Mocha crunch cake - a totally over-the-top birthday cake

Sunday was the first birthday event of the local Clandestine Cake Club. If you don't know what it is, see here - basically, you book onto an event, make a cake to fit the theme, then turn up at the venue (which is kept a secret until a few days before), eat lots of cake, chat with cakey people and get to take cake home. What is not to like?

So, as I said, it was our first birthday event. I have been going since the second meeting ever so I missed the first and although I haven't been every time, I'm a fairly established regular attendee, this being my fifth event.

The theme was, of course, Happy Birthday and I wanted to make a decadent, over the top cake for a special occasion that would be suitable for a grown up birthday. In our house, that means chocolate cake, by and large. I found the original recipe for chocolate crunch cake in a booklet from a Good Food magazine but I wanted to do more to it so I have combined with details from a coffee crunch cake on the Good Food website and added my own details.

I wasn't totally convinced that this would work, particularly as the cake batter was quite runny so it is a bit of  leap of faith, but the meringue stayed on top and baked nicely. I have tweaked the amount of water going into the cake batter as the cake took a lot longer to cook than it should have done. If you find the mixture a bit stiff, loosen the batter with a drop of water.

Just feet from cake club venue.

This is probably best made on the day you want to eat it. I couldn't because logistics didn't allow for it - I was at Body Pump until an hour before. So I made the cakes, stored them in plastic containers overnight, then filled with the cream just before I left for the event, which was held a few feet from Bradley Wiggins's other golden postbox. The cream softened the meringue very quickly, so if you want to keep the crunchy effect of the crisp meringue, I would recommend filling it with cream at the very last minute. And then you have every excuse for finishing it off on the day you make it.

Mocha Crunch Cake
Cuts into about 12-16 pieces

Ingredients

For the cake batter
50g good quality cocoa powder
175ml hot water
100g butter, softened
280g caster sugar, preferably golden
2 large eggs
175g self-raising flour
1/2 tsp (2.5ml) bicarbonate of soda

For the meringue topping
2 egg whites
100g caster sugar, again preferably golden
Coffee flavouring (see below)

For the cake filling
284ml double cream
2-3 tbsp icing sugar
Coffee flavouring (see below)

Also required
100g dark chocolate drops

1, Start by making the coffee flavouring. I make a small cup of double strength espresso from our coffee machine and allow to cool. If you can't make fresh coffee, use as much instant coffee as you dare and dissolve in 100ml hot water. You may need a little more than this but the stronger you make it, the less you will need. Also before you start, place the cocoa powder in a jug or bowl, pour over the hot water and whisk until you have a fairly uniform lump free liquid. Place on one side to cool while you get the cake ready.

2. Grease and line the bases of 2 20cm (8in in old money) sandwich tins with baking parchment and grease the linings. I find the best way to do this is to use cake release spray but you can use softened butter if you like.

3. Place the butter and sugar in a bowl and whisk for 2-3 mins, preferably with an electric hand or stand mixer. There is a lot of sugar in this mix, so it won't go all pale and fluffy like it normally does but do not panic. Add the eggs, one at a time, whisking after each addition and this time, it will go all pale, light and fluffy. Pour the cooled cocoa mixture on top, and then sift in the flour and bicarbonate of soda. Fold everything together gently until thoroughly mixed and smooth. Divide the mixture equally between the two tins. Smooth the tops if necessary. Place the tins on the side whilst you prepare the meringue topping.

4. Preheat the oven to 160C/Fan 150C/Gas 3. You will need to reuse your mixer to make the meringue unless you are very strong or like me, possess two mixers! If you have to clean it first, clean the beaters very well to remove all traces of fat or the eggs will not whisk. Make sure you have a clean bowl too and when you separate your eggs that not a trace of yolk has got into it. (I find it easier to separate the eggs into a small bowl first before adding to the mixing bowl. Whisk the egg whites until they form stiff peaks - when you lift the beaters out, the eggs should make a peak that stays formed very easily. Add half of the sugar to the bowl and whisk again until the mixture becomes glossy. Gently fold in the rest of the sugar and 1-2 tsp of your coffee flavouring.

5. When combined, spoon half of the meringue on top of the cake mixture. Leave a 2cm gap around the edge of the tin as the meringue will spread as it cooks. The tins are now ready to go into the preheated oven.

6. Bake for 40 minutes, or until the meringue is crisp and the cake cooked. Use a long skewer at an angle to test the cake under the middle of the meringue. If the cake needs longer cooking, check how the meringue looks - if it is looking like it will burn, turn the oven down to about 140C and keep in there until the cake is finally done.

