Best Chocolate Cake for everyday use and birthdays

This chocolate cake recipe is sensational. It's moist and flavoursome. Even better, it makes up in one bowl. Don't serve it for the little nut free people in your life unless you are standing by with an epi-pen and the phone. xx 125g butter chopped, 1 cup caster sugar, 1 cup milk, 1 cup SR flour, 1/3 cup cocoa powder, 1/2 tspn bi-carb soda, 1/2 cup almond meal, 2 eggs, 1 tspn rum essence ( I have never bothered with this and it still turns out fine). Preheat oven to 180'c & grease or line a 20cm round tin. Method: In a large saucepan heat butter, sugar & milk for 2 mins until melted & combine. Sift flour, cocoa, & soda together into the saucepan. Stir in almond meal, eggs, & essence & stir until smooth. Pour into cake tin, bake for 50-60 minutes. Cool in tin 5 minutes. For fancy serve with whipped cream & chocolate ganache recipe as follows; 200g dark chocolate, 1/3 cup cream. Method: Combine chocolate & cream in a small pan, stir over low heat 3 minutes until combined, transfer to bowl & cool slightly before serving.

Baked doughnuts

Ha, Ha, Ha. You and I know that it's not really Doug & Fifi's Garden at all. We ALL know it's Doug's Garden and that I just wander about with a cup of tea in my hand from time to time inspecting the plants. Occasionally with a snicker doodle in my hand if Doug has made some. So here's a recipe for back to school mums & (obviously) Dads. Nigella's Snicker doodles. 250g plain flour; 1/2 teaspn ground nutmeg; 3/4 teaspn baking powder; 1/2 teaspn salt; 125g butter; 100g caster sugar; 1 egg; 1 teaspn vanilla extract (or if frugal, essence) ; 1 tablspn cinnamon. Heat oven 180c. Cream butter & sugar. In another bowl, combine flour, nutmeg, baking powder, salt. Beat the egg & vanilla into the 'creamed' butter & stir dry ingredients into the butter mix, until smooth. Roll out into little balls between your hands (20 cent piece size). Mix 2 tblspoons of caster sugar with the cinnamon and roll each little ball in before placing on baking tray. 15 minutes at 180`c. Cool on rack. Delicious for school snacks / afternoon snacks. There is no point in messing with this recipe.

FLOOD!

We have survived the flood of '08. Nearly as big as the '54 flood, in which, our neighbours all solemnly told us while the water was rising, our house went under. Thankfully that didn't happen this time, but what a lovely discovery to make in the middle of a flood - that ours is the lowest house in the street. What a great way to get to know the people who live in your street though - as we trotted up to the river at regular intervals throughout the day and night to check on the rising river's progress. Needless to say, Dougie and Fifi's garden has not been short of water. After 135mm of rain in just one night, we had more of a swamp than a garden, and in the 2 weeks since it hasn't stopped raining for long. The poor old guinea pigs have certainly discovered the downside of being the lowest to the ground of the garden residents but they are taking it all very philosophically. They've had to move to the higher ground of the back garden, which is less boggy but involves having at least one dog on top of their hutch all day long. They've perfected the nonchalant shrug as a Jack Russell does it's best Big Bad Wolf impression only centimetres away. Ive decided the beans did so well this spring they deserved a second run for summer and the new plants are looking every bit as happy as their predecessors. The tomatoes unfortunately have been a casualty of the humid weather. The conditions were just too good for fruit flies and tomato rot, So they've all been pulled out bar one lonely outcrop which is still just hanging in there. The pumpkins have also run their course for this year. A little disappointed to yield only 6 pumpkins from what seemed like acres of vines, but then again, we didn't even plant them so that's not bad for a bit of self-seeding from the compost. My latest crop is cucumbers, which are just starting to bear fruit. My next door neighbour is seemingly the worlds foremost expert on backyard cucumber production so there is really no need for me to grow any at all because he arrives at the gate almost weekly with an armful of assorted cucumbers, but I just couldn't help having a go myself. Of course I had no desire to offend anyone so my cucumber vines are suitably scrawny compared to his and that's the way things should be between neighbours. The biggest fans of the wet weather have been our bamboo plants. They have grown a fabulous number of new shoots and are looking really bushy and bold. Before you ask - no they're not spreading bamboos - just clumpers. One, called Timor Black, has grown to a massive height and has really transformed the look of that part of the garden very quickly. One neighbour's house is fast disappearing from view. I also have two new residents of Dougie's garden to report. They are cold blooded but without any mean streaks. We have a young blue tongue lizard, which was a very exciting discovery. Rupert rather shockingly killed the old blue tongue about two years ago and we thought that would have been the end of it, but somehow another has turned up, and it has made the very sensible choice of residing in the fenced off veggie garden away from any Big Bad Poodle-wolves. The other lizard resident made me jump a slight height as I was digging over the compost heap recently. Thought it was a snake, but on semi-close inspection it turned out to be a legless lizard. Not the sort that can be found outside the pub at 1:00am, but rather the sort that must like a nice warm compost heap to live in. It's not actually legless but the legs it does have are tiny and obviously don't serve much purpose. It definitely gets around just like a snake. Before I go I have to report one other - equally rare - sighting in Dougie's back yard. Fifi was spotted only days ago mowing the lawn. I hope the receipt of this news is as exciting for you as the reporting of it is for me. Apologies to any readers who may have noticed the lack of posts from myself. I will endeavour to pick up my game from now on. Hooroo.

