Chocolate treats

For a birthday treat last month, I baked a yummy chocolate cake.  It is my usual go to chocolate cake recipe which always makes a moist cake that keeps well (not that it has much chance to!).  I decided to break with tradition and have a Cadbury's Flake on the top, rather than Chocolate Buttons.  It was delicious and didn't last long!

I follow Rebecca at Railway Cottage on Youtube and she has been trying a WWII diet.  She provided a recipe for Crumb Fudge which uses dry breadcrumbs mixed with margarine, cocoa powder, sugar and golden syrup.  This mix was one Mum always used with Cornflakes to make us Cornflake cakes for parties.  I think I may have had too many breadcrumbs as the base is a bit dry, not soft and squidgy as it should be.  I had some left over chocolate so topped the 'fudge' with it.  It is a recipe I will try again (great use for left over bread) but with fewer breadcrumbs this time!

It does taste good, but best eaten accompanied by a cup of tea!

Cards and cake

My nephew has just bought a house and was saying he needed some art for the walls, so my sister suggested some of  my slow drawings.  He looked through the many patterns that I have drawn (since joining the slow drawing group in 2023) and decided on nine.  I got them done for him and have since sent them to him.  Here they are above, in one formation, but it will be interesting to see how he chooses to put them together.

This was a card for my sister-in-law, using the Sizzix stencil, which I first mentioned here.

I sent this card to my nephew, with the nine drawings.

This was for a colleague's birthday.  She has several cats, so I often make her a cat based card!

This is the inside...

...and the back.

Here is a card for my husband's big birthday.  I put the numbers on balloons on the inside, just in case he didn't want to be reminded of his age! He loves 'Snarky Cats' stamps by Tim Holtz and Stampers Anonymous, so these usually make an appearance on his cards.

Here's the back.  Yes, I did mention cake, didn't I?

This is the 'Russian Roulette Revels Cake' which I make as a birthday cake, as it is a great recipe that is moist and keeps well (if you can stop yourself eating it!).  This is the very indulgent version with chocolate fudge icing, but the butter cream icing version is just as good.  

Revels are a chocolate covered sweet, with various fillings, such as toffee, Malteser, orange, chocolate, raisin and the dreaded coffee (I really don't like that one and often seem to get one on a slice!) There was an advert about Revels from 2001, when there was also a peanut one, but these were then removed due to allergies - the advert sums up my dislike of the coffee one!

I have made myself feel hungry now, so am off to have something to eat!

Latest cards and cakes

There were a few birthdays to make for during November. Above is the card for a colleague at work.  This stamp set (from Aall & Create) has a cat back and front with three different faces, so is really versatile.

Here's the inside...

...and the back.

Here is the 'Russian Roulette Revels Cake' with chocolate fudge icing, which we took round to her. She always looks forward to this cake.  

This is the card for my sister-in-law, using a distress ink technique I had seen demonstrated recently.

This is the cake for Chris, whose birthday was also in November. The cake is the same as above but with chocolate butter cream icing rather than the chocolate fudge. (It was delicious!)

Chris asked for a Snarky Cat card, so that's what he got!

Here's the other grumpy cat on the back.  

Finally, here is the birthday card for my Mum, whose favourite colours are turquoise and orange.  I really enjoy making these backgrounds with watercolour, stencilling and stamping.

Birthday makes

It was my colleague, Leanne's, birthday last week so I had a lovely time making her cards and gifts.  I used stencils, stamps and dies to make her card (of course, I had to make an envelope as well).

 The inside was decorated with star stencils and little star die cuts.

She has asked for some jewellery - a brown macrame bracelet - this has mookite, tiger's eye, botswana agate and coffee striped agate in it.  (Apologies for the photography as my camera does not like low light levels and in future, I must remember to  use a lamp as well as the main light). The tiger's eye has some lovely colours in it, caramels and toffee, but the photograph is not doing it justice.

 The other thing she wanted was an anklet with black stones.  I made this one using black agate beads and silver plated findings. 

All hell would have broken loose if I hadn't made the traditional 'Russian Roulette Revels Cake' (my go to chocolate cake recipe) with chocolate fudge icing and those innocent looking Revels chocolates.  Yes, I did get a coffee one again - ugh!  Leanne was really pleased with the gifts and the cake.

Cakes and cards

 In amongst preparing for the craft fair, birthdays of friends and colleagues have come and gone.  My colleague, Leanne, had a big birthday last year and I made her the cake above with birthday bunting.

 This year, it was the same 'Russion Roulette Revels cake', minus the bunting.  I have written about this cake before and it is a great recipe, keeps moist and has the most delicious chocolate fudge icing, but works equally well with chocolate buttercream.  The Revels are a chocolate coated sweet, with various fillings - honeycomb, toffee, orange, chocolate, raisins and coffee.  The last two are my least favourite and I usually get more than my fair share of them!  Leanne says she always looks forward to this cake.

 I have also been making cards, again with bunting (a bit of a theme is developing here, but it is very celebratory, isn't it?).  This was for a birthday in September.

 This was Leanne's card this year.  I used glossy accents on the bunting to make it shine and used a kit to create the card.

 This is for a colleague's 50th birthday this week and involved stamping, heat embossing, glitter and glitter paper.  It was very enjoyable to make too.

