Spread the Love!

I think I maybe need to clean my mirror...

We've been busy-busy-busy the last few weeks - the kids have started tap and ballet classes so I've used my favourite second-hand friend, ebay, to kit them out with the appropriate uniform as specified by the everso strict dance-school regulations.

I've been cultivating mung bean shoots in my propagator after a handul of sprouts I'd had on the windowsill took a turn for the funky... and look at them now!

My brain keeps saying 'Mung Beans? In Scotland? Really? You really think that's going to work?' in that smiling yet essentially negative tone that Jason Bateman employed in almost every episode of Arrested Development when talking to his deranged family, but my foolish, idiot-child heart keeps saying 'Sod the seasons and climates, Daria, if anyone can make it work it's you and your coldframe!'. Keeps me out of trouble anyway!
It was my mother-in-law's birthday the other week and my husband went down to see her on a flying visit to drop off her reconditioned mountain bike and help her polish off a few glasses of wine. So I sent down a little cake.

Two of my M-I-L's favourite things to consume are chocolate and alcohol so I combined the two and made a chocolate sponge torte with Baileys buttercream and tart cherry filling, smothered in a bitter chocolate ganache and piped with a big ole' buttercream loveheart. She loved it, and I really enjoyed making it for her, so everyone was happy! Obviously, the Bailey's wasn't vegan but the cake wasn't for me so no probs. Everything else was suitably vegan - the sponge a recipe from Leah Leneman's Easy Vegan Cooking, the buttercream and ganache both recipes from VCTOW. As for the cherry filling, a long long time ago my mum advised me that the only way to go for this was Hartley's black cherry pie filling - tart yet fruity - and as I'm not the kind of cook that has the time or inclination to spend hours in the kitchen making my own bitter cherry reduction it has served me admirably ever since in many a torte - Poles love a good torte, the more ingredients and flaked almonds the better!
I also scored an unbelievably sweet necklace from Becky over at Lovely Little Deer. I follow her blog because she's another adorable northerner (n_n) and the things she makes are fabulous - cute, humorous and good enough to eat in some cases!

Criminally, she doesn't have an etsy or ebay shop just yet, so I had to be kind of fly and email her looking to buy one of these fab Giant Sprinkles necklaces. Not only did she agree she also packaged it absolutely beautifully for me. Thanks again, Becky, I'm stoked and my kids have been all-over my new adornment like a rash, desperate to get at the sprinkles!
So, love is all around it seems, and I'm just about to feel the warm glow of it yet again as I tuck into a big slice of chocolate-cherry torte (Yay, leftovers!!) with alcohol-free buttercream icing and rainbow glitter on top, perfect partner to a cup of Earl Grey (finally got rid of that bloody box of Tetleys) and the return of 'Strictly Come Dancing' on BBC1 tonight.
Over and out...