Chocolate Buttermilk Cake

I very nearly made a chocolate truffle cake for yesterday's birthday get-together.  But I made that last year, so I looked through a couple of cookbooks to see if anything else caught my eye.  (The truffle cake is amazing...).  In the Women's Weekly Chocolate Cakes book I found this recipe for a chocolate buttermilk cake, and the only ingredients I needed to buy were buttermilk and chocolate.  Plus, this is a layer cake - possibly my first ever.  I'm quite happy with the result.  I'm also looking forward to being able to run again so I can fit into my clothes again.

Recipe:
180g butter, chopped
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
1 1/2 cups (330g) caster sugar
4 eggs, separated
3/4 cup (110g) self-raising flour
1/3 cup (35g) cocoa powder
3/4 cup (180mL) buttermilk
chocolate filling:
400g dark eating chocolate, melted
250g butter, melted
1/2 cup (85g) icing sugar mixture

Preheat oven to moderate.  Grease deep 20cm-round cake pan, line the base with baking paper.
Beat the butter, vanilla and sugar until light and fluffy; beat in egg yolks, one at a time, until just combined.  Stir in sifted dry ingredients and buttermilk.
Beat egg whites in a clean small bowl until soft peaks form; fold into cake mix in 2 batches.  Pour cake mix into prepared pan.  Bake in oven about 1 hour; cool in pan.
Make chocolate filling by combining the chocolate and butter in a medium bowl; stir in the sifted icing sugar.  Cool filling to room temperature, and beat with a wooden spoon until thick and spreadable.

Split cake into 3 layers.  Reserve about 1 cup of chocolate filling.  Place one cake layer onto serving plate, spread thinly with some of remaining filling; repeat layering with remaining cake layers and filling.  Spread reserved filling all over cake.  Refrigerate 3 hours before serving.

I made the cake on Friday - which made for a super-stress-free Saturday.  It did feel a little dry on Saturday though, but today moist again.  Weird.  And my icing is far more set than the picture in the book.  The whole thing was really hard to slice (all that icing...) but all that icing also makes it quite rich.  It apparently serves 8-10, and there were 8 people present.  I knew one wouldn't be having any and another would only have a tiny bit, but there was still a lot of leftover cake.  The thing about buttermilk though, is that it only comes in 600mL cartons.  So I still have just over 400mL of buttermilk... and a recipe for blueberry pancakes...and one for orange syrup cake... this could be dangerous.  I'm trying to find slightly more forgiving outfits for this week!

Today's photo:

Like yesterday, I ate breakfast in the armchair by the courtyard.  The basil grows right next to that part of window, and the light was shining through the leaves.  I wasn't sure how it would turn out, with a whole lot of backlight, but the result I rather like, better than I thought it would look.

The 'Y' Party

A friend from work celebrated a 'significant' birthday this week, and held a party today in honour of the event.  As her name begins with Y, there was a 'Y' theme to the party.  I think this is the first time I've actually accepted an invitation to a themed party, and it's definitely the first time I went dressed in theme.  I contemplated the easy option of a splash of yellow.  I own one yellow item, a Lorna Jane singlet in lemon yellow.  So I turned to the dictionary for some other options, not wanting to turn to Y-fronts either.  Yaks, yashmaks and Yankees came to mind, but yuppie stuck in my head.  When it came time to dress in this theme, I was relieved in one way that I had all items readily available...a little disturbed that yuppie was so close to normal for me.  Then, I googled yuppie images.  I realised I should really be taking an eco bag filled with fresh pasta and organic produce, wearing running shoes while packing the heels in the eco bag, wearing glasses and listening to a Sony walkman as much as possible.  It felt wrong enough to be wearing a business skirt on a Sunday, and I just couldn't bring myself to wear running shoes with stockings.  I forgot to wear glasses, but I did plug in my earphones as much as possible.

Thankfully, when I arrived the host picked I was a yuppie straight away.  Probably as there was another yuppie already there, much more successfully yuppie-like.  She even had the old phone and large glasses, and kept yelling into the phone "Sell!  Sell!  Sell!". 

There was a lot of yellow visible, a very cute and hungry bumble bee, someone covered in yarn, the daughter of the host (incidentally, the same child who wore Outfit Number 1 on Wednesday) was Yoda, and eventually I worked out the preponderance of flannel shirts indicated yobbos.  Apologies to any flannel-shirt-wearing non-yobbos reading this.  Yosemite Sam, Yoko Ono and Wile E. Coyote (geddit??) also made appearances.  Next time (and yes, I won't pike on the next themed invitation), I'll be more adventurous.

Oops!  Forgot today's photo:

A string of flowers in bright colours, adorning the balcony at today's party.  They changed so much with the afternoon light, clouds and sunlight.

The Last Minute Change

This week was the school Music Festival.  Monday - Wednesday are the heats, where (ideally) every child learning an instrument/voice gets up and performs.  Strings, thankfully, are divided into junior, middle, and senior.  There is a guest adjudicator, the kids get a certificate and great feedback about their playing, as well as the chance to get up and play in front of someone other than their teacher.  Students who are awarded a High Distinction in the heats get to perform in the Grand Concert on the Friday night. 

On Tuesday, I was asked if I was going to the concert.  Probably not... So you won't be going to drinks afterwards?  Probably not...  On Wednesday another teacher asked if I was going, was surprised I didn't have an invitation, and said to text if I wanted the address. 

All week, a friend had been bugging me to go dancing Friday night.  Friday morning, she called to ask me to please wear super high heels, as she would chicken out if she was going to be the only one wearing heels.  I was actually not that keen on dancing, but promised to have coffee beforehand.

When I got back from my run, however, there was a message from the viola teacher saying he could give me a lift to the staff party.  My first instinct for social occasions is, unfortunately, no.  And on Friday nights, no, as I teach Saturday mornings.  But especially when I haven't told the host, no!  However...  I knew this would be a good chance to have some fun with other teachers when not at school, and you get to see a whole other side to them.  Plus, having had one child get through to the grand concert, I wanted to know how that went (she played beautifully).

Apparently the host was fine with me turning up, and I could be picked up from where I was having coffee - perfect timing.  So, I went to a staff party, on a Friday night, instead of dancing.  It was so much fun, and I found out so much about my coworkers.  Seeing everyone relaxed and laughing, not to mention on a first-name basis (instead of Mrs Smith like we are at school, for example), was really refreshing.  My abs hurt from laughing so much.