BAKING | Chocolate Nest Cake

By now my love for baking is probably becoming pretty clear - it seems the majority of my posts have been baking related, so Easter weekend was the perfect excuse to do yet more baking (not that I need an excuse)! For as long as I can remember my mum and I have made a chocolate nest cake at Easter but it's also one of my favourite cakes throughout the year. This is a really simple recipe and it looks great!

Ingredients: 

- 6oz margarine

- 6oz caster sugar 

- 5oz self raising flour

- 1oz cocoa powder

- 3 eggs (medium) 

- mini eggs

Step 1

Grease the baking tins - I used bunt cake tins so it makes a doughnut shaped cake  - and preheat the oven to 190 degrees. 

Step 2

Measure out the margarine and caster sugar in a large mixing bowl and cream together until pale yellow, soft and fluffy.

Step 3

Whisk the eggs together in a separate bowl and add to the sugar and margarine mixture a little bit at a time. TIP: be careful not to add too much at once as this can curdle the mixture. If the mixture does begin to curdle simply add in a spoonful of flour which should counteract this. 

Step 4

Sift the flour and cocoa sugar together in a separate bowl and add in to the sugar, egg and margarine mixture 1 spoonful at a time. Make sure to fold this into the mixture to make it light and fluffy this is important to stop the end cake being too dense. 

TIP: if the mixture seems too dry add a tablespoon or two of milk. 

Step 5

Pour the mixture into the pre-greased baking tin, keeping the top as smooth as possible. TIP: tapping the tin on the work surface a couple of times will help the mixture to settle.

Step 6

Place this into the centre of the preheated oven in a cool baking tray and bake for around 30 minutes. 

Step 7

Whilst the cake is in the oven is the ideal time to whip up some buttercream icing to cover the cake. Mix together 3 tablespoons of cocoa powder with 150g room temp unsalted butter and 300g icing sugar. TIP: cut the butter into small cubes before mixing.

Step 8

After 30 minutes remove the cake from the oven - it should have risen and be spongey to the touch. Remove the cake from the tin and place on a wire rack to cool. 

Step 9

Once cooled cover the cake in the butter cream icing - use a fork to rough up the surface making it look more like a nest. 

Step 10

Last but not least fill the middle of the cake with mini eggs.

This is my favourite cake to make - probably because of the amazing memories of this cake throughout my childhood. I highly recommend this as your next bake - hopefully you enjoy it as much as I do!

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DIY | Terrarium

I absolutely love living in London but one of the things I miss most about home is my garden. Whenever I go home I always spend as much time as I can out there - see this post for some pictures! So I try and have fresh flowers in my room in London whenever I can but this isn't the most financially viable option unfortunately! So for the last few weeks every time I've walked passed the florist I've had to resist the urge to go and buy some flowers, and then Essie Button's Spring DIY video popped up on my YouTube subscription box! This gave me some inspiration to spend my Easter weekend making a terrarium!

They're so easy to make that to be honest a DIY is probably not necessary but I had so much fun making it that I had to share it with you. All you need for this is doe cacti and succulents of your choice, a pot/vase/bowl, cacti repotting soil and some pebbles (I used grit for chickens - don't ask! But you could use aquarium pebbles).

The first thing to do is pour some of the cacti repotting soil into your container - you only need enough to comfortably fit the cacti in so not too much. I then placed my cacti in the vase in their plastic pots first so that I could get an idea of where I wanted them all to go.

Once you've decided where you want them all to go all you have to do is take them out of their little plastic pots and get them planted in. You might want to use a pair of tongs to plant the so as to avoid getting any spines in your fingers although it might not be necessary.

The final step is to sprinkle in some of your grit or pebbles - make sure to get as close around the base of the cacti as possible so you can't see any of the soil from up above. I absolutely loved how the chicken grit looked in my terrarium as it has broken up shells in too which makes it look like a little beach scene! You might also want to give them a little spritz with some water too once your finished.

Heres the final product - as you can see Monty was intrigued by it, luckily he didn't get too close so there were no spines stuck in his nose!! I was so happy with my glass version that I decided to also throw together one in a little terracotta pot which I painted a lovely muted olive green.

I'm so pleased with both of these terrariums (is the one in a pot even called a terrarium? I'm not too sure!! All I know is that these will make a fantastic addition to my room down in London and will hopefully stop me spending a fortune on fresh flowers - we'll see though!! That is if I don't kill them - I'll keep you updated.

