no to pudding, yes to cake?

As i said in my flourless chocolate cake blog, I dont really sign up to the whole christmas pudding deal but since it was left in my hands to dole out this years christmas meal, quite frankly my much cherished grandad would have gone home were there not something that at least winked towards a traditional christmas desert; so something had to be done. So christmas puddings take months and months to make and I simply refuse to buy ready made things for christmas dinner. I know someday this will probably change and I can see why million of people do buy in ready roasties and already prepared veg, I don't judge anyone for it and there are some really great shortcuts out there but I'm lucky enough that I have enough surplus time to prattle about for a few hours and do everything homemade, so for now i will. So with a christmas pudding out the window a christmas cake was slightly more plausible. Its a lot simpler to make, it doesn't require as much time and as I did, I think you can jazz it up a bit more and just look that bit more special. I will properly blog the recipe at some point but it's long and fiddily and I want to have a look at it and make it as simple and straight forward for you to follow, so for now I'm just going to wet your whistle with a little picture. Enjoy! 

lack of posting...

So there has been a complete and utter breakdown on bloggy communication for a few days.... Unfortunately my Grandma, my little Betty, passed away last week and it has sort of left me with a bit of a void.... Not a lady for cats; she hated them, not a lady for hairdye; she got to the age of 81 without never going near the stuff, this was a  lady for cakes...and biscuits and cookies and flapjack and a million other things. She was a professional cook and I believe she is the reason behind my incessant feeding of people... No one ever went hungry near my little Betty and she moulded my childhood memories to involve me with some biscuit in my hand and crumbs round my mouth. I think this is something I'm trying to recreate with the man friend or any guest that dare cross my threshold, I want new crumby memories! I fear if me and the man ever do have children as they will most definitely grow to resemble that precocious, chocolate craving nit, Augustus Gloop from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory fame, but with the hair of Annie. Such is my need to feed... So my inheritance came as all her cookbooks and cooking bowls. To me, though simple to some, I have inherited jewels and diamonds. Sadly some of the pages in the cookbooks are being eradicated by 20 years of flour and butter and one of the victims is my ultimate childhood best friend, Chocolate Oat Delight. I have searched high and low through the internet and non match up and most include coconut....THIS IS NOT RIGHT!!! So I am pleading with any family members that could have the recipe to come forth and proclaim "I have oats for you!!!" and hopefully their recipe will match up with some of the tiny bits of visible text left in my cookbook. So for now I bid you farewell, I'm off to try and do a bit of remembering and text deciphering. We shall speak soon!