Haha… yes it was pretty much a disaster! Gary wanted a triple layer chocolate cake for his birthday. “No problem”, I said. I decided to try a different recipe from the one I normally use – first mistake. I don’t know why, I just fancied a change. You can find the recipe I tried here. It is a nice enough cake but I mustn’t have greased my tins well enough (and I put loads of butter on them) as bits of the first 2 layers stuck to the tins when I tried to get them out. For the 3rd layer I put greaseproof paper on the base as well, and it came off much better (although still not perfect).

I always make chocolate butter cream icing for my cakes. Again, this time we fancied something different so I attempted to make a chocolate ganache – second mistake! Ahem… I’m not exactly sure what went wrong, as I thought I measured out the cream quite well (it is hard to measure exactly 568ml of cream!). And I definitely added the right amount of chocolate. Yes, I painstakingly chopped up a whole 400g bar of Dairy Milk and didn’t even eat one piece as the recipe called for exactly 400g! Torture! Gary came in at one stage and lifted a bit of chocolate. I promptly shouted at him and got him to take it straight back out of his mouth lol…!

Anyway, my ganache was much too runny. I even sacrificed my Dairy Milk Easter Chick that i have been saving at the back of the cupboard in case of emergency. But even the Chick’s extra chocolate didn’t help to thicken it up. Well, after I sandwiched the (crooked) layers together with the ganache I read the recipe again and it said “Pour ganache over the top and let it fall down the sides”… Ok then. So that’s what I did and promptly had a puddle of ganache running off the kitchen counter! I tried to stem it by eating spoons of it before it fell but I couldn’t keep up with the flow.

After cleaning up with lots of kitchen roll, my cake was kinda ready. It didn’t look too bad, just a little bit like The Leaning Tower of Pisa lol…:)

It actually tasted really nice, the cake itself was lovely and moist and the topping was nice too, if a little thin!

So the moral of the story is: stick to what you know unless you have practised the recipe beforehand!

PS – I really, really, really need a Kitchen Aid mixer for Christmas (ahem, Gary!!) – I can’t cope with creaming butter and sugar by hand anymore!

I love the August bank holiday weekend! It isn’t an official bank holiday in N.Ireland so it’s nice that it’s actually a “proper” one in England. The roads are mad already, everyone heading off for their long weekends! It is Gary’s birthday on Monday so I’m sure we will be doing something nice, I hope the weather stays good! I’m going to be making him a triple layer chocolate birthday cake….yum (watch out for photos of it next week!). We will also be tidying up the house and doing some wee jobs that need done that we’ve been putting off forever!

What are your plans for the bank holiday? Hope you have fun

I will leave you with a picture of Jess, one of our cats trying to jump in the conservatory window from on top of the fence!! haha

Ooooh now this is a tricky one! Tara, over at her blog Sticky Fingers has given us the prompt “A Photo I’m Proud Of” for Week 24 of The Gallery. At first I was going to give this week’s Gallery a miss, I couldn’t think of any photos that I’m technically proud of as my photographic skills are limited to point and click lol..! But after looking through my photos I selected a couple of different ones that I’m proud of for different reasons. And I told myself Id take part every week, so here we go….

The first one is of the sunset over the Liver Lee in Cork City. Gary & I went on a short trip there last September. We got the flights on a special offer from Ryanair at 1p each way… yes, that’s 1 penny! So we decided to go somewhere random, that we’d never been before! This is not a technically proficient photo by any means, but I really like the light in it.

The second picture is of Gary & I on our first date about 3 years ago! Haha…he will probably kill me for putting this up if he sees it, but what the heck! I’m proud of it as it documents the start of our relationship – hopefully we will be together for many more years to come .

Yay! I finally got to make my Toffee Pecan Ring last night. I have been looking forward to it for weeks, but with one thing & another (including an infected wisdom tooth) I never got a chance. For those who don’t know, Amy hosts the Bake It! Club over at her blog Cooking, Cakes & Children. We all have to try out the same recipe each month and then get together and post our pictures etc… and there is a prize as well (oooooh!).

I loved the idea of this recipe as soon as I saw it – all my favourite things combined… chocolate, nuts, toffee yum! And I had never made anything like this before as I always just assumed it would be too complicated. Not so! It was really easy to make. The only bit I kind of struggled with was transferring he finished article from the baking tin to the plate in one piece…. (Ok, I may have put a few extra bits of chocolate etc… inside which all oozed out and made it stick to the tin which didn’t help.. ahem!).