Happy New Year from all at Dougies Back Yard

This may well be my last posting for 2007. It's bean an okay year for all those in the backyard. Just to recap, some new friends came to live here and we nearly saw the departure of Rupert, who came down with tick bite just before Xmas. In the last few weeks, we've seen a blue-tongue lizard move into the vegie patch, a baby silver eyed finch grow up and leave the nest (in the elderberry) and our clumping bamboo has got on with extending itself into the sky. I've run out of creative ways with beans, and the cos has gone to seed. The pumpkins are coming on nice and firm. I think they might be 'Queensland Blues', but we'll have to wait and see. The paw paws are still fruiting, and everynow & then Grace finds a strawberry hidden amongst the leaves. Doug has planted a lucky jade tree at the front door to attract prosperity, and the guy at Mitre 10 is still expecting me to purchase red paint for my front door. It has to be the right red. Afterall, enjoy 2008.

The Gingerbread Chronicles

And you thought Gingerbreads were for the kiddies. Doug is building a gingerbread swimming pool, to give it that authentic aussie flavour, and we have a gingerbread BBQ parked beside the 'pool' to complete the picture of Aussie Bush Xmas. Stuff the European styled GG bread house, who really truly wants to eat one of those things? But miniature GG bread steaks grilling over pretend fires made of silver cachous, now that's a really apetising prospect. Thankfully Doug has the perfect recipe, which I will post shortly. Before he engineers the Aussie backyard pool made from GG bread, he is poepling it with a village of Barchester Chronicles style folk, made of you guessed right, ginger. These spicy little people have attitudes and pets such as dolphins and pigs with big currant eyes.

Tomato Relish

Doug has made a batch of tomato relish for the lucky few. It tastes fantastisch. Even Elizabeth Taylor eats it apparently, or at least she once did ... but that's another tale for the fireside, winged-back chair evenings. What I'm really getting around to suggesting is that Doug has way too many tomatoes this time of year, and we here at Dougies Garden are scratching our heads thinking up all the uses for tomatoes. I suggested fake blood, but Doug looked absolutely horrified to think it would be exclusively used by myself & the kids for fancy dress, no, no, no, it had to go further up the food chain, dizzying heights of actual tomato consumption. Henceforth Doug trawled the extensive recipe archives kept in the library, and came up with "Spencer's Relish" tried and tested recipe to the stars (apparently Shirley Bassey had some on toast after the Melbourne Cup back in '64). Yes it's good, oh way good. But the produce doesn't stop there, we've got beans coming out our ears! Beans, beans, beans, it's beans at sacrificial prices. Bean madness! And then how about eating a french bean salad!, But wait! Maybe you could have some steamed beans with that? Did somebody say beans? "Just keep picking 'em" say the wise old people who know. So I use that as my mantra everyday when Doug sends me down into the bean fields to 'do my bit' for the bean effort. Fame and fashion do not last, but if you grow beans you have friends forever. You'd be surprised at the number of people who like beans.

All that glitters is not golden corn

The beans are growing like magic! Okay I know it was only a fairytale, but these beans are vigorous. Doug and I are running out of freezer space. Sascha and Grace are enjoying the wet weather by running through puddles until drenched. The dogs are behaving disgracefully, and the sunflowers are beginning to flower. The tomatoes are really coming on now. We have bunches of tomatoes ready to go. Bottling is being considered carefully. The purple carrots have almost run out, and I'm particularly sad about this. The were delicious, but we have a new crop planted. We have cos lettuce ready to go, and lots of baby pumpkins growing. A mother of zucchinis growing delicately like an elephant in the garden. It now seems the golden corn was left on the stalk too long. It became all rubbery and translucent. Fascinating texture. Lovely to look at, astounding to eat.