Sunday 31 March 2013

Marbled With Love.

I want to take this time to ask one simple question first.
Just to give me some peace of mind, and to reassure myself that I am not actually an alien, or a Geordie Shore cast member, or something...
Did anyone else realise that the clocks went forward today?

I didn't. And it was a shock to the system.
There I was, snuggled like a little caterpillar in my bed. No rush.
10:30am... yeah. I still got time.
'JESS. NANA AND GRANFY ARE HERE!'
What the.. ?!!?!?!?!

Turns out. I hadn't changed my clock the night before. It was actually 11:30. And my fam had arrived in all their Easter-Egg-bearing glory, and I was still in my jammies...
Daylight savings. You rascal.


Despite that one (rather embarrassing) occasion... I like to think I'm kinda good at remembering things.
Like an elephant.
They have good memories, right? Yeah. I'm an elephant.


So when it comes to birthdays, I reckon I'm pretty much on that.
Okay, so remembering your friends' birthdays is a given. Yeah?
Well no. It's not.
There are people who check their facebooks. Just in case.
I know who you are.
And in a lot of cases, birthdays just kind of... come and go. People don't really want a fuss.
But I like love making a fuss. People secretly love being fussed about. They do.
And when I say 'people', I mean my friends.
My wonderful, crazy, cake-eating, instagram-loving friends.
We make a fuss of each other, even when we say 'ooh noo, it's just another birthday. Don't do anything special! It's not worth it.' - when really, we know we're going to be absolutely BOMBARDED with cake.
Because that's what we do on a birthday.. We bake and bake and bake, until there's cake on the floor, cake in our hands, cake round our mouths, and at least 50 new photos on everyone's instagram accounts.
I love it so much!



This latest Birthday Gift Extravaganza was for my really close friend, Sunny.
Let's talk about Sunny.
She's the kind of girl who can just do everything,
she can cook, bake, take a good photo, do maths...
And thanks to her, I've now found somewhere to buy pumpkin pie filling!
(Tesco have this new American grocery section which makes me so happy)

So what do you give a girl who does all that, for her birthday?





Well, you make a heart shaped marble cake,
put it on a miniature cake plate,
and wrap it in spotty cellophane with beautiful pink ribbon.
Duh!


Making a fuss is totally worth it. Especially when you get a smile at the end. :)
Oh.. and an instagram picture on Sunny's account.
If that's not appreciation. I don't know what is.


N.B - I'm just going to give you the recipe for a whole cake. Is that okay?
Cause of course, my heart-shaped tin was really small so I made cupcakes with the rest of my mixture.
Experiment with it!
Makes 1 Batch of Chocolate Chip and Vanilla Marble Cake Mixture
Ingredients
225g soft margarine
225g caster sugar
275g self-raising flour
2tsp baking powder
4eggs
2tbsp milk
1/2 tsp vanilla essence
1 1/2 tbsp cocoa
2tbsp of hot water
50g plain chocolate chips

Method
Preheat the oven to 180 degress
Grease and line a 30x23cm cake tin
Measure the margarine, sugar, flour, baking powder, eggs, milk and vanilla essence into a large bowl and beat well until blended
Spoon half the mixture into the prepared tin, but blob the spoonfuls apart
In another bowl, blend the cocoa and hot water and add it to the remaining mixture with the chocolate chips
Spoon mixture in between the blobs of vanilla mixture to fill the gaps
Bake for about 35-40 minutes, or until a skewer comes out clean
leave to cool and enjoy!!

[recipe taken from Mary Berry's Ultimate Cake Book, cake tin from Kitchenmonger]

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