Lower your perfect cake mix, serene but not comatose, into your cake tin. Forewarn your Aga to 150 and furnace for forty six minutes. Now wait for the patter of tiny feet yelling 'Torta! Torta! Torta!

Before we plunge into our Torta, let's just whizz through the trimmings without which no kiddies' tea party's complete. Double-glazed with olive oil, it has to be The Prince Of Wales' batch-cooked, ...

Waltz a hundred grams of organic unsalted organic butter round a highly-sprung cake tin. Ligne the bas with baking parchment. Hot-bubble the chestnuts in the lait de chèvre till they're al dente ...