The 77th Bake: Hot White Chocolate Sponge Pudding
I’m a little behind on my bakes this month, so I’m trying to whizz through them. Hence these puddings. I whipped these up while dinner was cooking, potato bake (made with sliced potatoes, cream, garlic, grated tasty cheese and salt, mmmmmmm) and baked salmon (salmon covered in honey and capers,mmmmmmm). Well anyway, while all this was going on in the oven, I ventured to whip up the puddings, multitasking not always necessarily fun but necessary all the same. Speaking of being organised, I recently bought a book called the life-changing magic of tidying up by Marie Kondo (it’s sold 6 million copies!!) Her method, the konmari method, is based on only keeping items in your life that “spark joy” and focusing on discarding first before you tidy or store. I have found this book revolutionary!!! It works. Here’s a link to the basics.https://www.drnorthrup.com/7-tips-to-organize-your-home-using-the-konmari-method/ Now back to the bake, I melted white chocolate, no gas, so had to do it in the microwave, no worries. It sat there waiting while I
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I made these double chocolate crunchy cookies next. The recipe was beside a photo of the carrot cake, so I hadn’t noticed them before now. The interesting thing about these biscuits is that they had melted chocolate in them so they turned out to have the look and texture of brownies, but with added cornflakes, they had the crunch of afghans. Your mind whirled between the two biscuits trying to figure them out!! Trying new things is always fun. I have just returned from a trip to Bali which turned into a research trip (as well as a holiday of course) for my current novel. 
The food was fantastic. We did a cooking class in Ubud and made several traditional dishes, like Be Siap Mesanten Kare Ayam (Chicken in coconut curry). I would highly recommend Paon Bali Cooking in Ubud. It was fun, informative, very tasty and the host was charming. 
I got concussed in the weekend, very random accident of an elbow shoved in the temple. Anyway, on Monday morning, prediagnosis, I decided to make a cake. I threw everything into the kitchen wizz, starting with butter, oh dear, just a little left in the house, cooking oil then? None. The only thing I could find to use was lemon infused olive oil so I added that to the left over softened butter, (about 2 tbspoons butter and 1/3 cup oil) I got a recipe book out but found all the measures in ounces so I decided to wing it, make up the recipe as I went. And here it is… 
It’s time to bake a chocolate cake. With all this baking believe it or not, we have no baking in the cupboards for school lunches, go figure. I am spending so much time on my Great British Bake Off Bakes, I haven’t had time to fill the tins!!! I got home from my friends book launch tonight and as I ventured over the harbour bridge decided to bake this when I got home. Unfortunately, we had no eggs so will have to do it in the morning. This is our family’s chocolate cake recipe. My sister acquired it some years ago and we have been using it ever since. It NEVER fails!!! And it is so easy, just add all the ingredients to a bowl 
On Saturday we went to my brother-in-laws for dinner as my sister-in-law is staying. I usually take a pudding so it was a good excuse for a bake. This marbled mocha cheesecake looked good to share, rich, decadent, and not something I could possibly cope with in the house!!