Party Party Party

I haven't been blogging recently, partly because I'm not in a finishing phase at the moment (I have eight projects going at the moment! Yikes! How did that happen?), and partly 'cause I've just been so amazingly busy.

Work Work Work Toddler Toddler Toddler... doesn't leave much time for me.

I'm not complaining. I enjoy work, and I love my little one dearly. I wouldn't make different choices. But without stretching myself to breaking point, I cannot do everything. So logging on and blogging is just a bridge too far sometimes.

This post isn't about my knitting, it's about my party planning.

Mr S turns two very shortly. Wow! Unbelievable.

I have a party menu... but the big dilemma is the cake! Do I do a novelty cake - maybe a truck or a train, perhaps a panda - or do I just do a really good (read yummy) cake with really good candles??

I'm leaning towards the yummy, rather than the fancy at the moment.

I own a fantastic book "Birthday Cakes - Recipes and Memories from Celebrated Bakers" by Kathryn Kleinman.

It's an absolute pip! So many beautiful pictures, so many yummy recipes.

I'm very tempted to make the chocolate cake on the cover.

But I remembered a really good chocolate cake that I made some time ago - I went back into the archive on this blog and found the post - the cake picture is half way down. It's from Bill Granger's "Simply Bill". The icing was chocolate and sour cream. I put smarties on top. It was delicious.

I also came across another chocolate cake recipe in Tessa Kiros' "Apples for Jam".

It looks pretty good too. The cake uses both chocolate and cocoa. I recently made the cup cake recipe in this book. I can recommend it. I grew up using a Margaret Fulton recipe from the 1968 classic "Margaret Fulton's Cookbook". It's a good recipe, but it requires triple flour sifting! At the moment it falls into the bridge too far category.

I need to make a decision this week. Oh the dilemma! I'll get back to you on what I did...