Never fails quick chocolate party cake recipe

I wanted to share with you a never fail really quick chocolate cake recipe, my children always want it for their birthday tea cake and any other events in between, I have tis recipe written out in my favourite recipes file, but I am not sure where it came from originally, I know I didn't invent it and that is as far as I can go with the source I am afraid. This recipe is quick, easy and never fails so here goes , you will need the following:

Cake
8oz caster sugar
3 eggs
4oz plain flour
2 heaped teaspoons baking powder
2 heaped tablespoons cocoa powder
4floz milk
1 tablespoon of butter/margarine about the size of an egg

Frosting
3oz butter
6oz icing sugar
3 table spoons cocoa powder


Heat your oven to 180 degrees centigrade and line 2 x 8 inch sandwich tins with baking parchment , preparation and all that business.

Next place your milk and egg sized blob of butter or marg whichever you are using in a saucepan and place on a low heat.

Melt butter in the milk

While your butter is melting place your eggs and sugar in a large mixing bowl

Beat eggs and sugar

Beat until smooth and creamy

Add in your flour, baking powder and cocoa powder and mix well

When your butter has melted in your milk and the milk is starting to froth around the edge

Melted butter and milk

Pour the milky mix into your mixing bowl with the other ingredients and mix well



Chocolate cake mix finished

Distribute evenly between your sandwich tins

Chocolate cake mix placed in tins

Throw your filled sandwich tins in the middle of your pre heated oven for approximately 18 minutes or until springy to the touch and cooked through, insert a skewer to check if comes out clean it is cooked,

Finished chocolate party cake

Leave to cool , and when they are cool you can make the frosting, this recipe gives enough to sandwich between the two cakes, a spreading on the top and some in the bowl to lick afterwards.

Sieve your icing sugar and cocoa powder in a bowl and add the butter or marg

Chocolate buttercream recipe

Beat it all together squashing the butter into the powder, you have to work hard at this it seems like there isn't enough butter for a while, be patient, you want a spreadable consistency but not so thin it slips off the top of the cake, you may have to add a very tiny touch of water to thin it .Spread it on one of your cakes and plop the other on the top and spread some more of the frosting on the top.

Place the chocolate buttercream in the cake

Iced chocolate party cake

I add chocolate buttons to the top of the cake sometimes or smarties or grated chocolate, they stick nicely to the buttercream.
I cannot vouch for how long this cake will keep as we have never got past day two.

Helpful Hints

I though I would share a few helpful hints I have found through the years of making and eating endless cakes

1) I don't buy self raising flour , I always buy plain and add the appropriate amount of baking powder to convert it to self raising, I am sure there are some puritans that will tell me I shall burn in bakers hell for this , but I like space in my cupboards and don't want weavels from having endless bags of flour

2) Cocoa powder I just use standard cheap as chips cocoa powder, none of this 70% cocoa solids , if you like that kind of thing that is fine, but I am yet to hear my five year old proclaim that her cake does not have a high enough cocoa solids content, I am not entering the Great British Bake off I am cooking for my family.

3) I use whichever butter or marg I have to hand again not entering a baking competition, my family will devour the cake if I am using cheap marg or expensive butter, maybe we just have no class .

4) I have also cooked this cake by doubling the quantity and baking in a roasting tray lined with baking parchment , spreading on the frosting, or just a plain icing, cutting into squares and open freezing then sealing in freezer bags and they are brilliant for picnics or lunchboxes, once defrosted. This cake is also great in the winter without the frosting and served with hot custard.


Enjoy your cake

Easy Peasy Cherub Upcycling

At the minute we are thinking of redecorating our bedroom, I want a colour scheme of red and silver, so with this in mind I am keeping my eyes open for materials that can be recycled to fit the scheme or will go with the scheme I have in mind. I currently already have a few cherub items that I have collected over the years, that will go perfectly with the bedroom scheme I have in mind.
On Sunday at a local car boot sale I found the following cherub plaques

Original cherub decorations

As you can see they are not silver or red, but they were solid undamaged, easy to hang and just what I was looking for apart from the colour, and they were only One Pound for the three, so out came my trusty plastikote silver spray paint , apply liberally and you have

Finished upcycled cherub decorations

A little tip with the paint, it is better to spray a few light coverings than one heavy one, you will get better non runny coverage this way.

