ENGLISH MUM

Hubby’s Deeply Darkly Chocolatey Fudgy Cake with wobbly icing

So I’m not arty at all.  In the lottery that is our family’s gene pool, I struck it big with The Disreputable One’s ability to fire off a really angry letter, me Ma’s filthy laugh and my Grandma Maudie’s penchant for a nice glass of Bailey’s, but sadly didn’t inherit any artistic ability at all.  Still, one can dream, and I was rather pleased when my eagerly awaited cake decorating kit arrived from Ebay.

As you know, it was Hubby’s birthday this weekend.  On Sunday, we had a big, heowge massive roast beef dinner with Yorkshire puddings and, as usual here at English Towers, The Birthday Person got to choose his birthday cake.  He wanted something really darkly chocolatey and fudgey.  And I may not be the Ace of Cakes, but I can certainly knock up a mean chocky cake.  Read it and put on weight:

150g dark chocolate

170g butter

170g soft dark brown sugar

3 eggs

145g self raising flour

25g cocoa powder

To decorate:

Pot of double cream

100g dark chocolate

So preheat your oven to 180 degrees/gas 4, and grease and line a couple of cake tins.  Melt the 150g chocolate in a bowl over a saucepan of simmering water.  Meanwhile, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy, then beat in the eggs one at a time (remember if it curdles just bung in a spoonful of the flour).  Next, sieve the flour and cocoa and stir gently into the mix, then add the cooled, melted chocolate.  Divide the mix between the two tins and bake for around 15-20 minutes until they’re just firm – watch them carefully, you want soft, moist cake, not a couple of Frisbees.

Now comes the fun bit.  I whipped half the cream and filled the cake with it, then stirred the other half into some melted chocolate to make a ganache to pour over the top, but hell, it’s your cake – fill your boots.  Finally, I mixed the last spoonful of melted chocolate into a teeny bit of whipped cream and piped a completely wobbly ‘44’ on it that looked as though it had been done by a four year old.  It just goes to show how bloody nice I am that I’m opening myself up for total humiliation by actually showing you a picture.  Ah well.  Hubby liked it and if you’re even vaguely less cack-handed than I am it’s worth a go as it’s really good fun.

Give me time, and a bit of practice, and I’ll be icing cupcakes like a pro.  No, really.

English Mum’s Book(ish) Club: another attempt

Okay, so after a really crap run of books that I’ve absolutely hated, I’ve got a really good feeling about this one.  It was recommended by the lovely Tom from http://clancolquhoun.blogspot.com/ and promises lots of murder and mayhem.  It’s The Black Dahlia Files by Donald Wolfe.

As usual, if you’d like to join in, get thee to Amazon or Play.com or wherever, and buy a copy of the book.  We’ll regroup in a few weeks to have a chat about it.

Let’s hope I at least get to the end this time.

Toys 4 Big Boys, RDS Dublin

So Hubby’s birthday surprise was a trip to the RDS in Dublin for a visit to Toys4BigBoys .  Seriously, this place is boy heaven: there were tanks, quad bikes, motorbikes, radio-controlled helicopters, amazing models:

 … there were robots (and they battled!  Savage!).  This one followed unsuspecting passers by and squirted them with water:

… there were BMX geezers throwing themselves around on ramps:

 … more loons on ramps… this time a rollerblader:

And… Porsches, Rolls Royces, Mustangs, the new Opel Insignia (gorgeous), and of course… Ferraris!:

… and hot women in very short skirts (sorry, no photos here – Hubby didn’t dare in case he got a slap).  #2 spent an inordinately large amount of time chatting to a young lady in a pornographically short skirt and a top cut so low you had to swim through puddles of teenage drool.  He called her the ‘Boob Lady’.  I think it was love.

The highlight for us, though, was the incredible Extreme Globe Riders who did… THIS:

Worth a trip to the RDS if you’re around Dub this weekend.  Aren’t I a lubly wifey?  Eh?  Eh?

The Friday Photo: In which Bert helps with the washing up

Lemon cake and custard for pudding, then.  And that means the one with the longest nose gets the most custard out of the jug.  Guess who?

We even got him on video (hope you can’t hear me wittering on in the background…I was gutted because I burned my ‘fake’ Le Creuset pot):

Swearing: absof*ckinglutely unf*ckingacceptable

So I’m having a bit of dilemma.  And it’s all about asterisks.  I am aware, you see, that my nephews and nieces occasionally drop by, plus maybe others of a sensitive disposition and I’m also aware that the odd naughty word rears its ugly head here.  Only yesterday, Moon called my darling brother a w*nker (see what I did there?).  And I’m definitely prone to the odd F, as you know.  But hang on, I’m 38 and it’s my blog – should I dispense with the stars and let the expletives run free?

I don’t know if you remember, but Baino and the gang were having a really interesting chat about swearing a while back.  Turns out that a load of stiff upper lip British twats (oops!) objected to the ‘So where the bloody hell are ya?’ tag line to the current advertising campaign for Australia.  I mean, come on, surely in this day and age nobody’s offended by ‘bloody’ are they?  This led on to a conversation on Gordon Ramsey and his potty mouth – the gist being that most people were more offended with HOW the man swears (as in, he’s a terrible bully), rather than the fact that he does.  I certainly second this.  Yes he’s a great chef, and I’m particularly fond of The F Word, but to shout and swear aggressively into the face of another human being is offensive and unnecessary.  Full stop.  Whenever I see it, I secretly long for the shoutee to turn round and plant a big fat fist right in Gordy’s filthy mouth.

