Whale of a day

Phew life is suddenly enormously hectic. My once a week for 4 hour job has turned into 3 days a week and even though 2 of them are half days I still only get home at 3PM. No complaints though, because at the moment I am thoroughly enjoying the interaction with people, and as it is all new there is much to learn. In a couple of months I know I will be bored but this is only part-time so it’s grand.

So rewind time….28 March

The day before Kirstin’s birthday…. In traditional style she got to choose a cake and alas I discovered that she still wanted to turn to my children’s birthday cake books for her choice, she has made some very challenging cake decisions in the past, I have made a horse carousel, a teletubbie cake, with all 4 hand made plastic icing teletubbies lolling about on a hill, a fairy toadstool…I am sure you get the picture and some of you even remember the cakes!
A whale was the choice of the day, sigh of relief, but of course I did not have a big enough tin so I had to downscale the template, luckily it did not require too much skill as it was fairly basic.
Blue icing (Yuk) was called for so a trip to SuperValu was necessary.
When I walked out the door I bumped into my neighbour who insisted I come in for a QUICK coffee. Her grandson is working in South Africa so she loves to chat and over an hour later (no complaints, the cake and the company was excellent) I left only to discover that it was pouring down and I had to change my walk to a drive.
Of course I was now ever so slightly stressed as I had a cake to bake and I had foolishly booked movie tickets too. Luckily Kirstin wanted a chocolate cake (with blue icing mmmm) so I could make Nigellas cake which is THE BEST because you just bung everything in the food processor and whiz. Needless to say I did manage to get the cake done in time and we meandered down to Dundrum to do a bit of shopping before the movie, the kids had bought themselves each a Nintendo DS Lite so they needed games…
We went to see 27 Dresses, a sweet romantic comedy if you have nothing better to do. Then it was home to ice the cake and lots of food colouring was required mmmmm.
More about the big day another day...because I need to do a spot of cleaning today.

Chocolate twister thingies...

Okay, the recipe as requested by Isit and Em....

Basic bread dough:
650g strong white flour
10g salt
5ml honey or sugar
15ml oil
7g instant yeast
400ml warm water NOT HOT!!!

Chocolate bit:
100g butter melted
200g chocolate broken into little pieces
cinammon only if you like it!
Also add a bit of sugar if using 70% cocoa chocolate, the kids seem to prefer it a bit sweeter.

Okay, if you are lucky like me throw it all in the magimix (or similar) with the dough hook attachment and when the dough comes together remove to knead or continue mixing in machine, I personally like the kneading bit!
OR - make a well in the centre of the dry ingredients and add the liquid mixing until it all comes together.
Knead for 10 to 15 minutes.
Cover with clingfilm and place somewhere warm to rise for about 45 minutes, until doubled in size.
Knock down i.e bring that dough back down to size!
Roll out the dough into a rectangle
Brush on the melted butter sprinkle with cinammon and chocolate.
Roll up like a swiss roll and slice into about 2cm slices.
Place cut size up on a baking sheet and bake in a preheated oven at 200 C for 20 minutes."
Tuck in.
I like using a basic bread dough becasue then I make extra and do rolls or a loaf for the lunch boxes. For some reason my youngest gets quite a kick out of telling her classmates that I made the bread...go figure! I am sure that an enriched dough that you could use for brioche would be even better.