Buche de Noel- chocolate log to you and me...

I know it's Stir Up Sunday but as the only one in the house who likes Christmas pudding, the tradition has never quite taken off here. Not one to be deterred though, I was determined to bake something today that got us preparing forthe coming season. Inspired by our walk through Dalby Forest yesterday,  the minis and me opted for a chocolate log...

We went for the Buche de Noel from Nigellas Christmas - although we agreed that it couldn't be a Christmas log yet - it is still November! 

 

 

A quick round up of the kitchen cupboards gave us everything we needed. The recipe calls for the eggs to be separated and the whites mixed like a meringue - we got a bit distracted and put them in whole at first - oops! Not ones to waste ingredients we worked them into a batch of brownies but that's a whole other post! After that mishap SG was on serious supervision watch - although she did ask why the recipe called for it to be mousey - when I explained 'moussey' she looked extremely relieved! 

 

The egg whites were whisked into peaks with sugar, the cocoa and egg yolks folded in and baked for 20 minutes. After cooling we turned it out onto a sheet of greaseproof paper and made a rich chocolate buttercream to spread all over before rolling up. SG got busy with the spatula and voila...

Le Buche...

               

notice how we're sticking with pine cones for now though!... resisting the urge to get festive just yet!

Shopping for essentials...

 Driffield Farmers market this weekend and I promised and solemnly swore that I was only going to be shopping for essentials. I think you'll agree its hard to call these 'non essential' items...

I assuaged my guilt at buying non essentials by buying one as a treat for all the Freerangers - including me of course. Funnily enough nobody mentioned them being extra to the shopping list when I unwrapped this booty...

The creator of these fine treats lives in our local town, so I can feel good about buying local too - who knew chocolates could be so worthy! I placed an order for Easter but no pics of those - little Freerangers might be watching! I'm particularly fond of the strawberry topped chocolate, hint hint BH!

I'm glad to say we did get our essentials too, so the Freerange house wont be starving, but for now my heart belongs to the cocoa!

Rainyday Fudge Cake...

Sometimes on a Sunday, when its too windy for walking and too wet for digging, theres nothing for it but to throw caution to the diet plan and fire up the ovens. My tribe's cake of choice is always of the chocolate variety, so today we decided to go for it and bake a chocolate fudge cake of staggering proportions...

My assistant chef was in full agreement of course!

  We followed Nigellas recipe for Fudge Cake from the Nigella Bites book. The recipe called for:

400g plain flour
250g golden caster sugar
100g light muscovado sugar
50g best quality cocoa powder
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
half teaspoon salt
3 eggs
142 small tub sour cream
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
175g unsalted butter, melted and cooled
125ml corn oil
300ml chilled water

For the icing
175 dark chocolate
250g unsalted butter
275g icing sugar
1 tablespoon vanilla extract

The dry ingredients are combined in one bowl, the eggs, sour cream and vanilla are blended in another. Then the butter, oil and water are beat together in yet another bowl. This cake is definitely one to make only if you have space to spread out!
Next the dry ingredients are mixed into the butter and oil mixture and last of all, in goes the eggs and cream. It mixes together satisfyingly well and pours easily into two sandwich tins. These bake for 55 mins until they come out skewer clean!

 I was a little surprised at how big they got!!!

The filling is a simple chocolate butter cream with which we filled the cakes up and then slathered all over! We topped it off with icing sugar and glitter  - which you can't see on the pictures but now coats everything, everywhere in our kitchen. I think we'll be finding edible glitter for months to come...

The results were delicious; a dense, fudgey, chocolaty reason not mind rainy days so much after all!

Bedtime biscuits...

Our little freerangers are biscuit addicts. Like most children they have no particlar preference. They're not at all elitist in their cookie cravings and given the chance they would probably opt for the nastiest dayglo additive packed fuel on offer. The answer - home made, at least when time allows!



These chocolate and vanilla biscuits are from Tessa Kiros book 'Apples for Jam'. They are super simple to make and rolling them up into twists makes for great fun for little chefs.

You need

180g butter
150g caster sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
240g plain flour
20g cocoa

After mashing the butter and sugar together, add the flour and work it all together. Then whisk the egg with the vanilla and add it to the dough, kneading it well.

Next split the dough and add the cocoa to one half. This needs quite a lot of working in but it will come together I promise! Wrap each disc in clingfilm and chill on the fridge for half an hour.

Finally, roll it out and let the fun begin! They may not look perfect but they do taste yummy!

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A busy week and a bleedin birthday...

Who knows where the time goes? I start each week with a list of garden jobs and house stuff that I either has to be done, should be done or ideally I would just like to do. the list is always ridiculously ambitious which invariably leaves me with a sinking feeling and an unchecked guilt trip.

Earlier this summer I daydreamed about cooking things up out elderberries and brambles, of juicing our apples and stewing up fruit to fill the freezer with pies.

Dream on Freerangegirl - when I finally got out to the hedgerows I found that what hadn't already been picked was shrivelled and dried up already. We haven't plenty of elderberries near us  - i know as I planned to harvest them for elderflower champagne but didn't get round to that either! Ive got the bottles, Ive got the yeast, I just need an extra day in the week.

I think its particularly galling in the garden when you don't get round to a seasonal job as you know that it will have to wait another year - I wonder if anyone else missed out on any planned harvests this year, or is it just me!

Last year year BH had his apple juice production line set up by now and we were enjoying the cloudy nectar well up to Christmas, but what with the big build the juicer is still packed away and at the end of the day we can barely crush a grape, never mind anything else!

Friday was BH's birthday and cake was called for, but as it was a school night this called for a late bedtime whilst my freerangers helped out. They left the final stages to Mum but were more than ready for cake action the next day at breakfast (not sure that's on the healthy schools agenda, but I wont tell them if you don't!)

I love to see perfectly iced cakes, but for our own birthdays I love the child decorated look, so the milky way stars and chocolate buttons got put to very good use. We made a red velvet layer cake and covered it in chocolate ganache. It was a nightmare to get it to set as I was cooking it so late at night I dint have time to let the layers cool and they all wanted to slide off - I ended up securing it with kebab sticks in the fridge overnight.

BH loves a chocolate cake but wasn't quite prepared for the red insides - the words 'chocolate roadkill' come to mind! - well at least it took his mind off getting older!