There is nothing quite like a rainy day to get me in the kitchen, I don't think I comfort eat as much as I boredom cook!  So today I made a rather exciting Chocolate Marble Cake. Delicious!  I'm honestly looking forward to eating this a little later with a cup of tea, and 'O' wants it for pudding.

Makes 1 loaf tin, and rises very well.  This can easily be frozen.

100g dark chocolate, broken into small pieces
120ml milk (I used whole)
110g butter or margarine (actually I used olive spread)
140g caster sugar
1tsp vanilla extract
2 eggs
225g self-raising flour
1tsp baking powder
55g crème fraiche

• Preheat the oven to 150'c (I have a fan, so you may have to heat it a bit more if you don't), and line the loaf tin with greaseproof paper or Teflon.  My tip is to scrunch the greaseproof paper into a tiny ball, wet it and wring it out, it is now fully mould-able to fit your tin.
• Cream the butter, sugar and vanilla extract together until pale and fluffy, beat in the eggs one at a time
• Add the self-raising flour and baking powder, crème fraiche and 60mls milk, beat well.
• Put half of the cake mixture into a separate bowl.
  
• Melt the chocolate with the remaining 60mls milk, I did this in the microwave.  I heated for 30s on full, stirred, then another 20s.
• Add the chocolate mixture to one half of the cake mixture, mix well.
• Using one spoon for each bowl of cake mixture, blob alternating cake mixtures into the loaf tin, to create the marbled cake.
• Cook for about an hour, or until a knife inserted through the middle comes out clean.  I had to put tin-foil on the top of my cake after 40mins to prevent it from burning on top.
  
• Remove from the oven, leave to cool in the tin for about 10mins, then lift out of the tin using the greaseproof paper.  I found the paper peeled off easily, so the cake could finish cooling on the wire rack.
  

Seriously?

Do children that ask 'what's that?' continually eventually ask less 'why?' questions?!!

My day is tormented by my curious eldest constantly breaking every single thought process I might have with the innocuous little question.  'What's that' and 'whachannna doing?'  Well, that is the letter U, T, K, the number 9, a fish, a jelly fish, I'm looking at the rain, I'm cleaning up after lunch, I'm changing your nappy, etc etc!

I love him, he's ridiculously funny, and gorgeous, and how can you even want to suppress such a fantastic little mind?  But just 5 minutes peace would not go amiss!

Today, it's raining.  So we're stuck indoors making the most of a page of stickers and trying to avoid sticking the tele on.