Ever thought "I need to get off Facebook and put my face IN A BOOK"?

Well, now you can!

This is probably definitely the geekiest cake I've made. 

Did it help with any revision for my upcoming exams? No. 

But was it tasty? Yes. Well, I hope so anyway :)

This is a post for those of you who have upcoming exams (or have already had a few!). I'm not sure about other universities, but at mine we call Easter term 'exam term', though as my friend very rightly pointed out, it should probably be renamed 'procrastination term'. This is very true. From what I have observed, we have two types: a) those whose facebook usage increases exponentially b) those whose facebook gets disabled and actual work takes place. I have, unfortunately, this term, begun to fall victim of the former category.

Incidentally, I have created a facebook page for my blog! I would be eternally happy and smiley if you would hop over and take a look. You could even click the 'like' button if you fancied it :)

This cake was meant to be a sort of 'chocolate layer cake' to resemble a book, but I didn't have a recipe to go by so I sort of made one up (so no it's not from the Green & Black's cookbook!). I'd like to think that by now I could alter and experiment with my own quantities, but I did jot everything down (on the bottom of my revision timetable), so you can take a look at the recipe at the bottom.

This was actually a page copied from my macroeconomic textbook, so bonus points to anyone who can point out what graphs these are! 

The top layer was another thin vanilla sponge, as the top layers of the chocolate didn't fall into quite a book shape. I did get a nice photo of it though, even if it doesn't really fit with the style of the other photos of this post. But you've seen it now, and that makes me happy :)

In the end, I was really proud of how book shaped it turned out. Then I was look at it and thought: 'it looks a bit like lasagne doesn't it?'

But hey, that's a studenty thing to eat right? I'll roll with it.

In terms of the icing, this was all made with fondant icing, rolled and cut. I do have one tip though (see photo above): if you're going to make thin lines from rolled icing, it's better to put the icing on the cake and then cut it afterwards.

And before I go back to work, I have some exciting news!

Cambridge University has a TV website, and a few weeks ago I got an email from the Vice President. She said that she had seen my blog and was wondering if I wanted to do a cooking show for it! So I said YES and JUMPED at the opportunity. I won't be doing anything till after exams, and then there's the initial brainstorming of how I should present it, but watch this space! See, I'd like to do it without actually being in it, which may pose a slight problem. This is why the initial brainstorming programme might take some time :)

I won't be baking much more until my exams are over in mid June, but I do have a few more posts saved to put up on here. I will be desserting you, but hopefully I won't be deserting you, and I'll be back with avengance in a few weeks! (Green & Black's cookbook, watch out, I'm ready to finish baking everything you present. Ha.)

Good luck to anyone who has got exams, stop stressing, you'll be fine!

Now, if anyone could explain CAPM theory to me, I'll bake you anything on from this blog. ANYTHING.

Lesson learned today: I love Economics. Really, I do.

Chocolate Layered Cake with a sponge layer topping and white chocolate icing Cuts into about 16 slices You will need a rectangular cake tin (I think mine was  7” x 11” x 2") Chocolate Cake 150g caster sugar 200g butter 3 eggs 175 self raising flour 25 cocoa powder 100g dark chocolate 1tbsp instant coffee, dissolved in 2 tbsp of boiling water Sponge layer 1 egg 2 tbsp self raising flour 2 tbsp butter 2 tbsp sugar White Chocolate Icing 100g white chocolate 45g soft unsalted butter 250ml half fat crème fraiche 125g icing sugar Fondant icing (white and assorted colours) Preheat the oven to 180C. Grease and line a rectangular baking tin. For the chocolate cake, cream the butter and the sugar. Whisk in the eggs, one at a time, until light a frothy. Sieve in the flour and cocoa powder. Melt the chocolate in in a bowl over a saucepan of barely simmering flour (alternatively microwave in short bursts) and mix in. Pour in the coffee and use a spatula to mix everything together until well combined. Pour into the tin and bake for about 30 minutes, or until a skewer inserted in comes out clean. Meanwhile, make the sponge layer. Since the quantities were so small I put everything together in a small bowl and used an electric whisk to whisk everything together. After the chocolate cake came out of the oven, I relined the tin and baked this mixture for 12 minutes. Leave both cakes on a wire rack to cool. Before you slice the chocolate cake, it may help to put it in the fridge for an hour to make it easier to cut. For the icing, melt the white chocolate and butter in the microwave on medium for 1-2 minutes, until just over half melted. (Be careful not to overheat the white chocolate, as it burns more easily than regular chocolate). Stir gently until smoothly combined. Let cool slightly, then beat in the crème fraiche, followed by the sifted icing sugar. Beat until smooth. Store the icing in the fridge until needed. Cut the chocolate cake in half widthwise (is that right? Cut it where the book binding would be, if that makes sense) and each half into 4 layers (I found this hard, it kept breaking, so you could only do 3).  With the top layer, cut that again in half widthwise and stack them on top of each other so it gives a slope. In order to make a neat icing of the layers, line the exact same cake tin that you used with cling film. Put in the first layer, then a layer of icing, and repeat until you have done all of the layers. Place the sponge layer on top and chill in the fridge for an hour. Roll out the white fondant icing and cover the cake. Trim to size and icing out one of your books. It’s time to get creative!