That Donna is really quite clever

Having recently watched Masterchef's Masterclass where Donna Hay showed the final 8 contestants how to ice a four layer chocolate cake, I scoffed as they all oohed and ahhed and pronounced her a 'genius' for measuring the amount of filling between each layer so they were all totally even.

Here is a pic of Donna's cake from her magazine:

I hearby apologise to Donna, because here is mine:

Now I'm not complaining. And I'm not beating myself up about it, because it was well received by the birthday boy (hence the car cake topper) and, if Gary, George and Matt are to believed, "it all comes down to the taste", well then, I succeeded. It did taste good, and oh, that chocolate cream cheese icing is terrific...

But I used tins that were 20cm round (not matching ones either) instead of 18cm round, and my first two cakes were so flat I ended up making another batch. And I lined the tins with paper but my bottom circles were bigger than the bases and I cut notches in them, instead of cutting notches on the side sheets and leaving the bottom circle neater (that sounds very confusing, are you still following me?). And perhaps I should have used real buttermilk rather than resorting to my usual 'dash of vinegar in the milk' trick...

Here ends the debrief.

I just wanted to say, I take my hat off to you Ms Hay. I may not gasp 'genius' as you ice a cake, but you certainly know your stuff.