Chocolate-flavoured hubris

I woke up this morning feeling remarkably upbeat; England's defeat has not had the soul-shattering effect that previous ones had. Time for some cake-making. I've shyed away from this in the past 6 weeks, as part of my lower-carb approach to cooking. However, I'm hosting a book club meeting this evening and this sourdough chocolate cake recipe appealed. And after my baguette success yesterday, I was on baking fire -- what could possibly go wrong?

To start with, all seemed well. The mixture came together beautifully, filling one cake tin and leaving enough left over for a few breakfast muffins. Into the oven, no problem: I was feeling smugly competent! After 10 minutes, I could smell burning. That was odd. The top of the muffins were charring. I turned the oven temperature down and then took them out 5 minutes later. Meanwhile, the batter in the cake tin below had barely started to cook. I shifted it up a rack, closed the door, and set the timer. When I looked again, the top of the cake had also charred. Curiouser and curiouser! Until I realized that I'd turned the grill on, rather than the oven -- it's a tiny Dutch combi oven, and the grill bars don't glow red unless you've got them set at 225C. Blast! No matter! I just put some silver foil over the top of the cake, turned the oven on, and left it for 10 minutes. Took it out the oven, figured I could cut the charred part off, and all would be well.

Which it would have been, if I hadn't managed to drop the cake while turning it out of the tin. Oh, not from a great height -- and not onto the floor -- but it was enough of a drop to cause the cake to crack into 3 pieces and then for two of those pieces to split horizontally, too. Apparently, pride really does go before a fall.

At least it tastes fantastic.