Have your cake and eat it (Chicklit contest finalist)

Chapter four

Back home, I plonk Tamsin down at the little wooden table in the kitchen with a stack of paper and crayons and get straight down to the task of baking Steve the most amazing cake he has ever seen. So no pressure there, then.

“See Tamsin, we’re going to make Daddy a beautiful cake,” I start a running commentary as I rummage around in the baking cupboard, pulling out piping bags, food colouring and gold lustre dust.

I carefully measure out the butter and sugar and place them in the large earthenware bowl that used to be my grandmother’s – she’s the one who first taught me how to bake actually – before putting the bowl in the busily pre-heating oven to soften the butter a bit.

Now I know I’ve been banging on about my expensive baking gadget that will whip up cake mixture in a matter of minutes, but I have decided to make this cake the old fashioned way, which means a wooden spoon and plenty of elbow grease in the early stages and then several minutes of carefully and painstakingly folding in the flour with a metal spoon to ensure the cake comes out as light and fluffy as possible.

I pour the cake mixture into the tins and pop them in the oven, wiping my hands on my apron and deciding to tackle the washing up straight away while I’m all fired up. I’d forgotten how much I love baking; the act of creating something pretty and tasty from a few ordinary ingredients is both soothing and thrilling at the same time.

Tamsin has long since given up on colouring, and after helping me lick out the bowl she is now banging the wooden spoon against it, creating an awful racket and sending blobs of vanilla cake mixture flying across the room to land on the cream cupboard doors and slate floor. I wrestle the utensils from her so I can wash them up and rush excitedly over to the oven as the timer pings. I open the oven door and bend down to retrieve the cake tins, noting to my satisfaction that the mixture has become three identical light gold sponges that have risen perfectly. The skewer I insert into each of them comes out clean and I tip them onto wire racks to cool.

“Come on sweetie,” I coax, steering Tamsin into the living room. You’re going to help Mummy tidy up and then we are going to decorate Daddy’s cake. Isn’t that exciting?”

I’ve recently discovered that getting Tamsin involved in the household chores is much easier than trying to keep her occupied while I do them myself. So I get out the Dyson from the cupboard under the stairs and give her her own little mini-Dyson. She copies me as I switch on the hoover and starts to push her miniature version across the carpet in a perfect imitation of me. Granted, hers doesn’t actually switch on so she’s not actually helping me, but she thinks she is and that’s all that matters, isn’t it?

Thirty minutes later and the living room looks more like something out of an interiors magazine rather than the bombsite it resembled earlier. I straighten and plump up the sofa cushions and then go back into the kitchen with Tamsin to start icing the cake.

Icing is my favourite part. It's what makes the difference between a nice cake and a really nice cake. Since Steve is somewhat of a traditionalist, I’ve decided on a three-tier sponge sandwiched together with buttercream icing. I work deftly with a palette knife to spread the icing across the top of the cake and down the sides, then start to create the little figurines that will adorn it. I lift Tamsin up so she can hold onto the piping bags and help me decorate the edges of the cake with green, pink and blue roses. As a final flourish, I get her to shake the gold lustre dust - perhaps a little too liberally - onto the top.

I delicately lift the cake onto the silver cake drum that was indeed in the box of baking things from my Mum that had been gathering dust in the utility room. I wrap a thick silver ribbon round the cake and write Happy Anniversary in swirly writing, standing back to admire my creation.

“Eat?” Tamsin asks hopefully, drooling at the sight of the cake. “Not yet darling, we have to wait for Daddy,” I say to her, noticing for the first time that she’s got icing on her face and has even managed to smear it in her hair. “Let’s go and wash your hands, shall we?” I say, leading her over to the sink.

I check my watch, debating whether I’ve got time to give her a quick bath, but then decide against it as I realize my neighbour Paula will soon be here with Jessica and Joshua. We’ve recently started taking it in turns to do the school run, an arrangement that is working out rather nicely. Paula has generously offered to take all three of the kids tonight for a few hours so Steve and I can have a romantic anniversary dinner. I’ve planned a delicious menu of spinach and goat’s cheese tart, lamb shank and red wine stew… Fuck, the lamb shank is still in the freezer, I realize with horror, doing a series of rapid calculations in my head that tell me the time it takes to defrost and cook, we’ll be sitting down to dinner around midnight. And I’ve already had a few generous glugs of the red wine.

I spin round in a panic, almost trodding on Tamsin who squeaks in surprise, coming to a halt as my eyes fall on the microwave and its magical defrost function. Of course. I breathe a sigh of relief. Why didn’t I think of this before? Whoever invented the microwave is an absolute genius. Thanks to its nifty little setting, the microwave is going to speed up the dinner-making process significantly. I bloody love modern technology.

As the little blob of cake mixture I ate earlier turns into a distant memory and just as I’m getting so hungry I’m considering ruining my appetite by wolfing down a bag of crisps in the secret snack cupboard, dinner is finally ready. We sit down to eat in flickering candlelight. Steve is wearing the green cashmere jumper that sets off his blue eyes and I’m wearing the white gold pendant that he got me. He also got me a cake book I’ve been meaning to buy for ages, and I’ve already had a flick through its colourful pages. It's got tons of new recipes that I can’t wait to try out.

We both fall upon the spinach and goat's cheese tarts in ravenous delight and polish them off in about twenty seconds flat. Thankfully the main course is approached in a more leisurely fashion, as in between eating we reminisce about the time we went to the South of France just before I fell pregnant with Jessica. We had ended up in a little restaurant where no one spoke English and I, who was going through a vegetarian stage at the time as I had read somewhere that it increased your chances of conceiving a girl, had confused chèvre with cheval and ended up being served horse instead of goat's cheese. Steve snorts with laughter as he remembers my appalled face and the way I was forced to resort to mime to convey to the waiter that the dish I had been served was not the one I had intended to order. Just in case you were wondering, it’s far easier to imitate a horse than a goat. What sound do goats even make, anyway?

I clear our plates and bring in the cake, watching Steve as his face breaks into a massive grin at the sight of it.

“That is incredible Bella,” he says, visibly impressed. “It must have taken you ages! Look at the five of us on top of the cake. Gosh, I didn’t realize I was so handsome,” he adds, peering closely at the icing figurine that, if I’m honest, is a better reflection of the daydream about Jude Law I was having at the time than my husband.

“Is my hairline really receding that much?” asks Steve suddenly, a slight note of panic in his voice. He squints at the figurine and raises his hand to his temples, visibly relaxing as he establishes that he still has a generous head of thick brown hair.

“To us,” he says, raising his champagne flute. “To us,” I echo as we clink our glasses together, grinning at one another.