is the focus of this photo, the Elmo cake.

Everyone can go now to their internet and look at the Elmo cake.

And it's a very small, I can't really see the picture very well here.

Do you have a close-up picture of this Elmo cake?

I don't.

I can tell you it.

It tasted very good.

It was a carrot cake recipe he got from some woman at his office, and it tasted very, very good.

But I had wanted, you know, fondant and all of the things so that Maya would appreciate it visually because, you know, she was two.

and instead we just got you know he just frosted it with cream cheese frosting and then we put a candle from amazon on the cake you know and

buzz marketing i know that's not allowed no we've already we've already talked up costco and walmart in here we might as well i know don't we get the hat trick and talk about amazon

okay so you're saying this cake looks like garbage and maya is disappointed and you wanted the cake to look like this this other elmo cake that you sent a picture of this totally fondanted out super smooth.

I don't think that's accurate.

I don't think Maya thought it was garbage at all.

And it was so amazingly tasty.

And at two, she couldn't really tell

how

unattractive the cake was, but the cake had like three pounds of carrots in it.

So the kids were having their carrots, and it was delicious.

Even though you are mistaking your wishful opinion for another person's inner judgment, once again, I agree with you.

There's no way that Maya was disappointed, but that Elmo cake, it looks delicious.

Now, here are some photos of these bat girl cupcakes.

Are these because you sent some photos of cakes that you didn't make, but that you Pinterested up because they were inspiration to you.

Correct.

Are these bat girl cupcakes that are submitted here the ones that were served at the party?

Yes, the ones with the Maya, you know, logos that the sister made.

Yeah, let me say something right now.

This is the fourth birthday party.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Aaron, your skills have gone way up.

All right.

These cupcakes look good.

It looks like some crazy person made 150 of these before you even decided to get going.

But I like your select.

Look, I like your selection of the foil cups.

I think that the dolloped frosting and the pink and purple sprinkles are obviously very well art directed by you and your four-year-old.

I think the presentation is fantastic.

I wish I could tell you something about the sponge or the crumb, but

even if I lick my computer, I won't be able to taste them.

So that looks pretty good.

This looks like it paid off

in a way that the Elmo cake did not pay off, to my mind.

Wouldn't you agree, Kate?

These looked like pretty good cupcakes.

They looked totally great for homemade cupcakes.

I mean, definitely as good as homemade cupcakes get.

And again,

the look of them is less relevant to me than the fact that they just didn't taste all that amazing, considering I I lost 48 hours of co-parenting with a baby who does not sleep and, you know, a very rampunctious four-year-old.

And this is what it comes to, right, Kate?

This is what you would have me rule.

You want your husband back.

Correct.

So

how would you like me to order?

So I would have you rule that for the kids' birthday parties that we

got one coming up in October.

We got one coming up in October.

We just buy little nameless boy.

Yes, his name is Hudson.

Um, that we um just do a store-bought bakery cake or cupcake situation so that we can spend the time together, all hanging out.

Um, and I, you know, one of us can like hang with the kids while another one goes and buys the hummus and all of the sort of normal division of labor, as opposed to having a reality baking competition in one room and then me doing everything else.

And so, that would be the case till the kids are old enough to, you know, choose and participate.

So, like, when they're 12.

And he can definitely bake for all of his own personal parties.

Like if he has the dudes over for something and he wants to bake cupcakes for them, that's great.

Just not for something that involves me.

I thought his personal parties meant his solo pity baking party.

Pity party.

Once I rule in your favor.

We'll see.

What about you,

Aaron?

What would you have me rule if I were to rule in your favor?

Status quo, right?

That's what every dude wants.

Status quo for sure, but but uninterrupted status quo.

So like I would get some allocation of two hours to take whoever the birthday child is to the store to pick out their content and then

four to six hours of baking time to make this thing with one hour being with the kids.

Okay.

I think I've heard everything I need to in order to make a decision.

