Tried & Tested - Easiest Ever Chocolate Cake Recipe

As already noted, numerous times, I am a bonafied chocoholic, and the good thing about knowing how to bake is that you can self-satisfy those chocified urges, and some recipes don't need quite as much time or skill as you might think, or any outlandish ingredients that you have to search to the ends of the earth for.

I've made many a basic chocolate cake recipe, and this is the one I've stuck with. 

It's cheap to make, it's moist and light, and holds together well when stacked and iced. Perfect!

I use it in all shapes and sizes for cupcakes, chocolate fudge cakes, Mars Bar cakes, mousse cakes, gateaux... 

The possibilities are endless, and only in three steps!!! 

If you're stuck for inspiration, scroll down for my Chocolate Ganache recipe and add some booze if you're feeling naughty!

Loves, L

Chocolate Ganache Celebration Cupcakes & Cakes

A Big Chocolatey Happy Birthday to Emma & Kayleigh!!

I found the perfect ganache recipe just in time for two birthdays: My gorgeous friend Emma who just turned 24, and my not-so-ickle cousin, whose 18th birthday cake I made.

Both the cupcakes and cakes, were broadly from the same recipe: chocolate cake, homemade caramel, and chocolate ganache, with a few added extras along the way...

Emma's cupcakes were cored and filled with homemade caramel, and topped with chocolate and amaretto ganache! I then topped them with some fab "chocolate plastic" (recipe post to follow) roses that I made.


Kayleigh's main cake was a two-tiered labour of chocolatey love.

Layers of the same chocolate cake recipe, separated by layers of ganache, topped with chopped Mars Bars, covered in caramel. The whole cake was then covered in the smooth ganache, and more "chocolate plastic" decorations, wrapped in custom ribbon, and hand delivered by Dave and I, after a treacherous journey from Manchester through winding country lanes in the dead of night, and two very full bladders!

Along with her cupcakes, were the requested booze-filled variety of cakes: Pina Colada and Sex on the Beach Caketails.

The Pina Colada were filled with a shot of pineapple juice and Malibu jelly, and topped with Malibu buttercream, a glace cherry, and of course the obligatory cocktail umbrella.

The Sex on The Beach variety were filled with a cranberry and peach schnapps jelly shot, and peach schnapps cream, piped from a double piping bag, and topped with popping candy and chocolate hearts.

Although I do not take responsibility for any hangovers the next morning, watching granny, grandad and my cousin Jack's faces as they tasted the cakes (and dropped them all down themselves in grandad's case), was utterly hilarious.

I hope both girls had a lovely birthday, and I love you both loads. The cakes are only a small token of the enjoyment you give me every day!!! 

Loves, L

Tried & Tested - Chocolate Ganache Recipe

I am a chocoholic. That's no secret. But I've always struggled to find the perfect accompaniment to chocolate cake! Chocolate butter cream is too sickly, chocolate cream isn't sturdy enough, and I've just never found a recipe that's worth sticking to. Until now.

Google is my best friend. I google EVERYTHING. It's great for finding recipes instantly, and I scour through to find the best, with good reviews.

Alice Currah, on her website http://savorysweetlife.com/ has one of those recipes and I had to try it.

It's so quick, so easy, and so easily adaptable to different dishes and flavours, the possibilities really are endless!

This is a perfect recipe!!!!!! And one I now live by, so please try!

Back to the "Real World"

"Life is one big road with lots of signs. So when you riding through the ruts, don't complicate your mind. Flee from hate, mischief and jealousy. Don't bury your thoughts, put your vision to reality. Wake Up and Live!" - Bob Marley

After a busy beginning to the year, with a home move, battling the flu and and an abscess in my jaw simultaneously, soul searching and trying to find inspiration to make important life and work decisions about my future, and being told that I will, in 30 days, be working for a completely different company and dealing with the fall out from this, I have decided to concentrate a little bit more on doing the things I love, and to pick up where I left off in my very brief (so far) stint into blogging!

If there are any recipes you would like me to test, or anything you would like to contact me about please don't hesitate to comment and I will get back to you as soon as possible!

Enjoy! Loves, L

My Homemade Christmas

I have been useless on here lately. Sorry for slacking, but the wonders of the world have been throwing spanners in the works, as usual!

I've had two dogs on heat, one crashed car (not my fault I hasten to add!), one dead guinea pig (RIP Rockstar), one dog with a paw-ly paw, one house move to deal with, one stranded best friend with a broken arm, one Mother-in-Law (plus her twin sister)'s 50^th birthday bonanza, about four bouts of the all-too-Common Cold, and much more to sort out... As well as the full time job, social life and baking I have committed myself to, while trying to decide what direction to take in my life next! I'm sure everyone in work thinks I've fallen out with them due to the lack of cakes being shared about the office!

However, it’s now coming up to Christmas! And Christmas has given me some inspiration to write to you about.

