Manchester Central Library

My eldest daughter (like the other two) is a bit of a star. She is the archivist for the Royal Northern College of Music on Oxford Road, Manchester.

This only takes up 3 of her days though so,  a year or so ago, she set herself up as an independent archive and heritage consultant - offering professional archivist advice to organisations and companies who maybe didn't know where to start with their own archives or didn't have enough material to justify employing a full-time archivist.

Her 'spare' two days have proved to rarely be spare as she has worked with a number of organisations in Manchester including the Ahmed Iqbal Ullah Race Relations Resource Centre, Contact  Theatre and the Manchester Refugee Support Network.

This latter consultancy involved her working with the archives in Manchester central Library - very handy as it's just next to the tram stop at St Peter's Square.

She sent me a message last week of a coffee cake that is sold in the library cafe and commented that it was "lush".

Such a description needed to be investigated for veracity so, as I was in Manchester for a meeting, I took the opportunity to have elevenses with @herarchivist. She had texted me earlier in the day to say that she couldn't actually SEE any coffee cake but, gladly, by the time I arrived it had been put on the menu.

It was, to my shame, my first time at the library - a magnificent building in the centre (appropriately) of the city.

Recently re-opened after an extensive refurbishment, the library offers all sorts of services (including free wifi). Of course, my interest was in the cafe and, specifically, the coffee cake therein.

First impressions were favourable. It looked nice and dark (lots of coffee, hopefully) and the icing was nice and thick. In a number of places I've been to recently if you wanted decaf coffee you had to make do with instant. But not here - ethically sourced as well. Big thumbs up.

So, did the experience match the first impressions? Mostly, yes.

The sponge was delicious - moist and beautifully chewy. Not in a 'claggy' way but dense enough that it didn't disintegrate when I put my fork in. And definitely coffee flavoured.

The icing was a little bit of a let down. The 'filling' icing was more fondant than icing and the icing on the top, whilst nice and plentiful, was only a little bit more solid. But the taste? Oh the taste was sublime. And the icing contained the occasional shard of walnut, too - always a bonus.

and so to the scores:

Price: £2.95

Walnut Garnish: no
Walnut in sponge: yes
Sponge: 10/10
Icing: 8/10
Filling: yes - and plenty of it - but not really icing.