I’m not sure if I jinxed myself last week with that crumb of optimism, but this week I’ve been feeling considerably less glittery, and I can’t even blame the weather – even ‘blue Monday’ was the kind of blue we welcome.
Despite my very best efforts (and my advice to everyone else) to overlook the pressures that come with the new year, this week, I’ve been feeling this low-level sense of anxiety surrounding work, and health and you know ‘fresh starts’, ‘big goals’, and all that stuff. Thus, it’s probably no surprise that a few small but ‘mighty’ events (have you tried clearing a whole egg up off the floor? It’s like trying to catch jelly) prompted my already fizzy disposition to entirely froth over on Thursday – cue uncontrollable tears and screaming. Somehow, I’ve arrived back at Sunday again which feels like an achievement!
It certainly didn’t help that a cut I acquired on my finger about a week ago, which initially caused me no bother, suddenly started to hurt, and look VERY angry. When I’m already on edge, little gems of excitement like this give me a real doomy, cursed feeling which is an excellent catalyst for worry propagation. Naturally I scuttled off down anxiety avenue with visions of my finger becoming sceptic and very bad things happening. Inevitably, mum had to step in with TCP (miracle potion), plasters, and a rational mindset. Finger update: back in good working order.
My week has also been unnervingly atypical. I crave routine and generally my days look very similar. Similar feels safe and safe feels controlled. This week, however, has been speckled with appointments and some casual people-ing. In all honestly, it’s been pretty positive but (and I hate sounding ungrateful or negative) I find myself exhausted by social encounters however good they feel at the time, and the lack of ‘normality’ just destabilises me a bit. In particular, my week has lacked kitchen time, and a lack of kitchen time seems to correlate with a decrease in my mood – I plan to resolve this as a matter of urgency!
Despite the lack of kitchen chemistry, I did squeeze in some cake-ing because…
…today is my birthday (but we don’t need to dwell on it please)… I say it every year, but I need to reschedule it, January just doesn’t work for me. I think I’d like May… my sister’s birthday is the beginning of May, yes. I’ll join her!
Nevertheless, I needed to make a cake because birthday = cake. Really there is only one cake to eat on your birthday and that is a caterpillar cake (should re-brand it ‘Wendy the worry worm’ cake for me shouldn’t I?) … and so I decided I would have a go at making my own.
Like gingerbread house gate, making a caterpillar cake is one of those things that seems like an excellent idea… until you get started, and then, just 15 minutes in, you inevitably wind up on struggle street full of regret.
At several points during this process, I questioned whether to bother sharing this recipe with you… I just though it didn’t ‘look’ good enough or as good as other people would make it.. if you’d watch me make it, you would have thought I was baking for the first time, the cack handedness and MESS was truly comical!!! But I eventually realised that 1. the perfectionist in me was being a real devil for being a harsh critic, 2. Not sharing it just perpetuates this belief that only perfect is acceptable, 3. If it tastes good, does it matter what it looks like? I’ll answer that, no. it doesn’t matter. Oh and 3 (b). art is in the eye of the beholder, which means that all art is a masterpiece.
The cake is comprised of a chiffon-style sponge, rich with chocolatey-goodness - It’s light and fluffy but also tender and ultra-bendy which eliminates any risk of cracking. It’s filled with a devilishly good chocolate ganache buttercream (bookmark this recipe for cakes too – you can easily adjust the quantity as required). All of it is enrobed with more chocolate ganache, and speckled with ‘happy-ful’ Smarties.
I did end up completely cheating with the face - spoiler, M&S SELL Colin’s face, WINNER. I just couldn’t face (lol) trying to re-create my own Colin face out of chocolate, but you could totally try melting (temper it if you feel really profesh), moulding, and decorating some white chocolate to create your own masterpiece face …OR, just cheat like me.
For my version, I tried to create the kinky caterpillar body by removing thin segments of sponge from one of the short edges, but I really wouldn’t bother with this – you end up removing cake = bad, the ridges you create become quite deep which aesthetically doesn’t look quite right, and it’s way less fiddly if you don’t bother. Instead, you can ripple the ganache coating a bit which is as effective in my opinion.
Also also… if you can’t be bothered with the caterpillar ‘vision’, but still need a slightly OTT chocolate Swiss roll to give you a bit of sparkle, get on and bake this for yourself NOW, nibble at it through the week, and have a very lovely time.
Just a few other things I’ve loved lately:
Kale: rubbed with oil, sprinkled salt, and a mixture of crushed cashews/sunflower seeds and nutritional yeast, and baked until crispy (niche, but good!)
Blood oranges: pretty.
Hot drinks: Tea, endless tea, and really good coffee… and when you’re feeling like a ratty toddler, remember hot Ribena, it’s great advice, trust me.
Sandwiches: – specifically a French-style baguette filled with a layer of salty butter, ham and English mustard. Yes. v.good. (Also been thinking a lot about sandwiches recently - important topic I’m sure we all agree - may become a sandwich connoisseur!).
OK, enough waffle, realised I waffle so chaotically when I feel frazzled - apologies.
Hoping that more sparkle returns next week. Sending hugs, Steph x x x
Caterpillar (aka Wendy the Worry-worm) cake
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to The Comfort Chronicles to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.