I can be very boring on the subject of Twitter and the real life connections it makes, but, living in a rural area and quite often stuck in the house waiting for guests to arrive/leave, it is a real lifeline for the country B&B landlady.Just this week I had another B&B landlady Twitter friend to stay. We've talked online by direct message nearly every day for the last 3 years & it was finally time to meet. I must admit to being very nervous before their arrival. The nerves were two fold; first they run a fabulous 5 star B&B that has won B&B of the year & second, if we had hated each other in real life, it would have been the end of a beautiful online relationship & left a huge gap. And I have discovered that just because you get on well with someone online doesn't always translate to a great face to face relationship. Luckily it all went well & I was very sad to see them leave.
A few months ago I met another virtual B&B friend, Sarah of Ferndell in Shrewsbury. I took the train up to the "big city" and we nattered for hours and compared B&B stories over coffee & lovely cake. Sarah is known for her chocolate cake and has kindly offered to share the recipe with us all! In fact if you were looking for a country / town 2 centre break in Shropshire you might find Hopton House & Ferndell would be the perfect combination......
Over to Sarah:
Chocolate sponge
www.ferndellbandb.co.uk
Firstly I would like to thank Karen for asking me to place
my chocolate cake recipe on her lovely blog, I usually ask my daughter age 12
to make me a quick cake before the guests are due and between the pair of us it
usually turn out alright…
I use a Kitchenaid mixer to do the hard work starting with
mixing the Marg and Sugar together, then add 3 eggs mixing again followed by
the flour and cocoa powder…how simple, I don’t even use a sieve. I separate the
mixture between two 8” tins greased and lined and into the bottom Aga for 25
minutes but luckily with an Aga if you
forget a few extra minutes wont spoil it…as my Aga is off at the moment (sad
face) I have to use a timer on the oven so 25 minutes at about 150/160..
Now the butter icing I simply make straight in the bowl the
cake mix has come out of, so Marg Cocoa Powder and Icing Sugar, all whizzed up leaving
a cloud of icing all over me and the worktop etc as I often forget to drape a
damp tea towel over the mixer.
Sandwich together and generously sprinkle over icing sugar
(my favourite bit)
Sponge mix
6oz marg
6oz granulated sugar
3 Free range eggs
5oz SR Flour
1oz cocoa powder
For the butter icing I tend to plonk the marge icing sugar
cocoa in and if it looks too sloppy add more icing sugar and if its too stiff
add a little more marg…not very professional I know
