Last call

Calling all bloggers and foodies!

I published this post a couple of weeks ago but the kind folk at Bite’n’write have offered me a 20% discount to share with you so I’m making one last call for anyone who is interested! The discount means we dont have to book our tickets in go via one person.

The event in question is a food blogging event in Birmingham on the 19th November called Bite n Write. The event will include workshops for food photography, food styling, recipe development, SEO, video blogging, wordpress FAQ and a chance to make contact with other bloggers. Guest speakers include Jeanne Horak-Druiff of Cooksister and Craig Fraser of Frasershot.

Besides the monetary saving it would be great to get a group of Scottish bloggers together for a little trip (this doesn’t mean the non-haggis eating contingent are excluded of course). So! Give me a shout if you would like to book a ticket and take advantage of the discount. And please spread the word!! ♥

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Cake for keeping and telling your grandchildren about

I’ve posted this cake before when I first found the recipe on Orangette but I made it again this weekend and tweaked the recipe a bit so its now officially a part of the family. It’s still very young in cake years and it doesnt come with its own memory yet but hopefully one day I’ll be able to make it enough times and pass it to someone else in my family and it will remind them of something good and make them smile.

In the meantime, its just such a good chocolate cake recipe and I’ve got the quantities and weights right for one sensibly sized cake now (not that anyone is complaining about the surplus of cake batter)… so its worth sharing the love.

Perfect Chocolate Cake

I’m not blowing my own horn. It’s earned the title of the perfect cake because it’s every thing I think of when I think chocolate cake. Rich and dense… but in a good way.  You can eat it just on its own with a dusting of icing sugar or topped with chocolate butter cream and some fresh fruit like I did this time.

• 50g semi sweet dark chocolate
• 3/4 cup hot coffee (I used good Italian coffee)
• 315g castor sugar
• 225g plain flour
• 75g cocoa powder
• 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 2 eggs
• 65g melted butter
• 3/4 cup buttermilk
• 1 tsp vanilla essence

Preheat the oven to 150°C. Line and butter a 20(ish) cm spring form cake tin.

Break the chocolate in a bowl, pour over the hot coffee and stir until the chocolate is melted. In a separate bowl sift together the flour, cocoa, bicarb, baking powder, sugar and salt.

Beat the eggs in a stand mixer until foamy and pale and then beat in the butter, vanilla, buttermilk and coffee mixture. Slowly beat in the flour mixture until just combined and then pour into the cake tin. Bake for 50-70 min until a skewer inserted comes out clean.

Cool in the tin for 5-10 min and then turn out to cool on a wire rack before icing and topping with fruit. Red currants are good for this because they dont wilt after more than a couple of hours out of the fridge.

Thank you again Orangette for helping me find the original recipe and for keeping me amused as usual! ♥

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