Today I tried Dip Jacks. Not heard of them? These are flapjacks that come complete with a dip – an excellent idea!  I love the sauce in the little bottle and you even get a little pot to put it in for dipping! I’m quite a fan of flapjacks and these were really delicious. Checkout www.dipjacks.com they sell delicious gourmet flapjack fingers with a chocolate dip-in sauce.  The flapjacks are made with natural ingredients and arrive freshly baked in boxes. Follow them on twitter @dipjacks.

Last night I went to Trafalgar Square to watch La Boheme – one of the BP Summer Big Screens. It was a lovely night, although a little chilly and they even gave us free blow up cushions, which came in very handy! There are screens all over the country and a couple more screenings of opera and ballet this summer, so if you are looking for something to do one evening then I can recommend it! We took a little picnic complete with cake. This chocolate tray bake is iced with pink and chocolate ruffle icing and decorated with Hershey’s kisses. My sister went to New York recently and bought these back. I think they make lovely cake decorations! They are American and they begin with H, so I think that counts for entering them into both Alpha Bakes (the theme this month is ‘H’) and United Bakes of America.

Cream together the margarine or butter with the sugar and then beat in the eggs one at a time. Add the milk and vanilla essence. Fold in the flour and cocoa powder until it is all mixed well. Pour the batter into a greased and lined tray and bake in the oven  at 180C for about 1/2 hour (the time will depend on the size of your tray), the cake is done when it is spongy when touched. Remove from the oven at cool on a wire rack.

For the icing use 200g softened unsalted butter and beat with 400g icing sugar and 1-2 tbsp of milk. Divide the icing into 2. To one half add pink food colouring and mix well. I used Sugarflair Spectral Pink Paste. To the other half add cocoa powder to make chocolate icing. I love the look of pink and chocolate together. I used the ruffle technique again like I did on this cake. I think it is really effective and it is quite easy as long as you have the right nozzle. I used Wilton 104 which is a nozzle you can also use for piping roses onto cupcakes. Finally decorate with Hershey’s Kisses so that every square has a kiss on it!

Alpha Bakes is hosted by Caroline Makes and The More than Occassional Baker. United Bakes of America is hosted by Cupcake Crazy Gem. All three are fantastic blogs, have a look!

Please leave a comment, I really appreciate all comments.

Thank you to those of you who bought my Dad’s debut book on Amazon that I wrote about here on my last blog, I hope you enjoy it! If you haven’t done so already then check it out here, it is an excellent book!

Hope you all have a lovely weekend! What is everyone baking this weekend?

Tags: alphabakes, Butter icing, buttercream, cake, chocolate, Hershey's kisses, pink, piping, tray bake, United Bakes of America