Let them eat cake

This, my readers, is what a birthday cake should look like. Yes, homespun, yes, I agree it is a little lop-sided. But, it looks like a cake.

Sadly, this is not the spectacular birthday cake which I created for my husband's birthday. No. That one, which I had spent all day preparing including an extra run to the grocery store for a few urgent ingredients was not a success. It was, in fact, a big fat failure. All 75% cocoa solid, condensed milk, pure butter, coffee, bitter sweet chocolate, chocolate ganache of it was a disaster.

Because I broke it. When I came to split and ice it, I broke it. I broke it into so many small pieces that there was no gluing it back together with ganache, no cutting the layers smaller and making a smaller cake. The Ford truck which I'd found in Jewel to place on top took on a new significance, as if it had unloaded right there on the cake plate. This was a shame, because it was his 30th birthday and I had been melting chocolate since he left for work.

Which is why I was more than a little proud of the coffee and walnut cake I turned out earlier this week for a close friend's birthday. Vindication. Or, lesson. Don't over extend when it's that important. Stick to Mum's tried and tested recipe. Impress! And delight! Eat cake.