It’s almost the end of January and I’m only now publishing my first post of 2014. Eep! Where does the time go? Well, I hope this cake makes up for it!

This post almost ended in tears. My beloved cake stand broke yesterday. Thankfully I managed to save the cake so it was (almost) in one piece – otherwise it would have ended in tears! This is a white chocolate raspberry streusel cake – or at least it was supposed to be. Unfortunately, I’m starting my 2014 blogging off on the wrong foot by being a johnny-come-lately, breaking my favourite cake stand AND slightly botching up the recipe. /sigh.

Sob. :(

As my pathology exams draw every closer (/shudder), I’ve begun to think of everyday things in terms of pathology. For example, what was the aetiology of my cake stand’s demise? It was the white chocolate. What are the known risk factors? Impatience and declination of an offer of help. Now, let me explain the pathogenesis of my cake stand’s untimely death.

The white chocolate chunks, despite my best efforts, sunk to the bottom of the cake tin during baking. Whether this was because I cut them too big, or the oven switched itself off halfway through baking (see? this was just such a success) or I have no idea… in any event they melted and formed this deliciously sticky layer of goo on the bottom of the cake. When I turned the cake out of the pan to cool on the wire rack, I noticed that it was a bit greasy, but I just ignored it. At my peril.

Since this is a baking blog, I always try to snap a good photo of my finished product. During the winter months in the UK, daylight is sometimes in scarce supply so I was impatient to take a photo before it got too dark. This is where the impatience comes into play – I didn’t wait for the cake to cool fully before I tried to transfer it from the wire rack to the cake stand so the bottom was still warm and gooey… and slippery.

Finally, my technique to transfer the cake was obviously flawed. I flipped the cake upside onto a plate and then placed the cake stand on top of the cake. My plan was then to flip the whole ensemble 180 degrees so that I’d have my cake nicely positioned onto the cake stand. My flatmate was in the kitchen at the time and saw me grappling clumsily with this arrangement. He offered to help and just as I was confidently declaring “No, no, no. I’m fi-“, I attempted to do my clever 180 degree flip and CRACK. The cake slipped out from between the plate and the cake stand and the whole thing went crashing down. There was a pause and he asked again if I wanted help. I quietly replied that it would great if he could fetch the vacuum cleaner.

By some miracle, the cake only suffered a minor crack and ended up back on the wire rack and not on the floor. A very careful inspection for any bits of shrapnel was performed and then the cake was declared edible.

So here you have it. My first post of 2014 – a scrummy, messy, shambles of a cake recipe. Hooray!

I’m holding off on posting this recipe until I get it right. It’s okay if I suffer from my mistakes, but I don’t want others to suffer from them!

p.s. the cake was still delicious!