Sam's First Attempt at Lemon Drizzle Cake

So, with Sam's work Jubilee weekend bake-off only round the corner, he has gone into cake over-drive, road-testing other recipes that he could bring along. This week, he thought he'd give his old favourite Lemon Drizzle Cake a go, using a recipe from Olive. Having learnt the creaming method from the previous cake, Sam got off to a great start.

He could even be safely left alone to zest the lemons (he spiced things up a bit by adding a lime too)

My intervention wasn't required until the final stages, when a surprisingly dry cake mix gave away the fact that Sam had neglected to put in four eggs - yes! FOUR eggs! With disaster averted, Sam was confident that the cake would nonetheless turn out well, regardless of what order the ingredients went in. It seems that he was proved correct in this case, since the cake turned out as tasty as ever:

Sam was very pleased with himself :)

Sam's First Marble Cake

Now, I know what you're thinking - "Surely, Sam couldn't possibly have gone through life without ever trying any marble cake?!" Well I'd say that you were right! (And don't call me Shirley) In fact, this was Sam's first attempt at baking a cake, so he started off with a simple, familiar family favourite. So after finding a good, basic recipe for marble cake on the BBC Food website, he enthusiastically threw himself into the joys of baking. The initial stages of creaming the butter and sugar together were done by hand, so they needed a strapping young lad like Sam regardless, and I'll admit I've put his brute force to good use in other such situations. Here is Sam at work, in happy anticipation of the cakey goodness coming up:

 This project required the minimal supervision, just a few checks during mixing, and before going into the oven:

And after an hour's baking, it came out quite well:

Sam's comments: I chose this recipe because it was a childhood favourite. It wasn't too complicated, and I wouldn't mind making it again.  I've yet to perfect the recipe, as it came out slightly dry, so much so that at one point, I think I aspirated some crumbs and almost started choking! 7/10, but with promise for the future :)