A FEW weekends ago, Daughter asked if she and one of her best friends could make a “smash cake”.

My heart sank a little – Daughter has never had an easy relationship with the kitchen, and when her year 10 options came around, she was quick to drop DT. (That’s Design and Technology to us old buffers – home economics in my day, or cookery for short).

Her reasons: too much chaos in the classroom, too much stuff to go wrong. She has resigned herself quite comfortably to a life of ready meals and takeaways, or marriage to any chef who shows willing and eligible.

To make matters worse, I am not the most patient of teachers. Home sessions generally end with one or both of us in tears of despair/rage, and at the very least me completing the task alone.

The mere sight of an egg being cracked “the wrong way”, or the refusal to wear sensible clothing and an apron, sends me into conniptions; no matter how hard I try to restrain myself, the sharp intake of breath always gives me away.

I once enrolled my mother-in-law (MIL) to help in the baking department, when DT homework required using different types of sugar in fairy cakes to find out how they change the end product: sweeter, crunchier, more fudgy.

MIL is a seasoned pro, the producer of perfect pastry and gorgeous gateaux. Her cut-and-come-again cake is moresome indeed, and her Misdemeanour cake – named after the one time she slipped up by mistaking cayenne pepper for cinnamon – has gone down in family legend (the correct version is now known universally as “Misdemeanour cake without the misdemeanour”).

But even she failed on egg watch. I’d just sat down when a banshee howl emanated from the kitchen – one had been smashed to smithereens and there weren’t enough left to finish the job. My laptop folded shut, I was dispatched to a neighbour on the scrounge.

Back to the smash cake, and it turned out the best mate was a dab hand at DT, and very good at following recipes, to the point she made sushi for her family on New Year’s Eve. So I was confident little could go wrong on that front. I stocked up on ova and Betty Crocker chocolate fudge icing, and figured that while I wouldn’t go far, I was unlikely to be needed.

However, I was blindsided by an unexpected complication.

Google a smash cake, and the first entries you see describe a confection made for a baby’s first birthday, the idea being that they can grab it with their pudgy fists and shovel it into their cute little mouths. Photography studios even offer smash cake sessions (cake not provided).

More recently, TikTok users have adapted the trend for an older market by adorning cakes with pictures of the baker’s celebrity crushes. Herein lay the problem.

We don’t have a working printer. Best friend doesn’t have one at all. MIL’s doesn’t do colour (essential). OH brought home a printer donated by a colleague; that didn’t work either, meaning we now have two to take to the tip.

Daughter insisted, like her life depended on it, that this was an essential part of the cake, and it was my duty as a parent to make it happen. Failure was out of the question.

“Couldn’t you just cut a few pictures out of the Radio Times?” I asked, wishing upon seeing Daughter’s withering expression that I’d engaged my Gen X brain before opening my mouth.

The weekly TV pages are not exactly awash with the mugs of social media influencers who pass for 21st-century hotties.

By Friday evening, having wished unsuccessfully for the whole thing to go away, I was close to a nervous breakdown. It was back to the dependable neighbour, who had not only a functioning colour printer but also photographic paper. She was happy to oblige; the teens mounted pictures of their beaux on cocktail sticks, thrust them gleefully into the choccy frosting and launched their creation into the world via their favourite social media platform.

So it turned out that the cake was a lipsmacking triumph. I was challenged to identify the heart-throbs. Hollywood A-listers Leonardo di Caprio and Tom Holland: tick. Youtubers and Tiktok stars: not so much.

I assumed the Teletubby was ironic – in fact, it’s de rigueur to chuck in a curveball like Shrek or Bob the Builder (hence the alternative name of “hear me out” cake).

I’m considering suggesting a rematch between me and MIL. My own headshots will include Gallic charmster Fred Sirieix, who can bring the milk in any time; while I’m betting MIL will plump for green-fingered god Monty Don, who has an open invitation to pot her seedlings.

Pass me the Radio Times and a pair of scissors – I may be some time.