Chocolate Cake (Oxfam)

Chocolate cake, sandwiched together with cherry jam and Chantilly cream. 175g (6oz) plain flour.
3tbs Fair Trade cocoa.
1tsp baking powder.
1tsp bicarbonate of soda.
150g (5oz) fair Trade golden caster sugar.
1tbs black treacle.
2 eggs.
150ml (5fl oz) vegetable oil.
150ml (5 fl oz) milk.
apricot jam, cream or butter icing to finish.
Method..
Preheat the oven to 160C/325F/Gas3 and grease 2X18 cm. (7inch) cake tins.
Mix all the dry ingredients together in the food processor and whiz the ingredients until thoroughly blended.
Add the liquid ingredients and process again scraping the sides of the bowl until they are all incorporated. If you do not have a food processor you can do it by hand.
Pour the mixture into tins and bake in the oven for 45mins. Cool and sandwich with apricot jam, cream or butter icing - whatever you prefer.

This is a recipe from Michael Barry. He was one of the first TV cooks to give publicity to Fair Trade products. This recipe is from Oxfam's Fair World Cookbook, published by Cassell in 1997.

I used St. Dalfour's Black Cherry conserve and a Chantilly cream to sandwich my two halves together. And dusted with icing sugar.

Beauty tip number 1

Straight from the mouths of babes. Spread cream, (any cream) all over the face, trying not to get it into the hair, then try kissing everybody in sight.

What fun we had yesterday, my dear sweet
grandchild came for afternoon tea.
I came across a long forgotten favorite of mine from my local bakers. Must be at least twenty years since I have had a CREAM BUN.
The bun itself is very much like a Hot Cross Bun, but instead of the cross, it is split almost to the bottom and filled with artificial cream, and then a good dollop of raspberry jam in the middle. Finished off with a dusting of icing sugar.
Yes, we managed to finish all six of them and then proceeded to make a big sticky mess of every bodies face with a hug and kisses. Me included. (No, you are not seeing the photo's of that)
Yes, I know I could have made them myself,
but the weather is so warm here at the moment
(correction HOT) that I am not putting that oven
on until it gets a lot cooler.

Three Berry Mouse

It was such a hot day yesterday (temps were 45c) and I decided to play in the kitchen with the air conditioning on. After a little searching in the pantry and freezer, came up with this Berry Mouse.
I just used my judgement for the recipe, and I will type it up later today.

Sorry I didn't get back to this sooner but I had a few things I had to tend to.

I have been to the Aeroplane jelly website to do some research. See this link....http://www.aeroplanejelly.com.au/ There are some lovely fresh ideas on there using the jelly crystals. For my Berry Mouse above, I used *Berry Blast* which is strawberry, raspberry and blackcurrant.

I used two packs. First, I put the white of one egg around my serving dish and then sprinkled some of the jelly crystals from one pack, onto the egg white. Then I dissolved the rest of the crystals (1 and 3/4 packs) in one cup of boiling water in a glass jug, when they had dissolved enough, I added one cup of cold water and let it stand to cool a little more.

1 cup = 250mls

When ready I started adding 2 cups of thickened dairy cream, then whisked and whisked until it became aerated and thicker. Put into the fridge to chill for an hour and then whisked again. At this point, I poured the contents of the jug into the prepared dish and back to the fridge for a couple of hours to set properly.

I served ours with a mixed berry compote, which I made by using frozen loganberries, strawberries and raspberries, a little sugar and a good slurp of strawberry liqueur. Bringing it to a boil and then simmering for a few minutes until the fruit was mushy.

Might I add at this point, the aroma in my kitchen was Divine.

If you can not get Aeroplane jelly crystals in the country you are in, I am sure that any make will do.

The Lime cheese

cake is next on

my list to try.