Jonny McCambridge: Even messy days can have a sweet topping

I have a habit of repeating error. This is most evident in my baking, and in particular my annual attempt to create a birthday cake for my son.

The discipline requires patience, precision, and a certain delicacy of touch. I possess none of these. I am not suited to the art, like a baby elephant trying to play the harpsichord.

The malaise is compounded by the fact that, in an effort to please my boy, I attempt cakes beyond my modest skills. There was the pirate ship cake which sank without trace, the superhero cake which was powerless, the tiered cake which succumbed to gravity and the Halloween cake which was scary for all the wrong reasons.

This year’s challenge, set many months ago, is a dinosaur cake. I have been thinking about the task for some time, and, perhaps persuaded that thorough preparation will improve the outcome, I have become more optimistic than experience has taught me is wise.

I have selected a T-Rex cake which requires complicated assembly. For several weeks I have been gathering all of the required ingredients and studying techniques. During the day, when I should be working, I have often found my mind wandering towards the processes of cake construction. At nighttime, when sleep eludes me, baking fills my thoughts.

And so, on the eve of my son’s birthday, I begin.

And immediately it begins to go wrong.

The batteries on my kitchen scales fail. Exactitude is everything in baking and I’m left guessing quantities based on judgment. My previous optimism is quickly replaced by the familiar low feeling of imminent failure as the mixture goes into the oven.

Worse follows. Despite a liberal pre-greasing, the risen cake refuses to come out of the mould, leaving me desperately scrabbling and scratching at the sides of the tin to loosen it.

Eventually the cake exits the tin. Or, to be more accurate, some of it does, because much of the top layer which represents the detail of the T-Rex is left behind.

As I try to balance the cake on a wooden board, cracks begin to appear and it seems that large chunks may be about to separate, sort of like a sweet and spongy version of continental drift.

The ghosts of past baking disasters are now vivid. I have no choice but to move forward. I have to try and decorate the wretched, misshapen dinosaur.

I have determined that I will make icing and buttercream. Then I will add food colouring to create different shades, to give the cake definition.

It goes well at first. And then it doesn’t.

The consistency is all wrong and I can’t master the colours that I want. I watched a YouTube video about making and colouring icing and was struck by the sheen and brilliance of the end product. My icing is pallid and dull, as if it has been through the digestive system of a cat.

Despite this, I proceed, applying icing to the edges of the cake with all the delicacy of a rough-handed navvy.

It is the use of the icing piping bag which almost breaks me. I struggle to find any adequate method of getting the buttercream into the little cone-shaped bag. Then, when I finally get to the point of squeezing the bag, the contents come out the top rather than the bottom. There is some fine icing applied, to be sure, but unfortunately it is upon my arm rather than the cake.

My long-held intention of piping fine little green stars onto the T-Rex is quickly abandoned. I lower my ambition to just getting any buttercream onto the surface. It is very much like a severely inebriated man who can’t locate the light switch in the bathroom trying to put toothpaste onto his toothbrush.

I have bought lots of brightly coloured chocolate sprinkles which I use to try and cover up some of the worst excesses of the damage. It does not work.

Earlier I had printed out a photograph of the cake which I wanted to replicate and kept it beside me as a guide while I worked. I look at the photo now, then back at my creation. Is it vaguely recognisable as a T-Rex? Perhaps so, if only from the exact moment when the asteroid landed on it.

The further I go with this the worse I feel. Once again I have embarrassed myself and let my son down. It pricks a feeling within me which is never too far from the surface that I cannot do anything right. That I am bound to contaminate anything I touch. That my choices are always the wrong ones.

The introspection gives way to a feeling closer to desolation and dark questions. What will people think? Why bother trying anything when I am bound forever to fail? And then, the one which is as constant as my shadow, wouldn’t it be better if I wasn’t here at all?

I’m nibbling at my fingernails as my son enters the room and climbs onto a chair to see what I am doing. He notices the creation and gasps.

‘Wow daddy! That is so cool!’

He glances at the photo of the perfect cake, and then back at my T-Rex.

‘Yours is better daddy, much better. It’s the best cake I’ve ever seen!’

He hugs me and, at once, I know that I have all the answers that I need. He runs off excitedly to tell mummy, leaving me pondering how easily I can be pulled in one direction, then the other. I’m reminded once again of the importance of seeing the world through other people’s eyes, of not just listening to the voices inside my own head, that there is more than one narrative to life. A hug and an encouraging word can turn a rough experience into something very different.

Getting through tough days is a lot like baking a cake – it might not turn out the way that you had hoped, it might get messy, but at the end of it all it can still taste delicious.

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