Can't Cook - Still Tries.

I love cakes. Minty chocolate ones, spongey light fairy ones. Cookies. Brownies. Warm flapjacks. Sticky buns. Vanilla creams.

My confession- I can’t cook them.

Baking, or my lack of baking skills is the only thing that stops me heading for elasticated trousers and wider door frames, but this doesn't console me.

My friends all bake.

They do bake offs. I do the eating.

I avidly watch Jamie, Read the Cake Blog, stare at Baking Made Easy and gaze at Cupcakes Take The Cake for my food porn kicks but when it comes down to the actual act- the down and dirty of baking- it turns out i’m all talk and no apron.

This is the story of the friendship cake called Herman. Passed to me by a work friend, this was given to me in the way that a chain letter is, passed on to be baked as a sign of friendship. ( We are still friends despite what happened next.)

This monstrosity smelled of yeast and sad in my kitchen, foaming in a fruit bowl, demanding to be mixed and added to each day for 12 long days. After the 12 were up and it had been ‘fed’ about 500g of sugar, eggs, pineapple (fresh) and nuts (almonds), I heaved it into a pan and bunged it in the oven.

45 minutes later, i touched it. Springy, soft and lovely.

I decided to surprise the boy after dinner.

“I’d love a slice” he said.

Until I cut it open. Goo oozed out of it like a seeping wound.

“Is that...Meant to be like that?” he said

“Maybe it’s the pineapple.”

“It stinks. Sorry.”

And so it did. Back into the oven for another 45 minutes, the blade was yet to come out clean.

The ending? Well it’s not happy. I asked the boy if I should feed it to the birds and he gave me a pitying look. I decided the embarrassment was too much and I surrendered it to the bin, which brought down the sides of the bin bag in a shameful thud.

4lbs of cake, gone.

Pineapple, gone.

Sense of being ‘diy/baker/wife in training’ – gone.

Can someone please give me a recipe that’s one step up from a cornflake cake?