I'm going to go into this tent that I've pitched in the middle of an English field to contemplate, and then I'll be back in a moment with my verdict.

Please rise as Judge John Hodgman exits the courtroom.

Kate, how are you feeling right now?

I'm honestly shocked.

I thought that I was going to have a real uphill climb.

I thought that

because it's such a sweet gesture that Aaron would have sort of the, you know, sympathy vote and that I would get really grilled.

So I'm shocked, shocked.

I even sort of feel like I warned Aaron that I was going to get the brunt of it and then he did.

So I mean, I'm feeling really good, which means there could be a surprise situation here.

It makes sense that you would feel that way since in your house, I guess Aaron probably does most of the grilling.

Very true.

Sorry about that.

I liked it.

Aaron, how are you feeling?

I am not feeling good about

going into the verdict phase.

I'm hoping that the thoughtfulness of what I'm doing to contribute to the to the kids' parties comes through.

But I'm not feeling super good about winning this verdict.

So.

Well, we'll see what Judge John Hodgman has to say about all this when we come back in just a second.

You know, we've been doing my brother, my brother, me for 15 years.

And

maybe you stopped listening for a while.

Maybe you never listened.

And you're probably assuming three white guys talking for 15 years.

I know where this has ended up.

But no.

no, you would be wrong.

We're as shocked as you are that we have not fallen into some sort of horrific scandal or just turned into a big crypto thing.

Yeah, you don't even really know how crypto works.

The only NFTs I'm into are naughty, funny things, which is what we talk about on my brother, my brother, and me.

We serve it up every Monday for you if you're listening.

And if not, we just leave it out back.

goes rotten.

So check it out on Maximum Fun or wherever you get your podcasts.

All right, we're over 70 episodes into our show.

Let's learn everything.

So let's do a quick progress check.

Have we learned about quantum physics?

Yes, episode 59.

We haven't learned about the history of gossip yet, have we?

Yes, we have.

Same episode, actually.

Have we talked to Tom Scott about his love of roller coasters?

Episode 64.

So how close are we to learning everything?

Bad news.

We still haven't learned everything yet.

Oh, we're ruined.

No, no, no.

It's good news as well.

There is still a lot to learn.

Woo!

I'm Dr.

Ella Hubber.

I'm regular Tom Long.

I'm Caroline Roper, and on Let's Learn Everything, we learn about science and a bit of everything else, too.

And although we haven't learned everything yet, I've got a pretty good feeling about this next episode.

Join us every other Thursday on Maximum Fun.

Please rise as Judge John Hodgman re-enters the courtroom.

So, Aaron,

let me say first of all, that you're you're doing everything wrong.

I mean, you're adorable.

There's so many things you're doing wrong here.

First of all, it is settled law in this court.

It is not helping unless you are helping in the way you are asked to help.

Helping in the way that you enjoy helping is not helping.

Helping the way someone asks you to help is helping.

So you are not contributing to the party or to the larger effort of throwing the party, even though you're sharing some very special time with your daughter.

you're mainly contributing to your own obsessive mania and enjoyment of forming your own America's Test Kitchen in your kitchen when someone else is trying to get a birthday party going, right?

There's that.

Second of all,

you know, you've already said it, but I need to reiterate it.

Baking is not barbecue.

There is no jazz in baking.

There is no, let's try this or let's

in this.

It's science, much more than any other kind of cooking.

And I am not versed enough in the science of baking

to evaluate

whether

your sifting and butter temp improvisations, if indeed they were improvisations,

were helpful or less helpful

because I'm getting mixed reviews on these cupcakes.

You say they were fluffy.

Kate said that they were dense at the top and mushy at the bottom.

And I don't even know what any of this means.

I do know that America Test Kitchen knows its stuff and they are testing things a lot.

And I would practice baking

for five years before I started monkeying with recipes, which I feel differently about any other kind of cooking, where it is not only the case that I am an incredible intuitive cook, but also you can be intuitive.

And by the way, barbecue is science too.

