Emergency Cake

Sometimes, when you’ve lived through two successive storms and the wind is getting up for a third wave, there is a need for Emergency Cake.

Today was such a day. As the wind roared around the walls of the caravan and the rain lashed at the windows, I looked outside and declared the weather so foul that it qualified as an Emergency Cake Day.

The key was not to go out to get any ingredients. Far too horrid out there. I would have been swept into a ditch in an instant. Not a good way to go.

So it was rather lucky that I just happened to have a jar of cherry jam and a small punnet of fresh cherries in the fridge, and some cream. I have no idea how that happened. The Seventies were calling me.

As regular readers will know, the oven in the caravan is tiny. One cake in my one square baking tin fills the whole cooking space. It’s a testament to how badly I wanted this that I was prepared to prepare and bake the cake twice (in the same tin) and sandwich them together stickily and unctuously with jam, kirsch, fresh cherries and cream.

And so, dear reader, two hours later both layers were baked. The filling was spread onto the base layer. The top layer was manoeuvred into place. There was much chocolate grating to hide the fissures.

No fancy piping gear here, I’m afraid. This is the Seventies at its most fabulously rustic in cake form.

Any locals fancying a slice had better battle their way to the top of our rain-lashed hill before it all disappears. A pot of tea and an inelegant, squidgy slice of lusciousness awaits.