IT'S SUPPOSED TO BE A PIECE OF CAKE

This is not it.

I made a cake. It doesn't look anything like the picture next to the recipe. It looks like it's about to fall apart. It's astonishing that you can combine eggs, crumbly flour, loose sugar and the rest of the bits together to make a cake. A lovely soft spongey cushion of sweet-baked succulence emerges from the oven, filling the kitchen with a deliciously warm aroma. I always think it should be accompanied by the sound of harps and distant choirs.

I say always... I could count the number of times I've made a cake on the fingers of one sticky hand. I'm not the world's most adept baker, and I'm pretty sure the angels won't be inspired to accompany my saggy baking with their ethereal harmonies any time soon.

"It's just like science though right?" I said to my friend the other day. She nodded with a wry smile, "I mean, you just follow the recipe... exactly... and it'll turn out OK... won't it?"

"Good luck, Matt," she said, a bit enigmatically.

I'll tell you what it looks like: it looks like a whole load of crumbs have got together to try their best to recreate a cake, like a sort of microscopic acrobatic display team. Someone's told them what a cake ought to look like and they've really gone for it; their hearts are in it and they're just about holding it together, stuck by gravity and sugar.

I'll let you know what it tastes like. If it doesn't collapse, that is.