Pisa Cake

Saturday 19th February

Day 304

The birthday cake - the carrot and courgette one - looks like a squat leaning tower of Pisa - four alternate tiers of lime green and sunset orange sponge smeared together with layers of gloopy lemon curd and glistening white cream cheese. Leaning - because when I was scooping out the last of the icing on the top layer, hovering the heavy glass bowl over the centre, it slid out of my hand and caught the edge of the cake. It compressed the layers, squidging out the filling which dribbled down the sides in a crumb coated mess. Nothing to be done except cobble it back together with more icing and scatter the top with fine shreds of lime and satsuma zest.

In the light of the candle flames it doesn’t look too lop-sided. And no-one says it tastes of vegetables - it even receives accolades.

PS The Cake is Nigella's - Flora's Famous Courgette Cake. The carrot version is mine - just replace the courgettes with grated carrot and it goes from green to amber - just like that.