I love Christmas, and last year didn’t exactly go to plan, so I’m super excited this year, and to start 2013 off with a fresh slate. I have been pretty organised so far, having bought most pressies for people and wrapped them already. Just the big pressies left now – my Dad, my Mum, my big-little-brother, and a few bits for the boyf. Yes, the difficult ones!! 

This year for Christmas I am being a bit of a D-I-Y Darling. I am making my own cards, gift tags, supplementing everyone's gifts with homemade cakes, chocolate truffles, biscuits, festive treats, making my own sweet trees and cake pop trees, and sentimental bits and bobs!
As it’s Christmas I’m not too fussed about the nutrition side of things with my gifts, but for those with an interest in healthy eating, I may well package them up some Christmas inspired fat free flapjacks, and some wholemeal festive muffins!

Tonight’s mission is Banoffee Cupcakes. I say mission, they’re tried and tested, but the filling and icing can be time consuming (anything on a Friday night is too time consuming!). But I highly doubt these will make it to the freezer, and if they do, definitely not to Christmas. I have a birthday in the way and as is tradition will have to bring some goodies into the office to celebrate my turning 24. I’m not complaining though, it’s a good way to test out new flavours and recipes on my unsuspecting colleagues

I hope you keep your fingers and toes crossed for me too, as there is potentially a really exciting opportunity on the cards for me... But I'll have to wait and see if I'm deemed to be good enough! Hopefully someone's looking out for me up there as it would be ideal for me! Ahhhhhhh...

Fun 'n' Frolics at the Foodies Festival

This year I fancied a look at the Foodies Festival at Tatton Park. Having visited the BBC Good Food Show at

the NEC in Birmingham, where I managed to cook with the likes of Gordon Ramsey and Jamie Oliver (who I still call ‘my mate Jamie’ when I see him on TV… I wish!), I had high expectations. So what did I think?

First impressions: £9 for 2 tickets on Groupon? Win!

Second, we hit the jackpot with the weather, which I deemed a small miracle after the torrential downpours we’d had during the week – it is rainy Manchester after all! It was a good job, as I hadn’t realised it would be outdoors, and giggled with a colleague about how she’d be the only one wearing wellies. Well, I should have taken her advice. I looked like a willy, not wearing wellies! The boots I wore are still caked in mud, due to weeks’ worth of rain the ground had taken, screaming at me to clean them, and my boyfriend’s new trainers were unrecognisable. But, it just isn’t a festival without a bit of mud!

 

We arrived around 11:30, had to walk what seemed like miles, and as soon as we’d arrived, hit the Mojito stand. There was a choice of original, passion fruit and strawberry, and they were delicious, and loaded with booze (which went straight to our heads as we’d skipped brekkie thinking we’d get something there).

 

We tipsily continued on our quest for food, and stumbled across a delicious hog roast and exotic meat van “Wild Gathering”. Dave (the boyfriend) played it safe and stuck with the pork, while I tried kangaroo steak, with cheese and chilli jam. I was completely fine with my decision until an old couple walked past, and the woman said to her man “Ooh love, do you fancy a Skippy burger?” To be honest the TV show just annoyed me as a kid, so I didn’t feel too guilty. And as I took my first bite, sitting at the manmade beach, all guilt disappeared. It was tasty. REALLY TASTY. I would go as far as to say it might possibly have been the tastiest meat I’ve ever eaten! AND, you can order kangaroo, ostrich, wild boar and springbok to be delivered to your home – for the dinner party that everyone would remember! Remind me of this if I ever appear on Come Dine With Me!

We sampled different products, mainly cheese, jams, salamis and hams, chocolate and booze – some of my favourite things! There were cocktails made out of coconuts, and other fruits, a champagne tent or two, and foods from all around the world –traditional Spanish churros, “Backyard” Jerk chicken, paella, the biggest piece of parmesan I’ve ever seen, homemade honey (they’d actually brought the bees with them), curry, Chinese, beautiful cupcakes, BIG cakes too.

And I finally found the raw cacao chocolate I’ve been searching for, and met a lovely chocolatier who let me sample lots of chocolate to help me choose the right bar, and taste the differences between bars with different percentages of cocoa solids. His chocolate (even the 85% cocoa content) didn’t taste as bitter as dark chocolate can taste. It was moreish, still sweet, rich, and melted in your mouth the way chocolate is supposed to! Result! 

You were free to wander about Tatton Park and it’s buildings (although you had to pay extra for the farm… Boo!) and we saw lots of bambis running around – I’ve never seen so many all in one place, it was so tempting to try and run among them, but luckily Dave held me back or I might have caused a stampede!

 

It was a great day, enjoyed by us both. You don’t have to be a self-confessed foodie to go, there were people of all ages, races and gender, and Dave, who doesn’t quite have the same obsession as I do about food, had a fab time too.

 

I was definitely inspired as a foodie, by what I’d seen at the event, and would love to have a stall there next year. I need to get my ass in gear and do some work though first!



Happy 2nd Birthday Mia!

Happy Birthday Mia, lots of love Aunty Lauren xx

 

Vanilla white and pink layered cake, with buttercream and jam filling and sugarpaste icing.