One morning, Helen and Mariella reveal that Helen's school had an art competition whose winner got their art displayed in the library, and Helen wants to stop by the library on the way to school to check if she won. Martha tags along, but Helen lost. Mariella and Martha try to cheer her up by saying that the drawing was good, but she believes they're only saying that because they're close to her.
At work, Mariella tells her dogs that she can't stand to see Helen so sad, so she will try to cheer her up by baking her a cake. However, when a woman named Mrs. Simmons doubles her order of flowers, Mariella realises she will be too busy to bake one. Thus, Martha decides that she and Skits must bake it themselves. They leave, before Mariella can tell them that she will have the bakery bake a cake.
On the way home, Martha reveals that she wants to make a huge, fancy cake like she saw in a movie once. In the Lorraines' kitchen, Skits finds a cake recipe, but unfortunately the dogs can't read. Martha then realises that Helen has a cooking DVD so she and Skits watch it. The woman on the DVD gives the first three ingredients as eggs, milk, and butter.
After a struggle to open the fridge, Skits brings the milk, but makes a mess because his teeth punctured the carton. He then makes a bigger mess by breaking the eggs. The dogs go next door, borrow two eggs from the Parkingtons, but drop them when Skits tries to chase a squirrel and Martha runs after him. They borrow two more, but Skits breaks them when he bangs his head on the door, then stands on the other.
The dogs go back to the Parkington house and decide to borrow all the required ingredients, which Mrs. Parkington puts in a wagon — flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, vanilla, milk, butter, eggs, and two cake pans. She also agrees to push the wagon, lest the dogs spill it. While the three are on their way back with the ingredients, Mariella tries to call home, but no one answers.
Then, the dogs continue watching the DVD, but they need a mixing bowl, and they don't know how to get one out of the cupboard. Skits brings his and Martha's dog bowls, and they try to pour the dry ingredients in, but Martha spills the flour. She then decides to just mix them on the floor and scratch them into a bowl. Then, the recipe requires to blend the butter with the sugar in a separate bowl, which they do in Martha's bowl.
Luckily, Mariella has decided to have Danny pick the cake up, and when Mrs. Parkington calls, she promises to have him buy more cake ingredients too. Meanwhile, the dogs are making progress with their cake batter, but it's dirty and has things in it. They then dump it on the floor, mix it, and scratch it into a cake tin. Then, the cake has to bake for thirty minutes, so they have Howie the postman put it in the oven, but neither dog can count thirty minutes, nor open the oven. Martha gets the idea to order a pizza, specify that they want the pizza delivered in thirty minutes, and have the deliverer take the cake out.
Mariella and her kids arrive home, confused that they can smell baking, and then the dogs show the cake. Helen refuses to eat it because of the objects in the batter, but to spare the dogs' feelings, she and Mariella pretend it's "too special" to eat. Danny arrives with the cake from the bakery, so Helen decides to eat this one and keep the cake the dogs made. However, Martha finds this idea wasteful, so she and Skits eat it instead. Thus, all of the problems are solved... except for the mess on the living room rug.
This episode provides examples of
- Affectionate Nickname: Mariella calls Helen "sweetie".
- Assuming the Audience's Age: The woman on Helen's DVD introduces the viewers as "kids".
- Bread, Eggs, Breaded Eggs: Martha says that the ingredients for mud are water and dirt, the ingredients for cinnamon toast are cinnamon and toast, and the ingredients for cinnamon mud toast are water, dirt, cinnamon, and toast.
- Comfort Food: Mariella wants to cheer Helen up by baking her a cake, but she's too busy, so the dogs try to do it instead, not knowing that Mariella is going to have the bakery bake Helen's cake.
- Continuity Nod: Mrs. Parkington says that if she knew the Lorraine dogs would borrow her ingredients, then, "ghosts or no ghosts, I'd have stayed at my Great-Aunt Martha's!", which references "Martha Gets Spooked", in which the Parkingtons temporarily move into the possibly-haunted property of her deceased great-aunt, who had the same name as the talking dog.
- Delicious Daydream: Downplayed for Martha's cake imagining. It mainly involves her giving the cake to the Lorraines, but it ends on Mariella wondering what they'll do with the leftovers, making Martha lick her lips.
- Dogs Hate Squirrels: Skits sees a squirrel and drops his egg to chase it.
- Dramatic Irony: The Lorraine parents are clueless as to why the dogs are borrowing groceries from the neighbours.
- Eat Dirt, Cheap: Discussed when Martha gives ingredients for "cinnamon mud toast".
- Fantasy Sequence: Martha imagines giving the Lorraines a fancy cake.
- Go-to-Sleep Ending: The episode ends on Mariella carrying Jake to bed.
- Hesitation Equals Dishonesty: When Helen is trying to come up with a lie about why she refuses to eat her dogs' badly-baked cake, she says, "Uh..." a lot.
- Joke and Receive: Mrs. Parkington says, "A cup now? What are you gonna ask to borrow next, flour?". Martha replies, "Now that you mention it."
- Last-Second Joke Problem: Helen is happy again, both the Lorraines and the dogs have cake... but Mariella is shocked at the mess on her rug.
- Lethal Chef: Justified because they're dogs. When Martha and Skits try to bake a cake, they make heaps of mistakes, they mix ingredients on the floor and in their dog bowls, and their batter has dust and random objects in it.
- "No Peeking!" Request: Martha tells the Lorraines not to peek in her imagination when about to reveal the big, fancy cake.
- Shaped Like Itself: Martha says that the ingredients for cinnamon toast are cinnamon and toast.
