Roulade Mess.

When it comes to baking I like my treats to be Bake Off perfection, I have a clear idea in my head of what I want it to look and taste like. My friends were due to come round at one for afternoon tea, (how very British) today so I set out to create the best of tea favourites. Classic Victoria sponge whose recipe I got from Cathy Bramley's Appleby Farm, remembering its all in the weight of the eggs... I also used her brownie recipe, which if I must say is a bloody taste sensation. Scones, coffee cake and blueberry muffins were also included, all baked by hand, all perfection. It wasn't until I decided to get a little bit cocky and decided that I could do a chocolate roulade with fresh cream, (also from Bramley's novel) when things began to go wrong. Distracted by reading The Book Ninja by Ali Berg and Michelle Kalus while waiting for the mixture to bake in the oven the timer went off but I was mid chapter and had four pages left, I was gripped to the pages, I couldn't stop right now. Wait! What about the cake, it specifically says 20 minutes! I can finish the chapter before I take it out I argue with myself. I mean an extra few minutes won't harm it right? Lets just say that when I rolled the sponge, it cracked everywhere and left a sticky mess, there was no rescuing it, I had to serve it, I couldn't waste it. I sent a photo to my step-mum who worked in a cafe and baked, her words were something like, "It looks like a cracked turd." Well I couldn't stop laughing, she was right, she was right after all. When my friends arrived they saw the so called roulade with wide eyes emitting "What is that?!" I said in my Master-Chef voice, "Its a chocolate roulade mess served with fresh cream." They didn't bat an eye, perhaps they were being polite but they ate it so the lesson here is that if you change the name and say it confidently everyone will thing it was intentional.

After all, its just an other day in the life of the Yorkshire Bookworm x