Leopard Brights

I'm getting back in the habit of painting my nails and I am loving it.  Hopefully the layers of polish will help protect my nails so they can grow a bit as they are so short :(  I really want to try out some more nail art but because they are so short I am stuck with either leopard, polka or a bit of glitter.  Can't wait to try some cupcake nails like Charlene's!  I decided on Top Turquoise and picked up Sophie's Pink from Boots to create these bright leopard print nails.

The colours look great together don't they!  I wanted to give them a slight Valentines twist so added a little graffiti style heart to one of my nails :)

I made the boyf a heart shaped chocolate cake and thought I would share the receipe...

Ingredients

150g Caster Sugar

90g Butter (Softened)

3 eggs

110g Plain Flour

2 Teaspoons Baking Powder

50g Cocoa Powder

2 Desertspoons Milk

Icing:

200g Icing Sugar

25g Cocoa Powder

3 Tablespoons Butter

2 Tablespoons Warm Milk

3 Tablespoons Extra Thick Cream

I wanted to make a fairly deep cake so I doubled the above quantities and cooked it in two batches.

Preheat the oven to 180 C / Gas Mark 4

Cream together the sugar and butter, mix them until they are light and creamy

Beat in the eggs one at a time

Stir in the cocoa and the milk

Mix in the flour and baking powder until just blended

Turn into a prepared cake tin and cook for about 40 minutes.  I wanted to make two layers but only have one tin so repeated this step.

To make the icing beat the icing sugar, cocoa and butter together until smooth.  Gradually add the warm milk and cream and again beat until smooth. 

Once the sponge has cooled use the icing to sandwich the two layers together then cover the whole cake.  You can leave it like this or do what I did and cover it in strawberries, yummy!

I need to make a birthday cake tomorrow using maltesers, anyone got a good recipe?  If I can't find one I think I will just use my malteser cupcake recipe and keep my fingers crossed that it works as well as a big cake.