Cakes

Cake baking has to be, however innocently, one of the great culinary scams: it implies effort, it implies domestic prowess; but believe me, it’s easy. We’ve become so convinced that simple food comes out of simple cooking that we’re happy to cook elaborate Tuscan suppers – which in reality demand much more than we could ever believe possible – but then baulk at baking a cake, assuming that we don’t have the time for all that, that we live a life that doesn’t encompass those arcane culinary arts.