Rich, flourless French chocolate cake is a little like human relationships: fulfilling, intense, often a little cracked and craggy round the edges, with a soft, warming inside. It has real power to it. First, you need to understand one thing: I love cake. Any kind of cake. I have favourites of course (nutty carrot cake, light fluffy velvet cake) but I’d pretty much eat your arm off if you came between me and most cakes in the known universe.

I love to bake. I’m no Nigella (I look a lot less glamorous next to a hot oven) but I can turn out a stellar lemon drizzle cake.

I’ve recently moved, and in my new kitchen I’m yet to acquire any kind of whisk, whether mechanical or electric. I realised my whisklessness at the precise moment I was due to start whisking egg whites (which I’d already separated into their own bowl) at 10pm on Saturday night (I’m so rock and roll). Rummaging around I found that all I had was a pair of forks which showed only the vague promise of being able to whisk anything.

Fast forward 20 minutes later: I was whisked into a frenzy – my ponytail was falling apart, wisps of my hair flying everywhere, and my right arm had apparently accomplished ten hours at the gym while my left arm had stayed at home watching The X Factor. Think less Nigella and more Jack Nicholson in The Shining. And that was only just at the beginning of any kind of soft peaks. The result was something of a mess. But it tasted mighty fine. And besides, I read an article this week by Nigella Lawson – also an Oxford graduate, so we’ve got more than an over eagerness for sweet stuff in common – who said that messiness is beautiful. If the domestic goddess says so, that’s good enough for me. Relationships are pretty messy, too. I’d recently lost touch with a dear friend – nothing sinister, just my life went this way and her life went that way and before you knew it we were both feeling a little neglected and out of touch with one another.

The chocolate cake last weekend was in her honour as I invited her round.

The sweat and near tears I put into this cake were unprecedented in my baking experience, but were ultimately worth it. My advice? If you want to make friends and influence people, make them a chocolate cake.

The messier, the better. Nigella says so.

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