Fold in the Flour ...

I love the magic of baking. Particularly when you cut into a fairly innocuous looking cake, and then get this (or at least something like it): Vanilla flavour polka dots, enrobed in chocolate sponge, sandwiched together with chocolate fudge icing, covered in vanilla buttercream, with a final topping of dark chocolate, dripping down the sides. And if all that tastes good, too, then I really shouldn't complain. But, I have to be honest. This cake did not go entirely to plan. And this is version two. And, if I make it again, I will definitely do some tweaking. The idea for the cake stemmed from this amazing cake by Deb at Once Upon a Pedestal . It was doing the rounds on Pinterest in January. Someone at work, who knows about my 'hobby' sent me the link. That was it - I was hooked. I started planning, as the idea of dots in a cake was screaming 'Red Nose Day' at me. I even ordered a cake pop pan so that I could execute my grand design. (And I hate ...

Sometimes, I find that inspiration can be lurking in the most unexpected places. And it strikes at the time I least expect it. I've written recently about my singular lack of baking mojo. So this week, when I got to my day off and had thought that I'd try and get back in the kitchen, I couldn't actually bring myself to bake anything. A weird kind of procrastination  had set in. I pottered around the house suddenly finding other jobs to do. One involved sorting through some of my latest cookbook purchases and tidying and reorganising the shelves so I could fit them on. I have a 'system' for storing like books together, and try to keep my baking books easily accessible. In practice, this meant simply compiling piles of books and moving them around from shelf to shelf until I was reasonably happy with the arrangement. If you have ever read my post for Random Recipes on my cookbook addiction , you'll appreciate that this could take me a while. But ...