First time baking a cake... ever!

Ok, so my boyfriend's birthday is coming up... I thought I'll bake him a cake... a sweet surprise. (Sounds better in theory, trust me ><)

I didn't have any hand mixer so I mixed all by hand and whisk... My poor armsss.... T_T (And I kept wondering how come all these lumps are not mixinggg and the batter is not smooth... boo hoo)

Spent at least 6 hours during the entire experience... gosh...

I sprayed the heart shaped pan with those instant no-stick can spray for baking... yea the cake didn't stick to the pan but there's a weird taste / smell to the cake sides... and of course: Top & Bottom part of the cake got overbaked.. (Burnt) The middle part? Uncooked yet... erh... I must have left the cake in the oven for like 2 hrs to make sure the middle part get cooked thoroughly..

I ended up trimming the top and bottom part (most of it) to get the cooked part in the middle... the edible part, I thought... :P

Then using the canned chocolate icing, tried to cover the whole cake.. got icings all over the place *doh*. I wanted to spell out "Happy Birthday!" with white icings using one of those ready to use bottle with tips for easy spelling (Define Easy... :@....) Ended up unreadable and in desperation, I just smear the whole white icing in the middle.... and added chocolate sprinkles... :'(.....

Here's a picture: Yea, didnt look tooo bad.. but totally not worth the 6 hellish hours I spent :(

And the result:
Taste.... err... let's just say we ate 1 bite *for symbolic purpose only* and that's it. Here's how it looks in the inside:

Let's just say... after this experience I didn't step into the kitchen for months... traumatized by the whole thing :P