You can find the recipe here. The only thing I changed was to use milk chocolate as we both prefer it to dark chocolate. And there is still time to have a go yourself and be in for a chance of winning this month’s prize, which is a gorgeous glass cake stand.

Here are the pictures of my attempt at it. We had it for dessert yesterday along with some Ben & Jerry’s Caramel Chew Chew ice cream (my new favourite!). And yes, Gary did have to have 1 or 2 (or 3) pieces even though he is on a diet! Sunday is his treat day, apparently lol…

We were told last night at Puppy Class that Chester the pup is getting a bit on the heavy side! “He’s got a bit of a belly on him” were the exact words I think lol..! So, we need to cut down his food a little bit. He can’t be taken out for any more walks as he’s only allowed a 5 minute walk per month of age (so just over 15 minutes) per day. Totally not enough for him, so will have to give him lots more play time as well!! We also have got him a Kong Activity Ball which we put his dry food in – he has to chase it about to release the food, so even more exercise for him!

Does he look fat to you?! He is 7.6kg at 13 weeks of age which is a teensy bit too much apparently! His Daddy is on a diet too so they can be diet buddies together lol…

Chester’s new squeaky dinosaur toy!

Chester working out how to get the food out of his Kong Activity Ball.

Oooooh what a guilty look, caught in the flower bed! Not that it is a flower bed anymore as we had to dig up all our lovely flowers as *someone* was eating them lol…

This post is for The Writing Workshop over at Josie’s blog Sleep is for the Weak. I have gone for Prompt number 1 – Tell the story of a first kiss. Go over and check out all the other entries (after you’ve read mine of course!).

I know that one of my very first kisses was captured on camera at my 2nd birthday party. I certainly don’t remember it and I wish I did because the boy was rather cute lol…! I don’t even remember who he is.

Anyway – I will share with you my first “proper, tongues and all” kiss (ugh!). I reckon I was 15. My friends and I used to hang round with a group of guys, one of which I thought I was totally, properly was in love with lol..! I used to walk home from the bus stop with him and I thought about him all the time.

So, this one night we all decided to have a party on the beach – which I think may have involved some alcohol. My plan was to make the object of my desire jealous by kissing his best friend. Obviously it didn’t work. And I had a horrible first kiss experience with someone I didn’t even fancy! My lips were literally sore for 2 days afterwards, kissing him was like kissing a washing machine. On spin cycle. I kid you not! Worse still, this poor boy then thought that I did indeed fancy him (whatever gave him that idea) and the object of my desire started going out with one of my friends. Oh dear!

This post is for Week 23 of The Gallery where the prompt is A Memory.

I did struggle with this prompt at first as I moved over to England from Northern Ireland a year and a half ago and left all my old photo albums etc back there. Practically all the photos I have from my time in England involve the animals lol and I wanted to post something other than them for a change!

Then my Dad came to the rescue! He had left an old photo album in our house – I think it must have been his mum’s (my Granny’s) originally. There are none of me in it, it was obviously well before I came into the world but there were loads of old photos of the family in it.

I liked this one as it was the only one that had my mum, dad and my two brothers in it together.

From left to right is my Aunt Lynn, my Mum, my brother Graeme, my Cousin Paul, my brother Stephen, my Dad and my Uncle Ken. Ken and my Dad are brothers. Notice how my mum has dressed my two brothers in the same outfits even though there’s 3 or 4 years between them (how sad!). And can you tell my brother Graeme has always been a Mummy’s boy lol..!

It was taken on a sunny day at Great Orme in Llandudno in 1974 (my Granny was great at writing the dates on the back of all the photos!). My Uncle Ken and Aunt Lynn live in Wales so all the others had obviously come over to visit them for a holiday.

This photo is special to me as they all look so happy (although my Mum is pulling a funny face!) – miles apart from where they are now. My Mum and Dad separated about 15 years ago and although they are still amicable and actually still go on holiday together there is always a bit of an “atmosphere” when they are together. Also, my Mum hasn’t spoken to my older brother Stephen for about 10 years over some stupid falling out. Therefore I don’t really speak to him either or even know him as I lived at home with my Mum and automatically it was presumed that I had taken her “side”. Crazy families eh?!

