Our Anniversary cake!

It was our 6th Wedding anniversary and I was itching to bake a cake. All these years I had been thinking of baking one, but was too fainthearted to take the 'risk' of a spoilt mood by a flop cake! This year I gird up my loins and ventured into cake making. I started  with basic eggless sponge cake and then let my creative juices flow.Originally the plan was to decorate the cake with glazed exotic berries, I had even procured a tin of ' summer berries in light syrup' and thought of glazing and placing them on top of the cake. I pop opened the can and was shattered to see the faded, dull, limpy berries- brown raspberries, grey strawberries and ugly blueberries.It was then that I decided to decorate with roasted almond flakes. The results are in front of you!
Here's the recipe:

Ingredients:

Milkmaid: 1cup
Maida    : 1cup
Cocoa Powder: 1/4 cup
Baking soda :1/2t
Baking Powder :1t
Drinking Soda : 1/2 cup
Vanilla Essence : 1t
Sugar : 2 T
Oil : 1/2 cup

Whipping cream : 1cup
Almond flakes 100gms
Cooking chocolate : 200gms
Orange zest 1T
Wafers : 1 pack

Method:

1. Whisk milkmaid with an electric whisker for 5 minutes at constant high speed
2. Slowly add oil and keep whisking
3. Sift together baking powder, sugar, maida, baking soda and cocoa powder.
4. Alternatively add drinking soda and flour mix, with continuous whisking.
5. Add vanilla essence.
6. Pour in a greased cake tin and bake in a preheated oven at 180degrees for 30 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean
7. Demould and let it cool on a wire rack.
8. Refrigerate overnight or for few hours.
9. Slice the cake horizontally in two slices and even out all humps and crumbs with the help of a sharp knife.
10. Place the first slice of cake on a turn table.
11. Whip the cream until stiff peaks are formed.
12. Put a dollop on the cake slice and even out with the help of an icing knife.
13. Sandwich it with the other slice of cake and cover all sides with whip cream.
14. Fill up some cream in the piping bag and nicely cover the edges of the cake with vertical lines.
15. Refrigerate the cake.
16. In a double boiler, temper some chocolate and add the zest of orange.
17. Dip the wafers in the molten chocolate and place them on a parchment paper and refrigerate till the coating is hard.
18. Align the choco sticks on the edges of the cake.
19. Top the cake with roasted almond flakes.
20. Enjoy!