If you guys make a terrarium please tweet / instagram (@theopaldiary) me a photo as I would love to see how yours turn out!!

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EAT | Mama Lan, Clapham

A few months ago I was on the way to work and was flicking through Timeout (which by the way, alongside Stylist, is my saviour on the commute to work) and I came across an article about Mama Lan and immediately added it to my list of restaurants I wanted to go to. I'd wandered past it a couple of times but it never really caught my attention until I read about it.

So the other night Matthew and I were feeling particularly lazy and didn't want to go home and cook (nothing new there) so figured we'd try this out instead! It's a really small restaurant, much smaller than I thought - I figured it would have a downstairs part or something but no it only has about 6/7 tables most of which are only for 2 people! To drink we both got an apple and elderflower fix which was a delicious non-alcoholic cocktail made up of apple juice, elderflower cordial and soda water - this is definitely something I'm going to be making at home as it was so tasty and refreshing.

                    

On to the food - the most important part! We were both pretty hungry but as we hadn't been there before we decided to just order a little selection and share everything / fight over it all!! My choices were two of the smaller dishes - spicy chicken wings and pork buns.

                        

The pork buns were AMAZING. They were filled with some kind of slow cooked pork which just melted in my mouth and they were so moist (anyone else hate the word moist?!). My only complaint with this was that there were only 2 buns...nowhere near enough!

                   

Now the chicken wings... the menu did warn that they were spicy but me being me I totally ignored this. I am not the biggest fan of spicy food - for example when I get a curry its chicken tikka massala or nothing, boring I know! So the chicken wings arrived and they looked delicious so I jumped right in only to end up being choked by some chilli catching me at the back of my throat. Now don't get me wrong the wings were seriously tasty I just couldn't quite hack the spice so Matthew got to eat them all guilt free! Lucky boy!

                   

Last but not least was Matthews choice - beef noodle soup. I am such a fan of a good clear noodle soup so this ticked a lot of boxes for me. Not only was it really tasty but the portion was enormous! I'm so glad that we decided to share as there's no way I would have been able to finish it by myself. My only issue with noodle soup is that I always make such a mess - I end up with soup all over myself, does anyone else have this problem?

I highly recommend Mama Lan if you want a delicious dinner and great service. They also have a take away service so long as you can pick it up so make sure to give it  a try if you live in either Clapham or Brixton!

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INTERIORS | A Pastel Home

Whenever I get asked what my favourite colour is I always find it virtually impossible to give a straight answer as I love any pastel colour. They're always the colours that my eyes are drawn to whether it be fashion, flowers, interiors  - literally anything! I tend to find that my style (particularly with interiors) is a little bohemian and eclectic, I don't like anything too matchy matchy and when it comes to interiors pastels add a great pop of colour without being too in your face and when using pastels you aren't limited to just one colour as they all go so beautifully together.

There aren't many trends that come along that I genuinely love but I couldn't have been happier when the spring/summer trend of pastels started to emerge this year. The first thing I did was go out to Boots and stock up on pastel nail varnishes as my first take on the trend. However since then, I've found myself browsing one too any interiors websites, along with Etsy, to get inspiration of how I can incorporate my love of pastels into my home. Not only this but Matthew and I are currently flat hunting which has got me well and truly one track minded when it comes to homes and interiors. I may be getting a little ahead of myself when it comes to making a wish list of everything I want to buy for when we find somewhere considering we've only been looking for a couple of weeks but what can I say I like to be prepared! Quite how Matthew will feel about all of these pastels I don't know but I'll cross that bridge when I come to it! Am I the only one who gets carried away planning for things that haven't even happened yet....?

These are just a few of the things that have caught my eye during my many online browsing sessions over the last couple of weeks. These are a great way to inject a little bit of colour into your home without having to spend a fortune or completely redecorate. I'm someone who always has cream walls and pale bedding and when trend like this come along it reminds me why - it now couldn't be easier for me to incorporate these into my home without things looking out of place.

I think my favourite from this little selection has to be the chopping boards with the pastel edges which are actually courtesy of Pinterest. They're such a lovely and simple DIY so I can't wait to try this out at some point. Speaking of Pinterest, am I the only one who gets lost on there for hours and hours? Too often I get distracted on there when I'm meant to be working - oops! For that reason my Pinterest boards are getting overloaded with inspiration and craft ideas.

If anyone wants a post on my favourites from Pinterest, whether it be crafts, recipes, fashion or anything for that matter just let me know in the comments section.

For more information about any of my latest favs head over to my Luvocracy page!

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