The yummy treat in question  today is a Chocolate Celebration Cake.

 First made for a surprise birthday party by our friend, this delicious recipe has been passed around to all our friends and family ever since.

The original recipe for this cake is in the form of a tray bake but for today's post we will show you how we make our version of the cake ( a little bit more exciting than a tray bake!) 

It's a easy simple recipe and even better it can be made 48 hours ahead of when you want to serve it.(if you could wait that long before eating the whole thing!) Well done if you can :) 

Right so first...

Decide whether you want to make a sandwich type cake (our recipe and in picture above) or a tray bake.

If option two; you will most obviously need a tray bake tin or if your kitchen is not equipped with such tools a simple smallish roasting tin will do the trick!

For our recipe we use two 20cm (8in) sandwich tins.

Tin decisions out of the way and sorted....

Set out and weight the following wonderful ingredients,I have split cake ingredients and ganache topping ingredients separately, depending if you want to add ganache to your cake ( it would be silly not to though really!) 

For cake:

100g of soften butter, (tiny bit extra needed for greasing tins).

50g of cocoa powder

6 tablespoons of boiling water

3 eggs

4 tablespoons of semi skimmed milk (or whatever in fridge basically)
175g of self raising flour

1 good full teaspoon of baking powder

300g of caster sugar

For the ganache icing:
150g of dark chocolate
200-250ml of double cream
3 tablespoons of apricot jam(warmed up slightly in microwave). p.s you can use other jams, this is just what we made ours with but what ever jam you put on your Hovis in the morning will do too :)

Heat your oven to 180 degrees or gas mark 5, once that is done grease (butter) your lucky chosen tin/s.

Firstly quickly sieve your cocoa powder into a bowl then add the boiling water to great a chocolaty smooth paste.
Then add all the rest of the ingredients into your chocolate paste. Mix it all together until its all combined nicely! No need for the gym with this recipe, will have nice toned upper arms mixing this cake!


Pour into your chosen tray/tins and pop it into the hot oven for 20-25 mins.

 To pass the time whilst the mixture is in the oven, get cracking on your ganache icing!
For that:
Melt your chocolate and double cream in the microwave,(keep your eyes peeled) you don't want it to burn. Leave it to cool for abit and it should then become thicker creating scrummy icing.


Now to ensemble your masterpiece....
Take the cooled cake bases and spread your jam all over them, once jam is on, it is time for your ganache icing. A pallette knife will help with this but a plain and simple knife with do the trick.
Done.
If you want you are finished with the cake and you can serve it straightway but if you can, put on....

Toppings :)
We used raspberries and white chocolate (use a potato peeler for cool chocolate shavings)
Tahdah! Celebration Complete, bring on the next birthday!

Cut into piece and enjoy! 

I hope you've missed us...

Hello sunny (but slightly-windy-and-still-freezing) afternoon!

We are SO sorry for leaving it so long...as you know I have been en France, and then when I got back Fia jetted off to London and then home for a week, whilst I promptly decided to become very ill...

so apologies...

Fia has an extremely tempting chocolate cake recipe coming very soon, but I thought I'd share with you one fabulous part of my trip to Lyon to visit my beautiful friend.

I had no idea how pretty Lyon was.

Anyway, as I mentioned previously, I have decided to refrain from 'unnatural' sugars recently, and so far its going pretty well. But when in France... you simply cannot resist the sweet cakes. So it became 'I'm off sugar, I get a treat once a month(?! - im crazy i KNOW) and it doesnt apply outside of the UK. GENIUS.

Why thankyou...

So I was only there for five days, but on the first day I landed and we promptly went to 'Paul' for a yummy coffee and croissant. You can't go to France without eating a croissant. Delicious.

Later went we retreated to my friend's apartment, we decided to do a bit of baking, just to get into the 'scrummy sweet' spirit!

Here is my recipe for an extremely easy Tarte Tatin...

You'll need

• A flan style baking tin, one of those ones with the pretty edges
• About 10 apples, I think. (If you use all sweet apples, don't put in as much sugar, otherwise try and use a mixture of 'sweet' and 'sour' apples
• Some kind of brown sugar
• 100g Plain flour
• 50g Butter

(Thats it, you can probably just go and make it if you've got some spare apples!)
   
First, peel the apples and slice into flat pieces (cut half, then half again, core and cut into segments)

Grease the whole flan tin with butter, and cut out a circle of greaseproof paper to fit in the bottom, put that in and grease that too.

Sprinkle a good layer of sugar into the bottom, and then arrange the apples into a pretty pattern until they're layered up. Use as little or as much as you like/have..

Bring together the flour and the butter in a big bowl with clean hands, rub the butter into the flour and work it into a soft dough ball. Add more flour or butter if you feel it needs it. Don't panic!

Now, you have two options here. you could either chill the pastry if you have time, or even freeze it for a bit. Then I reckon you can try and grate the pastry over the apples, just so it sinks in and gives a good coverage.

Or, if you're slightly lazy and got less time, just roll the pastry out into the right shape so it fits over the apples. Press it over nicely, then pop into a preheated oven at 180*C, for about 40 mins. 

Take it out of the oven when the pastry looks golden, and check to see if it is not 'soggy'.

Voile!

Now, you are 'supposed' to eat this chilled, I think, but it is absolutely delicious straight from the oven. Don't eve bother cutting it...just grab a friend, coffee, and a fork...

Tell me what you think!

Do you have a treat that sounds hard but is really really easy?!

Soph x