We were all very excited for chocolate week on the GBBO, its got to be one of our favourite things to bake with in our house. And even better, the babka was a perfect treat for breakfast at the weekend. So on Friday when Emily finished school, we headed home and made the chocolate fill and the dough. Click here to see how we got on.
Once the chocolate filling was made and cooling down in the fridge, we make the dough, it was very sticky, but I kept the mixer running and amazingly it all came together to make a super soft lovely dough. Once done, I rolled it out and Emily helped sprinkle the chopped hazelnuts over the top, before I rolled it up, cut it and plaited it. It was actually relatively easy to do.
I then left it to prove, but even after 3 hours there was barely any change and I was running out of time before going to bed, so I just bake it anyway. Luckily it rose a bit, not as much as I had hoped, but when we cut into it for breakfast on Saturday morning it was beautifully soft and light and the chocolate filling was so super rich and sugary, we all loved it!
I just love making and decorating Christmas cakes, so as a Christmas pressie this year for our friends Matt and Beckie and their 2 kids I decided to make them a cake again! While we were away with them in the Peak District I was looking at pictures of Christmas cakes on Pinterest and Freddie and Ellie loved all the penguin ones, so I thought that’s what I would do. I found a few designs and picked my favourite bits to design this cake. Click 
One of Rich’s favourite treats is rocky road, we even had the bottom tier of our wedding cake made from rocky road! So making a Christmas version would definitely be popular in our house. I cut this recipe out of Olive Magazine last Christmas but never got round to making it, so this year when I was looking through my recipes I added this one to the list. Click 
Just over a month ago it was Emily’s 3rd Birthday. Being a typical 3 year old she was changing her mind every day about what kind of party and cake she wanted, slightly tricky when trying to plan things! Her favourite cuddly toy is her panda and so when I suggested that she had a panda themed party and cake, she seemed very excited and the idea stuck, phew! She takes after both her Aunties with her love of pandas. She asked for the cake to have a Mummy panda, a Daddy panda and and Emily panda on as well as some bamboo, so I did a bit of research and came up with a design. Click 
I was really pleased when I saw what the technical challenge was last week – it’s been ages since I’ve made something like that and I couldn’t wait to try it! The only downside was that it’s pretty big (it’s huge!) and I was on my own for the weekend. Luckily I had a cross-country race and my team mates were more than happy to help me eat it up!
