The following pages do not contain, as you might be thinking (and, quite possibly, hoping), a series of recipes employing ethyl ethanoate and
other fruity-smelling esterified friends, but an exhibition (or something like one) of Cakes representing that most wonderful of subjects, Chemistry.  Cakes may not be the most conventional way to represent Chemistry and what works for a molecular modelling set does not, as we found out the hard way, work for royal icing and cocktail sticks, and although a molecular modelling set isn't edible neither were any of this lot.

Still, it became tradition for us to churn one out at the end of term, and by commandeering Annabel's kitchen while we should have been in Sport and Rec we allied cakemix with Chemistry on a number of occasions with the following results.  Sadly seeing a Chemical Cake in a photo is no substitute for seeing it in real life - not to mention less life-threatening than eating it - so much of their already questionable charm is lost in photography*, but here they all are anyway: enjoy your journey through chemical cakeness and think yourself lucky you've avoided the food poisoning.

Annabel Jenner and Aimee Hartnell,
purveyors of bizarre cakes since 1997

* Especially since digital cameras hadn't yet been invented.  Good grief, that makes me feel old.