I'm sorry about that, Aaron Franklin.

But there are ways you can push and pull at that sort of thing.

But things have to happen at a certain temperature and react in certain ways, especially in baking, that makes violating recipes really problematic.

But there is a flip side of that, which is that once you find a recipe that provides the output that you like, the kind of crumb and sponge and everything else that you like, well, you can just stick with it and get to know it really well, and it becomes of a second nature to you.

So I'm not saying that you shouldn't be doing trial and error.

You should be doing trial and error.

You should be trying different cookbooks.

You should be trying different recipes.

Maybe you'll find ones that you like a little bit better than the others and maybe over time you'll find some ways to adjust and mold those together and you will enjoy doing it because this is what you enjoy doing.

You love schooling yourself.

in this esoteric world where things can go really well or they can go really poorly.

But the third, maybe is the third, I can't, I've stopped keeping count of the things you're doing wrong.

But the final thing you're doing wrong that I'll mention now

is that you're doing all of this

self-instruction and experimentation that is fun for you too late.

Too late.

What you should be doing, and I think you've already self-corrected on this, is six months down the line, think to yourself, I want to be able to make the perfect chocolate cookie.

Let's say that that's what you're going to serve.

I want to make the perfect chocolate cookie, and I want to get so good at it that on the morning of my daughter's birthday, I can make a batch of chocolate cookies in 45 minutes before anyone else in the house gets up, and it's done, and then I can help my wife with all of her hummus problems.

This is what you should be going for if you are going to be the kind of help that you want to be to your family, as well as the kind of father that you want to be to your daughter, because you'd be modeling, planning ahead, and everything else.

I'll say one more thing that you're doing wrong, which is

this molten center chocolate chip cookie cake with homemade ice cream

feels too ambitious for a fifth birthday party

because as you know, their kids' tastes are pretty unsophisticated.

They love pretty things and they love sweet things and you can give them both.

But you gotta crawl before you can walk and you gotta walk before you can run.

And I would aim a little bit lower because a perfect chocolate cookie is already a thing of beauty.

You don't need to trick it out with all kinds of doodads and bangles in order to impress a five-year-old.

She's going to say that you're the greatest cook in the world no matter what.

You might as well work really hard to be incredibly good at the basics.

And I think that this is what you want to do.

I'm not yelling at you really too much about this because I think you're on your way here.

But if you're really good at the basics, you might just prove your daughter correct down the road.

And those are all the things you're doing wrong.

Here's what you're doing right.

You're baking for your daughter and for your family.

And

five wrongs don't make a right, but one right as profoundly right as this one can definitely overwhelm those five wrongs.

You know, I obviously would throw this, and in substance, I do throw this one to Kate.

She needs you on the day before and the day of your daughter's birthday.

It's not project time for you.

And the amount in which your daughter daughter is involved in your project is lovely and adorable and meaningful, but none of it has to happen on the day of or the day before the birthday.

This is all, as Jesse Thorne pointed out, you could have been doing a batch of cupcakes every weekend for months leading up to this thing, and then you would have those cupcakes under your belt, and your belt wouldn't fit anymore either because you've been eating cupcakes all that time.

So, Kate, you would have run away with this, except you said something wrong, which is you want to buy a cake from a store?

Come on, Kate.

Your daughter deserves better than a cake from a store.

If you've got a weirdo husband who's teaching himself how to bake cakes and she's getting in there and picking out those bat girl colors with her dad over at the unnamed supermarket,

store-bought cake.

Come on.

I mean, maybe if you had some fancy pants bakery that did the greatest buttercream frosting or whatever,

you might get me.

And knowing they're baked, for example,

I might say okay to that.

But I already know you go to Costco and you go to Walmart.

Lots of people do.

Lots of people have to.

And I don't think you want to be giving your daughter a Walmart cake when your weirdo husband is in there trying to really live it up and create some incredible baked Alaska or whatever.

He's got to be able to do his thing.

