Launch Cake part 1

Today, having finished the impressive Thinner than a Hair by Adnan Mahmutovic (more on this later), I started on a massive rich fruit cake for my launch.


It had to be baked for about five hours, during which warm day smelt pleasantly of cloves, cinnamon and nutmeg - reminding me not of Christmas but of spiced bread on some exotic holiday. I lined the tin twice with buttered greaseproof paper, then tied four layers of brown paper, put a similar number of layers on top and place the whole thing on a whole newspaper and I am very pleased to report it caught not at all.


While it baked I weeded the garden, cleared the house for visitors and then actually enjoyed doing some ironing - but only because I was accompanied by Ian McEwan's 'Solar' - it is an indication of how good this is because after an interval of several weeks the characters and story are still fresh in my mind.