Chocolate Lace Butterfly Cake

Here is the cake I made for my friend’s 40th birthday recently. You may remember the tri-shutter card I made for her that I posted previously.

The cake is 14” square, weighs over 5 kilos and took me several hours to assemble!

Inside the cake comprises of 1 layer of vanilla sponge topped with 1kg of nutella chocolate spread, 1” thickness of fresh whipped cream followed by another layer of vanilla sponge. That was then covered with lashings of my nutella and chocolate icing and decorated with chocolate lace swirls, chocolate lace flowers and chocolate lace butterflies! The butterflies were the most difficult to make with the wings and body of the butterfly made as one piece. They were very fragile and needed to be supported until the chocolate had set completely.

My friend was speechless when she arrived to pick the cake up. I thought she was going to cry! A number of guests at the party ended up taking heaps of photos of it for her as she didn’t want to cut into it! I would love to hear what you think.

Valentine's Day Baking - Double Chocolate Heart Cupcakes

Here are some yummy double chocolate heart cupcakes dd and I made and then decorated with delicious pink icing.

We cheated and used a chocolate cake packet mix for the cakes and added a good handful of chopped chocolate pieces and choc chips before spooning the mix into the heart shaped baking mould.

The icing is made from butter, icing sugar with a tiny splash of milk and a few drops of food colouring. The cupcakes were then sprinkled with some heart shaped cake decorations.

I don't think these will be making it to Valentine's Day, LOL so thankfully they are quick and easy to make.

Printable Lemon Curd Recipe

I made some lemon curd a few weeks ago and thought I had already posted about it, but for some reason the post seems to have disappeared. So now for attempt number 2......

I absolutely love lemon curd or as some call it lemon butter. Either way it tastes divine on a slice or three of freshly home-baked bread. I use a recipe that I have had for years. Unfortunately I can't remember where I found it, I can only think it may have been a CWA Recipe book or Mrs Beeton's Recipe Book. Scroll down for the recipe.

Anyway the reason I love this recipe is that it uses whole eggs rather than just the yolks so you end up with a larger quantity and no wasted egg whites. A jar of lemon curd makes a lovely gift, perfect for hampers or just a small thank you.

I sterilise all my jars and utensils in the dishwasher and then place them in the oven at 100°C to drain and dry.

The labels I made using Microsoft publisher on the business card setting. I just placed the text and images where I wanted them and printed them out. I adhered them to the jars using clear packing tape, so it would protect the label from moisture damage (I use an inject printer) and to make them easy to remove once the jars were empty.

And now I guess you are all waiting for the recipe............

Just right click on the image that you prefer below to open in a new tab and then save to your computer or print it out.