i've never been much cop at baking

but for some reason, in the past week or so I've been making some cakey things. I started with carrot and cinnamon muffins (delicious), then did some espresso flavoured cup cakes (also delicious).

then, fired up with confidence, I decided to make a sponge. A SPONGE. How hard can it be?, I asked myself. I found a recipe in Nigella's How to be a Domestic Goddess. I rummaged in the back of the saucepan cupboard and found a brace of 6" sponge tins. I rummaged in the bottom drawer in the kitchen and found the pre-cut cake tin liners (cut them myself? Are you mad?).

then, in accordance with the recipe, I preheated the oven to Gas 4, tipped all the ingredients in the Magimix, bar the milk, whizzed them all up, and then added the milk. I did think the ingredients looked a bit - well - odd, but I got Pete to check them. Then I poured the mixture into the sponge tins, set the timer for 25 minutes and went off to watch Doctor Who.

and never heard the timer ... so they had 35 minutes instead of 25. But they weren't burned, and hey had risen quite enthusiastically, and the skewer was clean, so I left them in their tins for a bit to cool as instructed, then turned them out. Then, a bit later, I spread one of them liberally with rhubarb and ginger jam, sandwiched them together, and triumphantly cut us a slice each.

and it wasn't cooked through. On re-reading the recipe, Nigella uses *8"* tins, not 6" ones. Stupid woman.

3 comments to this

niles said on 19 Apr 2006 at 00:54:31:

Strange they passed the skewer test and yet were not cooked!

Recipes (or links!) for the espresso cupcakes and the carrot muffins?

hem said on 22 Apr 2006 at 09:43:46:

Stick to Victoria sponges. They are the ideal recipe for the sponge-virgin

ramtops said on 22 Apr 2006 at 13:04:09:

well, Nigella's recipe was entitled "Victoria Sponge" ...