Cakes cooling after baking

7. Remove the tins from the oven and leave the cakes to cool in their tins for 5 minutes. Then, really carefully remove the cakes from the tins - this is where loose bottomed tins come into their own! Peel off the paper and leave to cool completely, meringue topping uppermost.

8. When it's time to eat the cake, make the cream filling. You'll need your mixer beaters again - cold if possible (I put clean ones in the fridge to chill) as this makes better whipped cream. Whisk the cream until it forms soft peaks. Sift in the icing sugar and add 1-2 tbsp of coffee flavouring, folding both gently into the cream. Add more coffee or sugar to taste, folding gently as before. You can do this an hour or so ahead if you want and store in the fridge.

9. Right, cake building time. Decide which cake has the best looking topping and reserve that for the top. Place the other cake carefully on a plate and spread thickly with the coffee flavoured cream. Scatter about half the chocolate drops on top of the cream.

Cream on top of bottom layer, with chocolate chips

10. Make some coffee drizzle icing. Place 2-3 tbsp icing sugar in a bowl and add about 1-2 tsp coffee flavouring then mix together. You need an icing that is runny enough to drizzle but thick enough for it to set quite quickly and not dribble over the sides.  You may need to add more icing sugar - mine was too runny but I didn't have time to thicken it further! Drizzle the icing over the top of the cake, then scatter the remaining chocolate drops over the top so they stick to the icing. A final dusting of some icing sugar is completely optional - I didn't bother as I was out of the door within a minute with the cake in a box.

You may like to try other combinations with the chocolate - I can think of using orange juice and an orange liqueur to make a chocolate orange cake or peppermint essence to make mint choc cake. How about some chopped hazelnuts folded gently into the meringue with some frangelico in the cream? Or even some squashed berries in the cream! The possibilities are endless.

Thanks to Susan and Linzi for organising today's event.

Meal Planning Monday - the half a week edition

A bank holiday weekend, so what happens? A wedding of course! We are going to my niece's wedding down in Buckinghamshire so we will be away on Friday and Saturday and probably home late on the Sunday. This leaves me only 4 meals to plan for this week. Husband is off work this week so we are still keeping it fairly simple but I can't help sneaking in the odd recipe I've never done before.

Eyes down, look in. This is our (half a) week in meals.

Monday - Chicken, coconut and mango pilau (link goes to lamb recipe)
Tuesday -  Fish finger pie
Wednesday - Pad Thai with prawns
Thursday - Chorizo bean burgers

What are you having?

(Don't forget the linky over at Mrs M's where there are more fab meal planning posts).

The ultimate fish finger wrap?

The finished product

For some strange reason, when I was ill, I found myself thinking about fish fingers. Don't ask me why but obviously a bad chest does that to you. So it was a complete coincidence when Birds Eye offered to send me a kit to try making the ultimate fish finger wrap, but quite a welcome one.

The recipe comes from Phil Vickery and there are a load more recipes (not just fish finger ones) that he's put together with Birds Eye and Saira Khan on their facebook page in the Clarence's Cookbook section.

So, this is the recipe for the wraps.

Ultimate Cod Fish Finger Wrap
Serves 4 

Preparation time:- 15 minutes. Cooking time:- 10 minutes.

Ingredients

4 x 24cm soft flour wraps
8 Birds Eye Cod Fish Fingers cooked and warm
1/4 Iceberg lettuce
4 slices smoked streaky bacon, cooked until crispy
2 hard boiled eggs, halved
4 tbsp mayonnaise
few fresh basil leaves
2 spring onions, finely sliced
salt
pepper
1 medium carrot, finely grated (optional)

1.Lay out a wrap onto a chopping board.  Place a little Iceberg lettuce down one end of the wrap. Top with 1 slice of bacon, sprinkle with a little salt and pepper, add the 2 cod fish fingers. Add half a boiled egg, 1 tbsp squirty mayo, a few basil leaves and a sprinkling of spring onions. Add carrot if you want.

