Chocolatey Fudgey Goodness

Quite frankly, it would be rude to visit your gran on her Birthday without a ginormous chocolate fudge cake in tow, wouldnt it? When I was thinking of ideas all I could picture was Borris Bogtrotters cake in Matilda and I'm not going to lie I was salivating.  Whenever I've tried to make chocolate cake in the past it's always turned out either too bitter, too dry or not even taste like chocolate at all.  So in a time of crisis who else would you turn to other than good 'ol Nigella. You can find the recipe I used here, and provided you are dead on with your measuring (no guesstimating) then I guarantee you won't be disappointed.  My Gran was absolutely thrilled, although she's a bit cross with me for ruining her diet and shes on -12,000 weight watchers points for this week. YOLO.

 

The only alteration i made to the original recipe was the (secret ingredient, if you will) was 2 tablespoons of salted caramel sauce (from M&S) added to the chocolate buttercream.  That stuff is so darned delicious that you might find yourself plonked in front of the telly, jar in one hand and a spoon in the other, *cough*.  I bought the little fudge chunks on a whim the other day, just cause i really like fudge to be honest, but they turned out to be the perfect finishing touch.  I had a stab at being a little bit fancy too and swirled some of the salted caramel sauce on top too, get me. 

 

cake shenanigans aside, it was utterly lovely to see my Grandma and Grandad this weekend in their little caravan next to the sea (it's actually hanging off the edge of a cliff).  Since i had such a swell time i thought it add a few extra pictures too, i hope you don't mind :)

1)ladies and gents; my gran 2) a bit of light-hearted gambling 3)proper Grandma's house food 4)Nothing like a game of Monopoly to destroy a family 5)I love me a ham sandwich 6)speaks for it's self really :)

 

 

Cheers for reading boys and girls! Have a cracking week,

 

Louise 

A fancy-pants orange cake

Considering how much i like to cover things in glitter and make edible jungle animals, you can understand how difficult i found it to step away from the brightly coloured buttercream and make a fancy orange cake fit for a lady.  The lady in question was my good pal Sophies Mum, and she wanted a simple orange cake with minimalist decoration.  Now, I am the first to admit that im not that great at the baking part of the whole cake making shabang and (heavily) rely on my tried and tested recipes to make sure things don't go tits up (to put it mildly). So making a cake like this was undoubtably going to be a challenge as it meant it had to taste amazing, since theres no covering it up with an extra blob of icing or strategically placed ribbon.  Challenge accepted.

 

1) an aerial view as it were 2) oopsie 3) caramelising my oranges like a boss 4) pretty gold leaf 5) the finished product 6) im getting good at this close up lark.

The recipe i used is BBC Good Food jobie and should you want to give it a go you can find it here.  To ensure maximum orange flavour i slice the cake into two halves and slapped some orange curd in between.  For the top i went a bit wild with my very tight budget and bought some gold leaf as a simple and classy finishing touch, and i think the gold colour compliments the orange perfectly. I like the based of the cake where it meets the board to look clean cut and neat so i added a little orange ribbon, just to tidy it up a bit. 


I absolutely adore how it turned out and it just goes to show that simple doesnt mean boring.

Once again thank you for reading and have a lovely day,

Louise