Catch Up!

Hello! So, many apologies for our absence - Rosaline's been living the crazy life of a Bristol fresher (which you can read about here) and I've been living in the depths of hell that is A Levels. Lets just pretend I don't still have one tomorrow which I should really be revising for instead of blogging...

 Although I've been living in A Level induced misery for the past few months, I have managed to do quite a lot of baking as it turns out baking complicated and interesting things is excellent procrastination. I also made some form of brownie on an almost weekly basis to 'get me through my revision' which definitely improved my days at the library, although not necessarily my 'get fit for summer' plan...

So yes, here is a brief picture summary of the last 7 months in my kitchen:

Armed with cake and wine, she left me...

Saying goodbye to Rosaline was the most ridiculously emotional event that has occurred in my life in a while. Ridiculous because she's only gone to Bristol and I'm going to see her in a few weeks time. Emotional because SHE'S ALL GROWN UP AND MOVING ON WITH HER LIFE AND SHE'S GOING TO MAKE NEW COOLER FRIENDS AND THEN WHO WILL I EAT FROYO AND TALK ABOUT DIFFERENT ICING STYLES WITH?!

Ahem. Sorry. 

Yes, so Rosaline left for Bristol a few weeks ago (apologies for the lateness of this blogging, UCAS ruins lives) and the day before she left happened to be her 19th birthday. Which was a convenient excuse to have a classy get together and weep. In honour of her birthday and her leaving, I made her possibly the best cake I have ever made in my life. Which is not an understatement. Due to our shared love for the infamous chocolate peanut butter combo I scoured the internet for a suitably amazing cake. One recipe kept coming up again and again, however I was reluctant to use it because it contained 'white vinegar'. I know, vinegar in cake... weird. Especially 'white vinegar' which, after much googling, I could only take to mean white wine vinegar... even weirder. But after reading rave review after rave review and about two hours of dithering over the vinegar situation - tears followed by my mum telling me to pull myself together did occur many a time - I decided to take the plunge and bake it.

And thank the lord I did. It was a spectacularly moist, chocolatey, peanut buttery mound of deliciousness and went down extremely well. So well that Rosaline, on taking it Bristol, has made loads of lovely friends and is having a brill time (yes I am taking full responsibility - without my cake she would be nowhere). So if you have a rather large amount of time on your hands (there's a lot of chilling/melting involved) and someone especially important to you to make a cake for, you've hit the jackpot with this one. 

It Finally Occurred

We baked together.

Even though we've shared a blog for almost 7 months, and known each other much much longer, this seemingly rather obvious event has never actually occurred.

So, before Rosaline leaves for Bristol (sob) we decided that enough was enough, and finally, after many empty promises and cancelled dates, we did it.

And it was so much fun!

This momentous event occurred in Rosaline's lovely kitchen (interrupted by the arrival of the new toaster which was very exciting) and after much indecision (obviously, it's us) we decided to go with trusty BBC Good Food and make...

 'The Ultimate Chocolate Cake'

Even for the BBC, that's quite a large claim. In fact, considering the variety of chocolate cake we have both consumed in our lives, it's an enormous claim. 

But OMG did it live up to it's name.

We decided we were officially ADDICTED. It was so gooey and moist (ew ew ew) and delicious that once we'd started we just couldn't stop. (True Fact: Chocolate is marginally addictive. So, err, that's our excuse for glutenous behaviour)

We made this for our Say Goodbye To Our-Only-Follower Polly Party which was, as you can imagine very emotional, (she went to Manchester yesterday; we're sad) and so this seemed an appropriate cake to make. As in, one you're unlikely to forget in a hurry.

And Ultimate Chocolate anything is an appropriate send off really.

Polly seemed appropriately blown away by the whole thing. The champagne candles are optional (but really quite a necessity, we would say)

Chocolate Cake and An Apology

ROSALINE CAME HOME. And then I went away. And then I came home. And she is away again. So I still haven't managed to see her which is very upsetting. However in her absence I baked a lot, mainly to try and do something other than wistfully wish I was also travelling. However I didn't blog about it - dreadful I know - so that's what the apology is for.

But I'm back to my blogging ways in full force, having been inspired by Rosaline's multitude of posts. And trust me, this chocolate cake is worth the wait.

My uncle is one of those lucky people in that whatever he cooks will be absolutley delicious. Especially his chocolate flapjacks. So having been given the daunting task of making his birthday cake, I knew I would have to step outside my comfort zone. He loves chocolate, as most people do (except for those crazy ones- I don't associate with those people) and so after many hours of recipe searching I discovered what I felt was a suitably exciting but not too fancy chocolate cake recipe and so I set to work.

The original recipe calls this 'Moist Chocolate Cake' which although is true, moist is not a very  pleasant word so I would probably replace 'Moist' with Intense, or Delicious, or possibly Extraordinary.