 I added a few stamps and die cut numbers to the inside too.

The great thing about using stamps is that the envelope can be decorated too.  I have a feeling that I may be making more cards in the future... in fact, my mum is 80 in less than a month, so that is a perfect reason to make another card.

Cakes and Flowers

 As I get older, I have decided that I don't much care for birthdays (mine is rapidly approaching) any more.  They just serve to remind me that I haven't really achieved all that much since last year.  However, not wishing to be too much of a misery, there are some nice things about them.  The cakes were made for my colleagues at work and were an experiment using the Russian Roulette Revels cake (or Dis-aaaaaaster cake, if you prefer) mixture, (which I posted about last November) but in cake cases, rather than one big cake.  Well, I can confirm they were a huge success!

 I used chocolate butter cream icing and finished the chocolate theme with two Galaxy counters.  Yum!

 Of course, when given these lovely flowers by my colleague, Leanne, how could I fail to be cheerful?

 A gorgeous mixture of flowers.

 These were from another colleague, Carol.

Lovely pastel creams and pinks.
So, to paraphrase A A Milne, "Nobody can be uncheered with cakes and flowers"!

Chocolate Cake Recipe

Here, as promised, is the chocolate cake recipe.
Ingredients:
5oz (150g) self raising flour
3oz (75g) drinking chocolate
6oz (175g) caster sugar (I used granulated and it worked fine)
6oz (175g) margarine at room temperature
3 large eggs
3 tablespoons boiling water

Method:
1. Pre-heat oven to Gas 4/180 degrees C/350 degrees F.  Line a 20cm/8 ins round deep cake tin with baking parchment (I added that in!).
2.  Sift flour and drinking chocolate into a large mixing bowl. 
3. Add all other ingredients and blend together.  Beat for a couple of minutes until smooth.
4. Turn into tin and bake for about 45-60 minutes until a fine skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean.
5. Leave in tin for a few minutes then cool on a cooling rack.
6. Ice with your favourite icing or melted chocolate.
This quick and easy cake keeps well in a tin.

For the chocolate fudge icing:
1. Put 4oz (110g) granulated sugar and 4fl oz (115ml) milk into a pan.  Simmer for 9 minutes.
2. Add 5oz (150g) plain chocolate, 2oz (50g) butter and 2 tablespoons double cream.
3. Leave to cool and spread over the cake.
(This makes a generous amount of fudge icing)

To make the Russian Roulette Revels cake, place the contents of two large bags of Revels in a pattern on top of the cake.  Try to avoid eating the coffee ones!

"Dis-aaaaarrrrr-ster" cake!

The title of this post will strike a chord with those of you who watch Strictly, as I am quoting Craig Revel-Horwood! I was making a Russian Roulette Revels chocolate cake (made for the first time last year for my husband's birthday - see here for my previous blog post on it) for my colleague Leanne's birthday and used a recipe I have used many times before.  All was going well until it came to the turning out of the cake.  Would it come out of the tin?  No, it wouldn't.  After loosening it with a knife and judicious amounts of banging around the side of the tin, I tried again, only to find the top half of the cake came out, leaving the bottom half still in the tin.

 More loosening, scraping and banging ensued, only to find that a large portion of the remaining cake fell out onto the floor.  This was picked up and donated to the bird food for the bird table the next morning.  I decided to admit defeat and Chris suggested cutting the top piece in half, sandwiching it together with icing and having a half-cake cake. The photos above show the top half of the cake.

 So, that is what I did and above shows the half-cake cake, with chocolate fudge icing in the middle.  "Dis-aaaaarrr-ster" (sort of) averted!

 Here it is with the remaining Revels chocolates left over from the second attempt.

Here is the second attempt, made with baking parchment lining the tin, which avoided all the unpleasantness of the first attempt.  I am pleased to report that it was well received (even though I seemed to get more than my fair share of the coffee Revels and the raisin Revels, which I do not like at all). 
Note to self: ALWAYS use baking parchment!

300th Blog Post - 'Russian Roulette' Revels Cake

This is my 300th blog post (hooray!) so thank you very much to my loyal blog readers who help to keep me going.

To celebrate, this blog is all about cake.
 It was Chris' birthday last Sunday and it is an unspoken rule amongst his colleagues that the birthday person has to take a cake or cakes for them all to share and celebrate.  Some colleagues were away yesterday and today, so he has a cake to take in tomorrow.  It is a 'Russian Roulette' Revels cake.  I would just like to point out that eating it is not really dicing with death and there are no guns involved.  However, there are Revels all over the top as you can see.  For those of you who may be unfamiliar with this confectionery, let me explain.  Inside a layer of chocolate, there are hidden different fillings; orange, coconut, toffee, malteser, raisin, peanut, chocolate and worst of all, by far (in my opinion), coffee.  I would not want to have to eat a coffee one!  (In fact, there has recently been an advert for Revels which featured this very conundrum in an 'eat-off' competition and the loser was the one who got the coffee!)  So, all Chris' colleagues are going to have to face this problem, which should make it quite entertaining.

The cake is a really simple chocolate one, which stays really moist and is delicious.  I have made a squidgy chocolate fudge icing for the topping and then added the dreaded Revels.
So, would you take on the challenge of the 'Russian Roulette' Revels Cake?