Shattered

I love cooking main meals. Didn’t I share a favourite chicken supper dish with you recently? And didn’t you say how delicious it was when you tried it out? But there’s a magic spell people use when they bake cakes and I don’t know the words. I’ve tried many times and yesterday, because I don’t give up easily, I tried again. I baked a jam sponge cake.

I do get myself into a bit of a state when I bake but I managed to hold it together. I even remembered to sieve the flour!! I measured things out and I whisked like a crazy thing [well you have to get lots of air into it, don’t you?] I watched through the oven door as it started to rise. I even allowed myself to get a little excited.

When I took it out of the oven it looked a bit knobbly, even biscuit-like in places. No matter, I thought. I bet it’ll taste delicious. I used half a jar of ‘high quality’ strawberry jam, sandwiched it together, sprinkled it with icing sugar, put all the dirty utensils into the sticky mixing bowl, filled the bowl with water and stood back to admire my cake but...

...I stepped back into water. There was water was pouring from the work surface. Where was it coming from? I called for Mr A. [It’s what I always do in times of crisis!] He helped me to mop the water but then he held up the plastic mixing bowl. There was a shattered, splintered hole in its side. We searched for the broken pieces but it was no good. They weren’t there and we both knew that there was only one place they could be.

I couldn’t do it myself. I got Mr A. to throw my beautiful, knobbly cake into the dustbin and I went to the corner shop and bought some biscuits instead. I may try to bake another cake, but not for a while, not until I get over this one... and I even remembered to sieve the flour!!