I’m not known for being organized .. but the cake that I made the weekend before last was a total emergency chocolate cake. It all happened because we started a pop up bakery after reading about Rose Prince’s children starting their own bakery we held a family conference and decided to do the same. However this post is not about the bakery. This weekend will be our 3rd week and when I get a moment I will write about it. This post is about the emergency birthday cake, and I mention the bakery to set the scene ….
For the first week we made our bread and scones and set out the stall. Nobody came. We are in a sleepy village and so, not to be defeated we closed up and took the bread and scones door to door, giving out samples and getting orders for the following week. I was so determined that our baking shouldn’t go to waste I forgot the time. I forgot that I had arranged a birthday tea party for my youngest daughters birthday.
We chatted with our neighbors, passed the time of day and took the first orders for the following weeks sourdough. This, I thought, is the most interaction I have had with the people I live l close by to ever, and we chatted our way around the village in the bright February sunshine.
As we stopped to look at the early daffodils coming up I dreamily looked at my watch expecting it to be about lunch time .. and practically had a meltdown on the spot. It was 3:30pm. Oh God .. ..the birthday party … the promise of a cake .. I had exactly one hour to bake the prettiest pink birthday cake ever that I had promised to my five year old.
I practically ran up the driveway. my husband smiled and asked had I got a minute? A minute? !! I snapped back at him so hard that I had not got a moment to spare with such force that he took a step back. I flew into the kitchen and tried to work out if I had time to get in and out of town to Waitrose and buy a cheats cake. No. With parking and Saturday traffic that was impossible. The only option was to bake as fast as I could.
I practically threw in the ingredients into my trusty Kenwood. Whenever I am in a hurry I resort back to old measurements. An 8 oz chocolate cake, with a bar of 65% cherry chocolate bar chopped up and stirred in was in the oven in less than 5 minutes .. fortunately it was still warm from the baking earlier in the day.
I ran about wiping up the flour and cleaning the baking bombsite my children and I had made such a mess earlier and then checked in my cake-decorating box. 45 minutes later as the cake came out of the oven the first guests arrived to a kitchen full of the smells of chocolate cake.
There was not time to ice the cake, besides it was just too hot, so I sifted a very generous amount of icing sugar over the cake, wrapped a pink ribbon about it, melted chocolate and used this to stick the sugared roses I had on and popped the kettle on.
A quick application of lip-gloss and a smile later and the tea party began.
As I brought cake out my delighted daughter declared it to be the prettiest cake in the world .. ever. I cut an extra large apologetic slice for my husband and the other mothers all marveled that the cake was still warm!
