The making that I’ve done so far this month doesn’t really warrant a post – I’ve made some rather ramshackle bookshelves (wood rescued from a skip, cut to size and balanced on bricks) and done a lot of repairing of things that I’ve decided I’m too fond of to throw out – worn-out shirts, skirts that have had disagreements with my bike chain (and come off worst) and table cloths that have suffered one spillage too many. Everything has been patched and the shelves have solved the double-stacking problem but none of these remotely qualify as artistic achievements.

I’ve done a lot of baking that I’ve been grandly calling Necessary Recipe Testing but if I’m honest most of it was fine-tweaking rather than strictly necessary, particularly since I am working on an anthology of nature writing at the moment which involves no baking whatsoever. But my chief recipe testers (the estate agents) were back at work and keen for the supply of cakes and biscuits to resume. They tested my chocolate cake recipe versus Mary Berry’s and, in a socially-distanced, blind tasting, mine won!  Then two surprise berry cakes, which reveal a hidden centre of tumbling fruits – lemon won over chocolate here. The wonderful thing about this cake is that the hollowed-out centre gives you another, mini, two-layer cake. This went into the freezer for three weeks, came out and was iced (buttercream in the centre, water icing on the top) and was voted the Best Cake by one of the estate agents. Unfortunately it also shows just how crooked my oven is. I’m made painfully aware of this every time I remove a cake but, as it will involve pulling the oven out and somehow inserting a wedge beneath its back feet (do ovens have feet?), I always manage to convince myself it’s not really a problem, until the next lopsided sponge emerges.

I also made a blackberry and apple tart which is meant to have ragged edges but came out looking alarmingly like a yeti’s footprint. It tasted okay though. Finally, now we are allowed to visit people I made a belated Easter cake for the friend I usually visit at Easter. And I made a startling discovery; strawberries and asparagus may no longer have a ‘season’ as far as supermarkets are concerned but small chocolate eggs are unavailable by the end of May. It’s nice to know that some things still abide by laws of nature but it did mean that these poor unfortunate chickens had to hatch out of circular Maltesers. Perhaps that’s why they look a little dishevelled. 

The country’s Loo Paper Crisis earlier this spring paled into insignificance compared with my impending Flour and Sugar Crisis. While it’s great that the entire country seems to have taken up baking during lockdown, it has resulted in empty shelves in the baking section of almost every shop. I mentioned the problem to the testers and they took the matter suitably seriously. 

Jane