Well, yes I did. I even have a picture to prove it.
It was LC's birthday on Friday, and the plan was that various family members would come around to celebrate it. In preparation for this event, then, I asked LC what sort of birthday cake she would prefer. At which point she declared that she would like the "home-made sort", and then specified that it was this cake that she would like. Alright-y then.
So, I dug out Lorraine Pascale's "Baking Made Easy", read through the recipe, gathered the ingredients and then, on Thursday, proceeded to start on the cake.
I actually did this in two parts. On Thursday evening I made up the chocolate sponge that was the core of the cake, and then on Friday I decorated the thing, starting as soon as I got home, and then completing it once we'd been to Tesco and picked up the requisite strawberries. (Incidentally, I used Matchmakers for the outer ring; the mint ones, though if I were doing this again I would probably use the orange ones instead.)
I think this is the first time I have ever tackled an actual birthday cake; I am similarly reasonably sure that I haven't actually made anything with "cake" in the title since high school, though it's possible I've forgotten something. So I made sure to buy a backup cake, just in case.
Anyway, it came out like this:
And, yes, it tasted as good as it looked. Although the last two slices weren't quite so good when we ate them on Sunday.
Would I make this again? Perhaps, but it would need to be a special occasion. In truth, I felt that the cake was actually a bit sickly-sweet to me - if it were a cake for my own use, I suspect I would have gone for a vanilla sponge or similar instead. But it wasn't for me, so that's fine.
#14: "A Crown Imperiled", by Raymond E. Feist
#15: "City of the Fallen Sky", by Tim Pratt
#16: "Last of the Gadarene", by Mark Gatiss
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