46. Chocolate Chip American Muffins

Oh dear. Another baking disaster. And I don't know what went wrong, but it most definitely did! I'd volunteered to provide cake for a local baby group meeting, thinking it'd be a great opportunity to crack on with the project. I thought muffins would be perfect as people could just grab one and pick away at it in its case, rather than me having to fiddle about slicing things. I've made lots of batches of muffins in the past so I saw no reason why I'd have any bother with these. How wrong could I be?! Admittedly I made these while looking after the baby, but I'm sure I didn't mess up the quantities or anything. The only thing that might've caused some issues was the additional task of having a phone conversation with the husband just as I was putting the mixture into the cases. I did find that many of the chocolate chips had sunk to the bottom of the mixture, because I couldn't keep stirring it up one-handed. So some of the muffins had lots in, while others not so many. Anyway, the resulting muffins didn't really rise very much at all, and they were very stodgy, dense cakes which were certainly not fit to be shared with people I didn't know very well, to whom I'd previously sold myself as someone who was good at baking! So I palmed a load off on the husband to take to work with my apologies for their flatness, and bunged the remainder in the freezer. And then I swiftly got on with a Victoria Sandwich which went down so well someone even asked me for the recipe and said it was the best they'd ever had!
Baker's verdict: I'd like to say they were easy to make, but the resulting failure suggests something went awry somewhere. I'll attempt them again after researching some other muffin recipes to try to solve the mystery!
Husband rating: 5/10 - tasty but a bit dense. Just a bit plain really although there was a lot of chocolate in them. Maybe too many chocolate chips.

45. English Cherry Cake

I baked this especially for my Dad who happened to mention that he liked fruit cakes with lots of cherries in them. It wasn't really what he or I had in mind, but I only had a week to bake it and all the 'proper' fruit cakes involve leaving them for months on end to absorb all the booze. Anyway, this seemed like a reasonable alternative, and with the addition of some almond extract would have that 'Bakewell' flavour which he loves. It was a very straightforward cake; the only faff being the washing and thorough drying of the glace cherries - supposedly to prevent them from sinking to the bottom of the cake. It didn't.
The rest of the mixture was a basic sponge really and so very easy to make. It was baked in a deep tin and turned out to be quite a chunky cake. My first taste of it suggested it was a bit dry, but actually it was pretty moist. I think it was the amount of dense sponge that foxed me and made it seem less light than the Victoria Sandwiches (of which I have made zillions now). It cut well, but it was a shame about the sinking cherries, as it didn't look quite as aesthetically pleasing as I'd hoped. It went down well with the old man though, but he is fairly easy to please on the cake front!

Baker's verdict: easy to make, albeit a bit fiddly where the cherry prep was concerned. Tasty but not especially 'wowy'!
Husband rating: remember eating it but can't remember what it was like. Think I liked it!