(prompt: 'disaster' 24 Sep, 2021)

No question about mouth-watering taste, nor enjoyment and the 'have-to-come-back-for-seconds' response. Huge sighs and satisfied grins, along with much tummy patting clearly answered that. No way I was going to admit this had NOT been the definite intention in my well-planned 'notes to self' about its creation. The largest question looming was what exactly to call this amazing result of my flight of fancy.

All had started innocently enough – as most great moments in history do - simply to make a spiffy cake to serve with coffee after the main meal, as a dessert. 'Chocolate cake' was in the forefront of my mind. I had some strawberries, and I remembered a super-looking photo in a fancy magazine of a slice of chocolate cake, with a small tower of piped cream and a couple of strawberries alongside. A casual swirl of berry jus on the pristine white plate – and the effect was simply superb. I could do that.

Who can't make a great choccy cake? I asked myself. And myself said, ha! – pushover! That's one of my favourite recipes.

Cream, frozen strawberries - a bottle of that strawberry-flavoured icecream topping would be a great substitute for the fancy jus I had no hope of duplicating. The keyword is compromise when the farm is far from the madding crowd. And while I'm at it, why not double the ingredients so I make an extra cake? Couple of morning teas all sewn up at the same time. Hmm... good thinking.

Industriously I creamed butter and sugar and cocoa (even adding a handful of chocolate melts to the mix to make it extra luscious), whipping our precious farm eggs, and alternately (and most carefully) folding in the flour to ensure an airy-fairy consistency. While my masterpiece cooked in my trusty old wood-burning stove, I whipped and piped cream and chose the biggest, most perfect-looking strawberries to clean and set aside.

By dinner time, fabulous aromas of the meal and the tempting perfume of cooling chocolate cake competed for attention. The main meal proved a culinary success, and finally the moment came to cut and assemble this wondrous dessert.

Except! When I doubled the ingredients, I hadn't doubled the flour. What I cut into, before a most eager audience, was my claim to fame ever since - the first Chocolate Mud Cake (or Lava Cake, whatever your preference) in history. All soft and gooey as the melted middle oozed out, it was declared a chocolate pudding. NOT a cake at all. No sophisticated presentation was possible. The carefully prepared cream towers melted all over the servings and the only choice was to sit the lonely-looking strawberries on top and watch them slither like a kid down a slippery slide.

My consolation from this disaster was the immense pleasure the fellows (and me) found in the flavour and unbelievable moistness in this amazing creation, prompting many requests, for a long time to come to 'make that chocolate cake again, Chris'. Somehow, this never happened.

You may have guessed it wasn't only the chocolate cake that experienced a 'melt-down'.

Author's Note: If you think you've read this before, you have! Original (unchanged) from 5-1/2 years ago! Felt lazy this week for some reason, and took the 'woosy's' way out. Still a good giggle, after all this time.