to see my efforts appreciated

Following my last post, I did indeed tear myself away from the sofa (and from my kindle and the TV - I've been re-reading Pride and Prejudice and quite fancied watching Colin Firth again so it was quite a sacrifice) and immersed myself in making a cake for my nephew's birthday.  I needed a challenge, something new to do rather than the usual family birthday cake, so thought I'd have a go at Lorraine Pascal's 'hidden zebra' cake (BBC 2 Monday, http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01m28l5/Lorraines_Fast_Fresh_and_Easy_Food_Easy_Entertaining/ cake is about 24 minutes in).  It's a bit of a faff, but then again, I sometimes like to faff and fiddle about, it's therapeutic.

I watched the video above but wondered about adding the flour early - it didn't seem right, so checked out the recipe in the book when I picked up ingredients in the supermarket and it was wrong on TV, so if you make it do it by the book!  It takes a while as you need to pipe the mix into the tin, but the finished result is impressive so it's worth it

Further fiddling and faffing about and I had made chocolate letters to spell out his name, and a few swirls and twirls later and it was ready to go.  Two hours later the cake had been demolished and is now a thing of the past - all the work and the pleasure is over so soon.  I used to hear myself saying 'it's not worth making a cake as they never last more than a day', but realised I was being immensely silly, and now when a cake goes before I can take a a photo (which I completely forgot to do), it just makes me smile.