Perfect timing.

Yesterday our postman delivered my latest impulse purchase from Ebay . I came across it on a website which shows auctions closing soon that have no bids and a low starting price, which is supposed to help you find bargains. All that really happens is you make rash decisions, and suffer impulse purchase guilt. 

 But not this time! 

Arrangements had been made for a bunch of us to arrive at a friends house for her birthday, one brought flowers, another the card, another bowls of sweets and popcorn for the kids and i said i would make a cake.

I have a lovely recipe for a very rich chocolate cake, it looks very odd in the making, but every time has been ridiculously good to eat. It is a sort of fudgey brownie kind of cake and really needs no decoration. But it was a birthday celebration and of course once my lovely retro icing syringe was delivered there was no looking back.

The result! 

Ok, its not the prettiest thing I've ever seen. but it was made with love. I had to bring it to her house in the car so i thought it was a good to sort of stick the cake to the plate with a rim of icing. The icing wasn't quite a stiff as it should have been and because i was running short on time, i had to ice it when it was still a bit warm in the middle. As a result, this happened.........

A sort of buttercream volcano.

Driving down the hill from my house i watched as the top layer tried to slide off the bottom layer. Fortunatly my friend lives two minutes away and i had to drive UP the hill to her house. The cake sort of corrected itself on the way up. It looked a bit sloppy but tasted just fine.

I hope she appreciated the very first ripe strawberry from my polytunnel this year.