"Me smell cake"

"Yes you can little Duncan"

I promised to make cake for my friend Chris Davalle who had his second vaccination today. I was supposed to bring him cake for his birthday last October but that didn't work out.

You'd think a Victoria sponge was the simplest thing in the world to bake, there are so few ingredients. Unfortunately having read surprisingly varied recipes carefully my first attempt this morning developed a massive sink hole in the middle.

So I read and compared even more recipes despairing of the varying temperatures and amounts of raising agent.

In the end I thought, I used to bake these as a kid and not one of them failed me. How did I do it then?

I thought back and realised by recipe was 20 degrees hotter and 10 minutes longer in the oven (with half the amount of baking powder).

Finally success at around 5pm. Buttercream and jam will happen tomorrow morning.