On Saturday it was my Grans 69th Birthday so we decided to have a buffet at our house. We used the M&S online platter service as most things are gluten free, of course we ordered some sandwich platters, but on the whole I could eat anything I wanted!

When picking up the platters my Mum went to get a cake too. I am used to not joining in on the Birthday cake but to my surprise Mum appeared at the pick up desk, where I was waiting for the platters, with a HUGE celebration cake! I was over the moon and was just praying it was good, so everyone else wouldn't be disappointed!

At £10 a cake, this retails at the same price point as most of the mainstream birthday cakes you find in all major supermarkets, I find this really reasonable and perfect to share with a group of people without breaking the bank! I found this cake cut into 12 slices was around 84p a serving, that's fabulous as with baking and decorating I think I would be hard pushed to make one that looked and tasted the way this one did! I am terrible at icing and we would have ended up with a mud cake!

Once cut the cake was super chocolatey, not only was the sponge and frosting chocolate, but the sides were thickly coated in chocolate swirls. If you know me, this was heaven! The sponge was light and fluffy, with the softer icing made this cake gorgeously gooey! The real test was when my family tucked in. They didn't even notice the difference, until they realised I was photographing and eating it!

Cutting the cake was clean and easy, no crumbling or flaking apart, the structure of the cake held well. Crumbling is my biggest pet peeve on larger free from cakes, it always means you miss out on the middle of your cake as it disintegrates into nothing. M&S however only tend to remove gluten from the recipe, hence the made without wheat range. I feel this helps the cake to stay together, or any products for that matter, trying to remove all allergens is a very hard thing to achieve well, and if it isn't essential, why do so? I understand many people have multiple allergies, but sometimes it is nice to have something just gluten free. I am sure those who are only intolerant to dairy are sometimes sick of dry food because us gluten free lot have made their sweet treats dry!

The gorgeous knife in the photos is made by The Silver Birdcage. If you love stamped silver wares you have to look at her site! When I first saw her stall at one of the events I was trading at, I fell in love with all her products and I've brought a few bits since as they make such unique gifts! I actually won this knife in one of her competitions and thought it would be perfect for my blog photos!

Overall todays review is very small because I couldn't find a fault, the chocolate didn't taste cheap and the texture was perfect. If it fooled 5 others into thinking it was a regular, gluten filled cake, you can't beat that really! I am really pleased, fantastic cake at a fantastic price!

Hannah x