Now, when I was a nipper, I certainly couldn’t say ‘bloody’ at home without getting a cuff round the ear’ole, and uttering the unthinkable ‘bugger’ would have been more than my life was worth.  Granted, I occasionally witnessed a ‘f*cking roll on!’ when the Disreputable One was really pissed off (oops again!) but I was well aware that swearing ‘in company’ was totally unacceptable.

Now, I’m afraid, I have a mouth as foul as an egg-bound Bantam.  Honestly, I have no excuse, but I do think generally that swearing is much less of a big deal here in Ireland.  Only yesterday a radio presenter I was listening to said that someone ‘gets on my tits’ and I was telling Baino about the GAA, where grown men use sport as an excuse to beat seven bells of crap out of each other, and if you go five minutes without hearing ‘pass the ball you useless f*cking c*nt’, then frankly, the game’s not up to much.  Little ones toddle happily around as these expletives fill the air, and later, after the game, you can hear the kids emulating the GAA big boys as they cheerfully call each other ‘yoo fuggin gunt’.  Ah, the innocence of youth, eh?

I’m a terrible, terrible hypocrite too.  I personally aim for a ‘do as I say, not do as I do’ rule in the house, which is that when I drop the hoover down the stairs and stamp down after it muttering ‘f*cking useless, f*cking piece of f*cking shit…’, I expect my children to utilise this appalling display as a lesson on how not to talk.  More hypocritical is that we operate a zero tolerance approach to bad language, which is simple: swear, and you die.  I’ll overlook the odd ‘shite’ as it’s as much an Irish word as Guinness or hurling, but an F word uttered from the lips of a child is a terrible thing.

I wonder if it’s a generational issue.  I personally couldn’t see the fuss about the whole Jonathan Ross/Russell Brand thing.  I mean, what do people expect from the pair?  Fairy tales and fart jokes?  I appreciate that leaving a rude message on someone’s answerphone is rather ill advised, and probably warrants an apology, but the uproar afterwards was ridiculous.  And where did the thousands of complainers come from, so long after the event?  Via the Daily Mail, naturally. 

So what’s the verdict?  As a new generation should we turn a blind eye and just slip in the odd asterisk?  Or is it a terrible sign of the degeneration of polite society?

Totally, like, random.

So the lovely Kate, over at iRamble has tagged me with a weird challenge.  I’ve got to share seven facts about myself: some random and some weird.  I did something similar to this back in April, but I’m naturally extremely weird, so finding seven more is easy peasy:

1. I have hands like an old lady: they’re all blotchy and veiny and I have long spindly fingerstoo.  No amount of manicuring or posh hand cream can change them.  The Disreputable one has weird veiny hands too so it must be hereditary – apart from his fingers are like bit fat sausages.
2. I hate crowds.  My worst nightmare is to be stuck in the middle of a big, jostling and tightly packed group of people.  My even worser nightmare is that these people are drunk.  Just the thought of it makes me shudder.
3. I am totally, utterly and ridiculously fond of Christmas.  I love everything about it: the tree, the twinkly lights, candles, presents, the roaring fires, the yummy food…  I can’t help it.  I just do.  I used to be a nightmare, searching the house for hidden presents, but now I’ve got better.  This obviously makes me the best person to hide the presents, because I know where I’d look.
4. I really, really, really want a KitchenAid mixer.  Don’t get me wrong, I love my Kenwood, but oh, for a pink Kitchenaid Artisan mixer I’d sell my soul.  Or at least my greyhound.
5. My children and husband can make me laugh until I damn near wet myself.  When they all start messing, I laugh so much it actually makes me cry.
6. I have stupid baby hair.  It’s so soft I can’t even keep a hairclip in.  Pathetic.
7. I love surprises: both giving and receiving.  I have planned a very special and exciting day for Hubby’s birthday.  Watch this space.  I’ll take my camera – promise.

So come on, then: random facts, quirks and general weirdness.  Let’s hear them.

Middle Lovely’s Chocolate Breakfast Pancakes… & grown up cranberry and orange ones

So it’s half term.  And Middle Lovely came for a sleepover with #2.  He’s a happy little chap; talks ten to the dozen like #1 and he loves to cook.  So last night I got talked into having chocolate pancakes for tea, and this morning we all made a cake.  He could never live with us full time as our arteries would probably explode.  Here goes with the pancakes, then:

For the basic breakfast pancakes:

2 eggs

1/2 pint milk

225g self raising flour

4 level tbsp caster sugar

Then for the cranberry and orange ones, you’ll need:

Handful dried cranberries

Zest and juice of one large orange

So sieve the flour and stir in the sugar.  If you’re making the grown-up version, it’s really nice to heat the cranberries in the orange juice and zest in a small saucepan to soften them up a bit.  Then just make a well in the centre of the dry ingredients and whisk in the eggs and milk to make a thick batter.  Now, remove most of the cranberries from the orange with a slotted spoon and stir them into the batter.  Add a couple of teaspoons of sugar to the remaining orange liquid and bubble gently to reduce into a fruity syrup.

Next, heat a heavy-based frying pan and lightly brush the surface with oil.  Dollop a couple of tablespoons of the mixture into the pan, trying not to let them touch, then wait until you see bubbles on the surface before flipping them over.  The first one will be a disaster, it always is, but after that you’ll get light, fluffy pancakes studded with beautiful soft little fruity jewels  Serve with your orangey syrup.  These also make a lovely dessert with a slug of Cointreau added to the fruit juice, and served with mounds of whipped cream.

Or if you’re Middle Lovely, make the basic mixture, then stir in 50g chopped chocolate.  Make the pancakes in exactly the same way and serve them with more chocolate in the shape of chocolate spread, or gag-making amounts of golden syrup.  Nice one, Lovely.