Rainy days and chocolate cake...

As the songs says, 'I don't care what the weather man says, if the weather man says its raining, then its another excuse for baking, and that's alright by me' ...okay, so that's not quite the words but you get the idea! The weather here in East Yorkshire has been pretty filthy of late. Even walking the dogs round the block is a waterproof and wellies job. The temperatures dropping, the days are dark and the garden looks like one big compost heap...

But on the bright side, the fires are lit and glowing

 

the evenings are longer for knitting and crochet (or putting knots in bits of string as BH would refer to it!)

 

and all the time I would spend in the garden can be put to good use baking cake...

I made this Double Chocolate Loaf Cake at the weekend with the intention of fuelling BH  on the building site this week. The kids loved sprinkling the choc chips and set about scoffing it as soon as it was cool enough to handle. I got the recipe from good food and tweaked it by changing the chocolate chunks to chunks of leftover Toblerone - I know there's no such thing as leftover Toblerone, theres only Toblerone that Mum broke into before Christmas and felt so guilty that she used it up in a cake - there you have it -  confession over, I feel so much better that the truth is out there!

Double Chocolate Loaf Cake

175g softened butter
175g caster sugar
3 eggs
140g self raising flour
85g ground almonds
half teaspoon baking powder
100ml milk
4tbsp cocoa
50g plain chocolate or guilt laden Toblerone

chocolate chips for decorating


Heat the oven to 160C and grease and line a 900g baking tin ( I use the Lakeland liners for convenience).
To make the cake batter beat the butter and sugar until fluffy then beat in the eggs, flour, cocoa, baking powder and milk until smooth. Stir in whats left of your Toblerone then scrape into the tin. Bake for 45 -50 mins until risen and ready.

Then devour and ignore the fact its still raining outside!

From Blue to Green...

Since we returned from our getaway weekend everything has been non stop as I head towards the end of term. Ive hardly been in the garden this week...and its given me a case of the mean blues! Ive got the 'my rockets all gone to seed' blues, the 'my flowers seem to have all bloomed at once' blues, the 'I've lost my first crop of gooseberries to the pigeons' blues and to top it all, the 'its July and it wont stop raining' blues! I told you...the mean blues!

I was too blue to even post anything!

Until...we had a brief interlude of sunshine on Saturday and after donning my wellies and heading to the greenhouse I found some reasons to be cheerful!

I bought this little Hosta about a month ago at the Burton Agnes Hall Garden Fair, and it really is little. Its called Mouse Ears and its leaves arent much bigger in reality. In the space of a week it had sent up these beautiful flowers - just what I needed. I've heard of hope in a jar - maybe this is hope in a pot!



On the plot my heart sank again as i saw a cloud of white butterflies, but was lifted when i discovered these Kohl Rabis starting to swell (this was a real treat, because I'd forgotten what I'd planted and I thought they were cabbages!)




Even in the borders where my favourite blossoms seem to have gone as quickly as they arrived, and which now look faded and shabby, there was a nice surprise in store. I planted these beans in here a while ago to see how they would do in the mixed border and they've suddenly decided to go for it.



All in all we had pretty good pickings for the day and my two little helpers were able to load up the basket for teatime. We had kale and courgettes, garlic, peas and of course beetroot. There were plenty of raspberries too to take our minds off the absent gooseberries!



Of course, no sooner were we inside than the rain came again, but now i'm looking on the bright side - no need to water the lawn! And its inspired me to work on this blanket - the colours are inspired by Violas, my favourite flowers - the hope being that it will remind me of Spring when we're in the depths of Winter...plenty of green to keep the blues at bay!