Baking for your family is a wonderful act of generosity unless you're doing it at the exact wrong time.

And then it is a nightmare for everyone else.

So I hereby find

in Aaron's favor,

not precisely the status quo, but the status quo on a much more prolonged

time scale.

such that on the day of and the day before he can be fully present to help in the way his wife asks him to help and the way he is needed to help.

And the upside of this is that

through prolonged practice without being under the gun

of a weird clock and a couple of screaming hosts

is not only more pleasurable, it is how baking has been learned for many, many, many, many generations.

And therefore, I am ordering you to skip the reality show and teach yourself to bake properly and then be there on the day of your daughter's birthday.

This is the sound of a gavel.

Judge John Hodgman rules, that is all.

Please rise as Judge John Hodgman exits the courtroom.

Kate, you lost, but did you get what you want?

Yes, I did.

And I completely did mess up because the cake I bought the year that he didn't bake because I was a little bit pregnant and he was scared of me was from an amazing bakery, one of the best in town, and the cake got rave reviews.

So I should have said that, that people would have liked it better.

But you know what?

I wanted him to win in the sense of for the sentimental favorite kind of a thing.

When you say sentimental favorite, you mean you love him and that's why you married him?

Correct.

And it's so sweet.

I know that, you know, the general public listening thinks I'm a monster for wanting him to not bake for our kids.

I think the general public may think that Aaron is a monster for being a monster.

For torturing me.

Thank you.

I'm glad that you guys understand.

It makes me feel so much better.

Aaron, how do you feel about the verdict?

I'm excited.

I'm ready to go get another 50-pound bag of flour and get working.

How much of this is just about buying 50-pound bags of flour for you?

Because you have brought that up a lot of times.

A lot.

He has an addiction to shopping at warehouse stores.

It's like a real problem.

Have you tried getting like different kinds of flour?

I mean, what's the like?

Have you tried different brands of flour?

They're quite different.

Well, to Judge John's point, I haven't messed with the ingredients.

I've just tried to learn the recipe and the oven and the tools around the recipe.

So I haven't messed around with different flours yet.

Plus, you're pretty committed to Kirkland's signature brand.

It's,

let's be honest.

Well, you two, thank you so much for joining us on the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

Another Judge John Hodgman case in the books.

Before we get to some swift justice, our thanks to Jesse Madsen for naming this week's episode Fudgy.

Fudgy the Bale.

If you'd like to name a future episode like Judge John Hodgman on Facebook, that's where we put out our calls for submissions.

You can follow us on Twitter.

I'm at Jesse Thorne.

And Hodgman is at Hodgman.

Hashtag your Judge John Hodgman tweets.

Hashtag JJ H O and check out the Maximum Fund subreddit at maximumfund.reddit.com to talk about this week's episode.

This episode recorded by Michael Crawford at KUT Radio in Austin, Texas, and Joel Mann at WERU in East Orland, Maine.

Our producer, the one and only Jennifer Marmer.

Thanks, you guys.

Now, Swift Justice,

where we answer your small disputes with a quick judgment.

Chris N.

asks, my wife and youngest daughter love mushrooms, but the smell of them cooking is unbearable to me.

I'd like you to order them to only cook mushrooms in the house when I'm not around.

Sure, so ordered.

I think my mouth really wanted to say so odored.

And

a higher principle of my brain tried to stop my mouth and force it back into saying so ordered.

But either way,

I order that.

I think people, smells, people like what they like and they don't like what they don't like to smell.

And I know that mushrooms, while I will smell them cooking all day long and enjoy it, I can see how that could drive a normal person around the bend a little bit.

And I don't think it's unreasonable to say, hey, I'm going to take a walk.

Why don't you cook up some mushrooms now?

Rather than do it around and stinking up my nose.

That's about it for this week's episode.

Submit your cases at maximumfund.org slash JJ Ho or email hodgman at maximumfund.org.

No cases too small.

We'll see you next time on the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

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