The three silver cherub plaques will fit in perfectly in my new bedroom scheme now.
A lot of my moneysaving comes from pre planning, I am collecting items for my new bedroom scheme now to decorate in a couple of months, I also want to redecorate the lounge so I will keep my eye out for the next couple of months for paint and items for the room. Always look at a piece of furniture or ornament with creative eyes and ask yourself is it Ok as it is ? can I change it or add to it for it to be what I want or need it to be ?.
Plan ahead to avoid I need it now scenarios, I buy Christmas cards and wrapping paper in January, I make and buy presents for Christmas and birthdays all year round, I have two spare pairs of oven gloves for when mine are ruined again because they were in the sale, I buy lunchboxes when they are on sale for when the children ruin their current ones, plan plan plan !!
Planning ahead will save you time , money and stress, so will upcycling and recycling, embrace them both.

Creating memories in a jar tutorial

Well we are heading towards the end of another six weeks school holiday and if your children are anything like mine they are collecting "things" everywhere they go, we have seashells and sticks to name but a few. To you and I they may just be junk but to the child that has collected them ,they are memories, memories of a place a time and people. If your anything like me you want your children to keep these items but it gets to a question of where to put them, our shells were on a bathroom shelf, but after 4 weeks the novelty of dusting fifty seashells is just about wearing thin, so I will share with you my solution "memories in a jar", it is a little craft project you can share with the children, that also involves my recycling so it is all good.



Memories in a jar tutorial supplies

You will need to gather your supplies :

Empty glass jar , coffee jar, jam jar , anything with a screw top lid
Silver spray paint (optional)
Small amount of ribbon (optional)
Memories (seashells, twigs, pinecones etc).

First clean you your jar and dry, if you have trouble getting the label off, try soaking it in hot soapy water for an hour or so. Next if you want to as I have done grab your silver spray paint to spray your jar lids, I only sprayed them because I had some left over from a previous project, as it can be quite expensive to buy. A thrifty tip look out for spray paints on discounted shelves in hardware stores as you can often get them cheaper as shop damaged stock with cracked lids, so if you see them buy them as I do for little craft projects.

Leave your jar lids to dry, go by the instructions on your paint. Fill your jar with your shells or pine cones or whatever memory object you are using , I also added some glass beads into mine that I found at a car boot sale, screw the top back on your jar and tie a little ribbon bow around the top if you are using any.



Finished memories in a jar

I also had some shells that no matter how much ,mind over matter or manual manipulation I used they just would not fit into any of my jars, so I used these as tea light holders shown below

Waste not want not.

Until next time in enjoy your crafting and recycling

The Martisanne household has just increased by three !!!

As the title says we have just increased our household by three, we are a household of 2 adults, 3 children, 10 chickens, numerous fish , mosquito lavae my son has caught and is growing in a sea monkey container, the daddy long legs that keeps walking across the television when I get to the interesting bit in a film, the occasional hair pets that come home from school, and now we have managed to squeeze in another three newcomers

This is their home, can you guess who they are ?

Another clue

Have you guessed yet ?

And a front view

Have you got it yet , even though they keep trying to hide

Yeeeeeeahhhhhhh you got it, we have three shiny new 7 week old guinea pigs

Yup cardboard tube for tea again

We have 3 little boys, one cow print and two sandy coloured guinea pigs, promise we do have three even though I only seem to be able to get two in a shot at a time, we are all really excited about our new additions to the family, so much so that my daughter is insisting hers is a girl and has informed me that her guinea pig NEEDS a dress and you are allowed to put them in dresses and she will pick which fabric it will be made from, G-Force has a lot to answer for :-)

Before I sign off for this week I am having a little Summer coupon sale in my shop here feel free to come in and take a look around