2. Fold bottom edge over the fold in both sides, finally roll up tight, and then wrap tightly in film. Chill well.

3. Remove film and cut in half diagonally and serve with onion rings.

I made these for lunch one day, and to be honest, I couldn't be doing with the onion rings so they didn't happen. There is quite a lot of prep to do - cook fish fingers, slice lettuce, fry bacon, hard boil eggs, for example. I also found it odd that you have lovely cooked fish fingers and bacon, then wrap and chill them. My wraps, therefore, didn't get chilled for very long. Chilled partly, I'd call it but it meant that they were still warm when we got to eat them. I am fairly rubbish at rolling wraps up tight and wrapping in cling film even worse, but I seem to wrap them tight enough for them to stay wrapped after slicing diagonally.

I must admit, I was a bit dubious about putting basil leaves in this. So were the children - when presented with these, they looked suspiciously at the greenery within but after a few mouthfuls, they proclaimed them a success, and asked when they could have them again. That makes them a success. I found the mayo I had used worked well because it is quite vinegary (Asda reduced fat mayo, if you're interested) which was a nice balance to the richness of the bacon and the egg.

I have to say tho, as ultimate as they were, they were ultimate in the amount of washing up it created  - one pan for the eggs, another for the bacon and a grill pan for the fish fingers! My favourite fish finger sandwich is  just to bung them in some soft bread, add some tartare sauce or mayo if you haven't got any. And eat - simples! Having tried this ultimate wraps, I'd probably add some basil (or some fresh dill - I love it with fish) just to make it slightly posh. Even though fish finger anything is not really posh at all.

(Birds Eye kindly sent me a kit to make fish finger wraps, a coupon towards Birds Eye products and an Asda gift card to buy the remaining fresh ingredients required. They also sent two cuddly Clarence polar bears for the children. I have included the recipe for information but all opinions are my own.)

How are you surviving the school holidays?

OK, I know that Scotland are already back at school but this week is like the halfway point for us in our school holidays. I wondered how everyone else was doing?

We're doing surprisingly well. It was an inauspicious start to the holidays, what with me being ill and struggling for the first week, which was of course the week that husband had taken off work - which was good because he could amuse the children, but it was bad because we missed out on family days out. Although we did go to Old Trafford for the Olympic football.

Two excited children

That's Team GB down there!

Although, recovering slowly from a bad chest, the walk up 5 flights of stairs nearly killed me. And they told me at the top that I could have got the lift!

And then, to celebrate the opening ceremony the next day, we had an Olympics-themed tea.

I know top left should be blue but I couldn't find
anything suitable!

And then, of course, we had the Olympics to amuse us all. The first week, Missy Woo went to dance summer school at the local village hall so Monkey and I watched most things just the two of us, when he was here. And then the second week kind of merged with the first week, with us hoping it wouldn't end.

On the last but one day of the Olympics, I took the children to MediaCity to see a special preview screening of a new Justin's House episode in the piazza.

Yes, Justin is on stage there before the episode was shown on the big screen - we were asked to stay sat down so the children could see what was going on.  To make it even more exciting, afterwards, we were invited for lunch in Dock House (the building you can see top left of the picture) along with lots of other lovely bloggers and we got to do this.

Notice smiley excited Monkey there. Two hours before, he'd told me that he was too old for Justin's House but soon changed his tune. (You can also see the edge of Geekmummy trying to get the geekdaughter out from under a table as she hid from Justin!). Monkey was actually most impressed with the huge slices of pizza on offer. He had three.

Which brings us onto this week. We've been chilling a lot (and missing the Olympics) but Missy Woo has just come back from an overnight visit to Granny and Grandad's, during which she had her birthday treat from them of a trip to see the Dora the Explorer show, as well as being spoilt rotten by Granny buying her clothes and more presents. Monkey and I stayed home and made cake - I can blame  Great British Bake Off for his renewed cravings for cake. He also discovered a programme on CBBC that he liked this week called "I Want My Own Room" and got very excited when they visited Dock House, showing them visiting the building we'd been inside only a few days before.

Today marks the end of the fourth week and it actually feels like it has flown. Missy has two parties this weekend and then husband is off next week so we're hoping to go on some days out then we are going to my niece's wedding over the bank holiday weekend.  After that, we will be into the Paralympics. The most exciting thing about that is I managed to secure tickets for one of the athletics sessions for all of us this afternoon for just after the children go back to school. I couldn't believe it! We are all now really excited and have something to look forward to once the holidays are over.

How have your holidays been so far? I hope you are surviving. Let me know how you're coping and what you've been doing.

Gusto for Gousto?

Basil mint pesto fusilli with pancetta and mushrooms

You may remember that a few weeks ago, I mentioned in a Meal Planning Monday post that I was trying Gousto out for some of my meals. I was going to mention in the following week how it went but felt it deserved its own post. So here we are.

