A decidedly MS unfriendly adventure of a birthday cake!

I made this cake for a friend's birthday. It sounds odd but, though I didn't eat any of it, the aromas were so rich and indulgent I felt I had!

What a learning curve - my first black forest gateau.

This cake was a ‘cake and a half’ literally! Started at 2.30pm Friday 18th Feb.

Was supposed to make 3 layers and my first cake didn’t rise enough and cracked like an earthquake epicentre.

So I made a second one.

Still didn’t think big enough to slice into 3 layers, so I used half the first and all the second.

Had a break while I went to the supermarket for extra chocolate.

Once I’d added the cream and cherries it started to look a bit on the big side! And when I came to ‘ice’ it (with chocolate melted into double cream) a little icing had to go a long way!

Finally hung up my apron at 8pm (after 2 rounds of washing up)

It's gonna be serious ‘death by chocolate’ - just hope the birthday girl doesn’t have a coronary!