Teaching Your Granny to Suck Eggs

Apart from being wee and dumpy with no model hairstyle( see yesterday), I am also probably one of the worst baker of cakes in the land, having been deficient in that department for nigh on fifteen years when the last offspring left home and birthday cake making was relegated to the back burner, so to speak.

And so you might want to sympathise with me today as I have to bake a concoction, gluten free no less, to tempt the sophisticated taste buds of my fellow Book Group members tomorrow evening; they, who to a woman, can rustle up mouth watering delights while holding down full time jobs and running households.

My fear and trepidation is completely unnecessary, because if the cake fails, plan 'b' is to purchase a meringue ring and bung it full of cream and fruit. Job done.

My attempt for the occasion is a gluten free coffee and chocolate gateau.
I have followed the recipe to a 'T' and I can vouch for the fact that the mixture of uncooked ingredients tasted rather good. My fingers are crossed that the cooking thereof doesn't ruin everything.

Uncooked interiors are my particular speciality, resulting in cavernous dips in the centre. Usually the cake exits the oven looking good, but while I admire my handiwork, it begins its fall to near disaster.
I am adept at filling these canyons with fruit or other alternatives, and I suppose that may be plan 'c'.

Not content with a possible disaster of a cake, I didn't like the book much either.
'The Hare with Amber Eyes' is a family saga involving the ownership of a large number of Japanese netsuke from the early eighteen hundreds to the present day.
The only bit that gripped me was the account of the effects of WW2 on the Jewish population in Austria and Czechoslovakia.

I expect my fellow groupers will persuade me that the rest is fantastic.

EDIT: The said cake has exited the oven, but is not pretty enough to share with you.
If I turn it upside down, then it may look OK on the day with whipped coffee cream in the middle. I'll keep you posted.