The idea of Gousto is that you choose 2 to 4 meals from their list to cook and they deliver all the ingredients to you, along with a recipe card with full instructions how to cook each dish. All ingredients are delivered on a Wednesday night between 6pm and 10pm if you are in London but they have also just launched nationwide, delivering between 9am and 5pm.

The week I chose the recipes, I found it quite difficult to choose as there weren't too many that appealed to my personal taste. Husband had to help me choose although we ended up choosing two chicken dishes. To be fair, I just looked at the current selection and the range is more appealing so I was probably unlucky that week. You can place the subscription on hold at any time so I guess you could dip out if a particular week didn't appeal to you. When choosing the recipes, you are given the calories, the level of difficulty, how long it takes to make and any extra equipment (like a blender) that you need so that you can use to suit your circumstances.

Obviously, we are not in London so the delivery was due to be on a Thursday between 9am and 5pm. We were around the time they started doing nationwide deliveries so I'm expecting there may have been some teething problems. I wasn't all that comfortable with it being a day long delivery slot - it's just not possible to stay in ALL day, especially when I am doing the school run. We were out between 10 and 11, which was taking a risk on my part, but there was no card through the door when I returned. But I waited... and I waited ... and I waited. Good job I was (mostly) watching the Olympics. The inescapable fact was that the food didn't arrive. When husband got home, I had to go to the chippy - not that the children complained, but it was annoying.

Gousto promised to sort this out for me - the following week. Had I been a paying customer, I would not have been happy about that. I was just trying to plan what to eat, when the door went. Our food was finally delivered on Friday at 12 noon. The delivery agent seemed to know nothing about it being late for delivery so I really don't know what happened. Obviously, having ordered chicken, I was a tad nervous about this. However the contents seemed fairly cool when I got them. Plus, we ate it and no-one got ill. Still, it was not a great start.

This is the box we received. It's wool insulated and the meat were kept in a foil bag with ice packs. But when they say every ingredient, they mean everything, with the exception perhaps of oil for cooking. Because we were catering for 4, not 2 people, we had two of everything. This made it quite hefty on the packaging and I can't help wondering if they couldn't look at reducing by combining - there were two packs of everything, many of them half full. I also found it odd that hardly anything was labelled - if you weren't familiar with certain ingredients, it could prove a problem.

Onto cooking the dishes. The recipe cards were clear and laid out well with lots of photos. However, some of the recipes were in a strange order - I added one ingredient way too early as it told me to wash it and another ingredient but only added one in the next step and I managed to speed read it. Oops. Also, in another recipe, it told me to make up stock, then keep back 200ml for later before using the rest. I couldn't, however, find where I was to use the stock I'd kept back. I even got husband to confirm I wasn't going mad and he couldn't find it either, so this extra stock went unused.

Portion sizes were generous. More than generous in fact. I tend to make dishes for 4 people even though the kids don't eat a full adult portion as the leftovers are taken to work by husband  for his lunch. So I know how big a 4 person dish looks like - and these were HUGE portions. Well, the carbohydrates in the dish were - we had bulgar with one of the dishes and the leftovers filled my Mason Cash mixing bowl and got used over the course of a weekend. I reckon it could have fed 8 people! Wise to this, when I went to make the next dish, containing parsnips, I held back some of them and it was still way too much. However, when I made the pasta dish, there wasn't leftovers as the children love pasta but it was still a substantial portion.

The quality of the ingredients was good - especially the meat, which was organic. However, I did find that one of my packs of basil went slimy after only a couple of days - and coincidentally, someone else had sent me another pack of basil in the post at the same time which was fine and I had to use that instead, along with the other pack. I wasn't overly impressed with the quality of the parsnips we had either - I had to cut out quite a lot of black bits.

My biggest problem with Gousto is the cost. I looked up how much the subscription cost was for what we had - 3 meals for 4 people. £72! (£66 for the full vegetarian option). That is a hefty week of supermarket shopping in our house, including breakfast, snacks and lunches, and all 7 main meals.

But then, this service is not really aimed at someone like me. I have a pretty decent store cupboard because I cook such a wide range of dishes for the family. Out of all the non-perishable ingredients I was sent, there were only two I had never used before and everything else I had in my cupboards. Of the perishable items, they are all things I buy fairly regularly. I have time to plan our meals and my shopping list - in fact, I'd say it saves me time over the course of a week. I'd want to plan all my meals in one go on here or nothing. And I definitely could NOT afford a whole week's worth! This service is for the cash rich time poor person who wants to make nice food without having to think too hard about it - although you still have to choose your meals well in advance so the ingredients can be prepared and sent out to you.

