It's hard to make coffee sponge cake with espresso

Really, I'm going to have to invest in some instant coffee. Instant!

On Wednesday, I went the wrong way (thanks, TomTom) to see F and 9-week cutie, with a bunch of spare baby clothes (thanks, in.spite) and a flat sponge. I partially failed in my mission, which was to take some of the clothes Babs has grown out of and her two/too small sleeping bags, though I made up for it with some extras that she didn't want and some that she did, and we pledged as I left to add to the glamour in our lives by going together to Brent Cross some time soon.

As previously documented ("I don't really like chocolate"), F lives in a house is under renovation, with only a semi-functioning kitchen. Since she also has a tiny baby, and I'd invited myself over for mid-afternoon, I thought I'd better take a cake. And of course I like baking, and it makes me feel a little bit heroic that I can fit it in - though really that's more due to Babs being a good baby than to me being a good housewife/mother.

My mum's rule of thumb for sponge cakes scales up from 4oz of everything and 2 eggs, and because we were short on eggs I went for that size, even though the Good Housekeeping Cookery Book ('The cook's classic companion') showed a victoria sponge at 6oz, and I didn't bother to measure the cake tins. The cakes were consequently a little on the thin side, and no amount of raspberry jam and dredged icing sugar could disguise it*. The cake was pretty yummy, and our oven gives good top-crunch (for a day), but it tasted kind of dense, and straight-talking F didn't feel the need to refute it when I apologetically said so.

Terry was all, 'Oh! Cake?' when he found out it wasn't for keeping, so I promised to make him a chocolate cake the following night. He negotiated hard, and his coffee cake has duly made today, Saturday - 'When there's time to eat it.'Unfortunately on Saturday there is less time to make it, even with two pairs of hands. On Thursday evening I could have whipped one up while supper was cooking, today it went in the oven at 2pm, when I dashed up for a shower, having: put away the washing up, breastfed the baby, put away yesterday's washing, made breakfast for T and me, done two further loads of washing up, ditto two of laundry, watched Saturday Kitchen in bed with T while Babs slept for 60 minutes, poached fish for the baby's lunch, defrosted carrot for the baby's lunch, breastfed the baby following her 3 teaspoons of lunch, made tea for T, made lunch for T and me, made espresso for the cake and spilt nascent cake mixture on the floor while rescuing espresso from hob.

To be fair, Terry helped with the espresso, but even though we put even less water than he first put, it still wasn't strong enough. Sure, it was strong enough to be absolutely foul when I tasted it, but the baked cake has just a whiff of coffee to it, and the frosting - rendered so loose as to dribble down the sides of the cake** - likewise. So I ripped off a tip from my mum, from the coffee drizzle cake she made back in the days when I was too young to have a palate that could take coffee, and drizzled the remaining few tablespoons of coffee over the lower cake, into its open, porous bottom (now top). Then on with the frosting, and on with the top. I refrained from dredging icing sugar on the basis that the damn frosting (yup, Betty Crocker) was sweet enough, so it's not as pretty as it could be.


Fortunately, once I was done with flavouring and drizzling and frosting, it was time for afternoon tea. T's comment? 'All this needs is some icing sugar on top...'.

In my mind? If he'd only followed through with his promise - central to his negotiations - that he'd bring me a handful of instant coffee portions from the cutting room, left over from the shoot....


*Dammit. Not the professional outcome to whichI aspire.
** Ditto! Dammit!