More cakes - apologies - and Marguerite Patten

White choc and raspberry - tasted great since you ask

Oh dear. New readers to this blog (that's all of you) must think I am one crazed cake addict. Just a big soft ball of squishy sponge coated in a sickly sweet sugary coating who dissolves on contact into a puff of air.

Ok, if you know me you'll know there's no sugar coating. But as I've just spent the afternoon baking with Marguerite Patten, 94-year-old doyenne of baking, you'll forgive me for going on about cake one last time (for now).

The baking party was in aid of Stork's 90th birthday and Marguerite herself looked as pretty as the pastel cupcakes which fill the windows of kitsch bakeries, in a suit of the palest lavender, immaculate pink lipstick and a delicate ivory coiffure to top it all off.

Marguerite is most easily described as the original celebrity chef because she first hit the airwaves during the Second World War as an employee of the Ministry of Food, presenting Kitchen Front on BBC Radio to help housewives make the most of their rations. By 1947 she was presenting food shows on the TV and has sold 17 million copies of her 170 books.

Of which I own none. Which is a bit naughty given I'm writing about a revered cookery writer.

But what I can tell you is that the cakes and muffins I made today seem genuinely lighter than the ones I've baked over the last few weeks. So maybe Stork is the answer.

Telly chef and husband of Fern Britton Phil Vickery was there too and he appeared genuinely overcome by the wonder of Stork. Now, when you're at an event which is promoting a certain product, you would of course expect the hosts to do their best to champion whatever it is in return for their fee. But Vickery seemed so enthusiastic about the product I'm going to crown him the Messiah of Marg.

As for Marguerite, she says she wouldn't put her name to anything she doesn't believe in. She has been extolling the virtues of Stork for decades now and one could never accuse such a lovely and proper old dear of touting her name about for a quick buck.

She's no shy duck when it comes to voicing her opinion either. I asked her about Sophie Dahl's new cookery show and she said: "I couldn't believe my ears and I couldn't believe my eyes. She is very pretty but can she cook? The producers had no right letting her run riot in a kitchen when there are so many able cooks out there."

Here here. I said last week I was looking forward to watching Dahl goof about with some scrumptious puddings, but the poor thing was out of her depth. The food she made did look nice, but the premise was absurd and her cooking skills barely more developed than my own.

Giles Coren has already called her show a "crock of bogus mendacious shite", hammed up here by the Mail. Though look, the pair do have history.

I'm going to leave you with a Stork cake recipe, because that seems only fair. Lemon Drizzle Cake, bit of a surefire crowd pleaser -

322 calories per slice. Shite. That should make me think before I poke any more down my cakehole.

And after this I'm getting back to my roots of reading about cooking instead of trying to actually do it. I've learnt my lesson this week, what with the burnt rubber and the exploding pastry and the endless stream of cakes, and I don't have time to read about food, make it and then write it up here, so the cooking bit will have to be streamlined.

I am dedicating this post to my dear departed Grandma Shack (Nellie) who will today, looking down at me baking in the Good Housekeeping kitchen from her sofa in the sky, have been very proud indeed (I hope).