The suicidal cake!

WARNING: don't read if you cry easily or are hungry!

Post spa relaxation, my friend and I decided to bake her husband (who had been working all day) a 'Happy Friday' cake - just because we're lovely ladies! Inspired by the re-starting of BBC’s ‘Great British Bake Off’ we dug out some suitable cookbooks to help us in creating a delicious treat…

The supermarket was full of marvellous looking raspberries so we decided to make our own version of this bad-boy…

Armed with aprons (or versions of!) and fuelled by bubbles off we went…

I was on melting chocolate duty

Shell was on the more complex sponge base job…

Which involved a lot of whisking (we clearly need to acquire one of those pastel desktop mixtures!) so we took it in turns

Then it was time to add my rich melted chocolate…

Before crushing the bright red raspberries and adding to the mixture….

Cake tin and oven ready to go

So we turned our attentions to the main event - the icing! Being very sweet-toothed and feeling creative, we decided to make two different versions: chocolate buttercream icing for the top with a raspberry buttercream centre!

I was back on melting chocolate duty…

While Shell faced the far more complex Mary Berry cookbook buttercream! As the book says “This icing is considerably richer, lighter and creamier than simple butter icing, but slightly trickier to make.” No kidding - there was no icing sugar involved, but Shell had to make a sugar syrup (not easy when you don’t have a thermometer!)

Let's not think about the amount of butter used...

And there was more whisking!!

In the middle of icing creation, it was time for our beautiful sponges to come out of the oven and start cooling down.

Chocolate icing done and tested - I’m sure Masterchef says it’s always important to check your food…

Then it was time to add the raspberries to the buttercream…it looked stunning (and tasted amazing!)

Don't you just want to swim in it!? (No?! Just me then...)

Finally the sponges were cool enough to start decorating (famous last words!)...

..and assembly started…

Aaaah major cake porn moment! Is it wrong that I want to lick my screen right now!?

Layer 2 added

Cheery decoration designed

At this point Ben (the husband) arrived back home so was hurried into the lounge with a drink so he wouldn’t see the incomplete work-of-art!

Chocolate butter icing and decoration was added...

Ben was welcomed into the kitchen and admired his Friday treat…

Before in a heart-wrenching second the cake was no more…

Arrrgh!! All our hard work and the deliciousness…(I know because at this stage I’d eaten multiple spoonfuls of sponge and icing!)Now what would you do?!

Well, I believe in the 3 second rule…however when you’re paralysed and unsure whether to laugh or cry, I also think an extension to this rule is allowed!! (plus we had literally just cleaned the floor due to the copious crumbs)

So we scraped the lid off the floor, discarding anything that had actually been on the floor and reassembled this…a frankenstein-style cake but with plenty of icing you’d never know!!