To buy or not to buy?

Perfect for summer events...

£40, Zara

Cake

It's a friend's birthday today so we decided to have some tea and birthday cake at mine yesterday. Of course, any opportunity to bake and I'm there so this was the perfect time to try a new chocolate cake recipe.

My new favourite recipe site - Smitten Kitchen - had the perfect recipe for a chocolate layer cake with chocolate frosting. I've tried a few recipes from the site now and have found they all work out well providing you follow the precise instructions and advice so it's come to be my go-to site when I need something special.

I used this recipe and made half the frosting (just enough to cover the cake) and used strawberry jam for the filling. The only downside is that the recipes are American so include ingredients you may not be able to buy in the UK. For example, the frosting asked for two tablespoons of corn syrup. I searched high and low for it but couldn't find it in the regular supermarkets. I know you can buy it from Amazon for about £4 but I didn't have the time nor the inclination to spend £4 on a bottle of something I didn't 100% need. I looked for substitute recommendations online but none were a great match although many people advised to use golden syrup. However, I thought this might make the frosting super sweet which is not what I was going for. In the end I decided to use about spoonful of honey purely for the consistency. It did make the mix sweet but I added about 2 tablespoons of cocoa powder which balanced it right out again. Next time though I might just skip the whole process because I'm not totally convinced it's necessary.

Anyway I simply decorated the cake with some basic icing sugar and water mix icing and piped "Happy Birthday Harriet" on top and piped icing balls a long the base of the cake. And I was fairly pleased with the overall result!

Making the frosting

Yes, there is a naked Barbie sat next to the cake.

Sunset

I feel like I've been quiet so long, even though it has only been a week. Nevertheless I've managed to cram what feels like 3 weeks worth of work into 1 so I feel both productive and tired at the same time.
I spent the weekend in Spain with my Mum and sister and had the best time eating out for my sister's birthday, doing a bit of shopping and watching the sunset on Sunday evening.
I'm now (finally) back in a very windy South London after an eventful return journey involving my poor little broken car and a bunch of €#%¥£@ mechanics.
Anyway I'll leave you for this evening with a photograph of what I was doing this time yesterday. Longing for the summer...