PS – Notice the train in the background which is still running today, taking tourists up and down Great Orme (well, maybe not the exact same train!) and the old 1970′s car!

This is my dear old Granny’s recipe. She was a fabulous baker and used to make extra money for the family by selling her wares. I remember when we went to her house she ALWAYS had home-baked scones or traybakes to give us. This was the first recipe of hers that I asked for, I remember trying to write it out as neatly as I could when she was telling me lol.. I didn’t see buttermilk here in England for a long time, but suddenly Asda & Morrisons have started selling it! So, give them a go – yummy wheaten scones!

Ingredients:

10 oz (284g) wholemeal flour

4 oz (113g) plain flour

1 tsp salt

3 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

4 oz (113g) butter

2 oz (57g) granulated sugar

8fl oz (237ml) buttermilk

1 egg beaten

* all conversions are approximate

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 220 C

2. Mix all dry ingredients into a bowl, then rub in butter with your fingers until it resembles a crumble. Then stir in the sugar.

3. Mix the buttermilk and egg together and add to the dry ingredients. Stir all together. The mixture will be a little moist but don’t worry that’s how it is meant to be!

4. Knead the mixture very lightly on a floured surface and then cut out scone shapes with a cutter.

5. Cook on the top shelf for approx 15 minutes.

6. Eat warm with lots of butter or leave to cool! Yum

These are probably Gary’s favourite thing that I bake (he doesn’t have as much of a sweet tooth as me lol).. he will do anything for me to make them…. Well OK, maybe not the hoovering, or the washing up….!

I realised that I have never introduced you to my 3 wonderful cats. Jess had a brief appearance in yesterday’s Liver Cake post but they deserve so much more webtime than this!

I have been worried that they have been feeling very left out since Chester the pup has arrived. They certainly haven’t been getting as much attention and their cat flap has had to be locked so they don’t come into the conservatory where Chester sleeps at night. They are mainly confined to upstairs and when they do venture downstairs or into the garden they often get chased by an over-excited puppy.

I actually thought they would be a lot worse, especially Jess who is a little bit feisty on a normal day! But they have all been OK. Not great, but OK. They have actually bonded a lot better with each other in the last few weeks… “Us cats gotta stick together, right?!” and I frequently find them curled up on my bed together, something that rarely happened when they had free reign of the whole house.

I am trying to give them as many cuddles as I can, in between dealing with Mr Chester & the ups and downs of daily life. I am hoping to introduce you more to my cats in future posts, but in the meantime I will leave you with some pictures of the 3 of them together.

The 3 of them waiting to be fed! Jinx is the all black cat, Jess is the black & white cat and Meg is the ginger cat!

Oi! Where’s Meg going?!

Jess & Jinx cuddled up in bed, and Meg in the middle of getting up for a stretch!

Now, this is a first – me making a cake that’s not for me to eat lol…! Well, actually Gary was very good and made this yummy (?!) concoction as I’m a vegetarian and couldn’t stand the thought of handling raw liver (plus the smell…ugh!).

The liver cake is for our young pup Chester! We had been buying him all varieties of generic puppy treats from the pet shops but, as he has been very hyper and snappy recently I was worried that there were all sorts of nasty additives in the treats that weren’t good for him. Imagine giving chocolate bars to a toddler for all their snacks… (well, maybe you can do this – I have no experience with kiddies, but I imagine not!)

I had read in one of our (many) puppy books that you should get freeze dried liver for your pup as they absolutely love it – it is the caviar of dog treats! No local pet shops stocked it however, so I was really glad my friends over at the springer spaniel forum suggested this recipe for liver cake.

Ingredients:

400g liver (any sort of liver is fine)

1 clove of garlic

1 egg

1 tablespoon olive oil

200g wholemeal flour

Method:

1. Place the liver, garlic, olive oil and egg into a liquidiser and mix until smooth.

2. Stir in the flour. Line and grease a baking tray.

3. Cook on a low heat approx 130C for about 1 hour or until it is firm at the centre.

4. Leave to cool and cut up into small cubes.

5. Separate into airtight containers and keep in the fridge. They are also suitable for freezing.

Chester really loved these treats and they are so much better for him than the manufactured shop-bought treats! Hopefully he will do whatever we ask to get his paws on one of these treats lol… Oh, and it’s a lot cheaper than shop-bought treats as well, we got a pack of liver reduced to 43p! As you can see from the pic below, even our cat Jess liked them!