If I were that type of person, I'd want assurances that the delivery was better service than I received. You can arrange delivery to your workplace, but what would you do if it didn't arrive? Go home without food.

Gousto is a nice idea. In my experience, it didn't live up to all its promises but if I was paying for a subscription, I'd expect it to. Because of that, Gousto fails the value for money test for me and therefore, I do not really have gusto for Gousto.

(Gousto kindly sent me 3 meals chosen by us for the purposes of a review. I have not received any other compensation for this post and all opinions are my own.)

Olympic Scrapbook crosses the line

Sponsored post (but you know it's not bad, don't you?)

So, it's all over. All the medals awarded, the final party has been and gone and the athletes and officials are heading home. And that means one thing - our Olympic Scrapbook has been completed. It is a bittersweet moment. We are all proud of what we have achieved with our scrapbook and we have completely loved every minute of the Olympics, from the start of the first women's football match to the very end of the closing ceremony.

I must show you how we have finished it off. First, Saturday's page.

And yes, we have the same picture twice - Mo Farah and Usain Bolt doing each other's celebrations on the podium. Saturday was an amazing night - we watched Mo Farah together in the living room and as a family, we all shouted, "Yes!" when he crossed the line in front. We have also included Ed McKeever, who won the K1 200m canoe sprint, Luke Campbell who won boxing gold, Liam Heath and Jon Schofield who won bronze and on the right, we have Tom Daley winning diving bronze and a picture of them all jumping into the pool at the end, which we thought was great.

Then there was the page for the last day of sporting action and the closing ceremony.

We have some included some shots of the closing ceremony (which we thought was great, incidentally) but also the USA basketball team, Stephen Kiprotich the Ugandan marathon runner and Anthony Joshua, all of whom won gold on the last day. Also, there was Sam Murray who won Team GB's very last medal of the Games, a silver in the modern pentathlon. A truly fabulous ending to the Games.

With all the medals awarded, we were ready to complete our medals table. Flags drawn by the children whilst we were waiting for the closing ceremony to start. Look at that - Great Britain in third!

And then, we chose pictures for the middle page which has space to record more London 2012 memories.

I've managed to chop off Mo Farah in the picture, but we chose him as our favourite memory of the Olympics. Also, we have a picture from the opening ceremony, Chris Hoy crying on the podium after winning the Keirin, Laura Trott after winning the Omnium, Oscar Pistorius competing in the 400m, the heptathletes on a lap of honour, and a group of athletes running past the Olympic flame.

And then, finally, we visited The Times website to download our certificate for completing the scrapbook.

I have since filled it out and it's stuck proudly in the back page of our scrapbook. Because we've done it - it's been a bit of a marathon, but we really have enjoyed it, although my living room will be tidier without newspapers spread across it, and scissors, glue and scraps of paper scattered everywhere. We'd like the real medal, but you know, our achievement pales into insignificance compared to those of all the Olympians over the last 17 days.

You've still got time to get a copy of The Times today to complete recording your memories of the London 2012 games in your Olympic scrapbook. I hope if you started this along with me, you've made it through to the finish line and have enjoyed compiling it as much as we have. I'm off for a lie down.

I am a member of the Netmums Blogging Network. I am paid an expenses fee to cover my time but Netmums have no editorial control whatsoever about what I blog about. Being a member of the Netmums Blogging Network means that I get to try out products and brands and get my expenses covered but that I retain full editorial integrity.

Meal Planning Monday - the post-Olympics edition

It's all over (the Olympics, that is) and we are bereft with only the prospect of the Paralympics in a couple of weeks to keep us going. That does mean that we are returning to a kind of normal in the household but it is still school holidays.  I'm trying to keep it relatively simple whilst providing some kind of variety as I get bored so easily with what I'm cooking (if you hadn't noticed).

On with the week.

Monday - Veg and cheesy rice bake
Tuesday - Oriental salmon and broccoli traybake
Wednesday - Turkey chilli jacket potatoes
Thursday - Special fried rice with prawns and chorizo
Friday - Pizza (Homemade)
Saturday - Chicken pesto pasta
Sunday - keeping free

That's us. How about you? What's on your menu this week? Remember that Mrs M has the Meal Planning Monday linky on her blog so you can find more meal planning inspiration.