Day 90. What no Easter Bunny?

The Honeybone Easter Egg hunt has become something of a tradition but this year I was less than organised. It was only when we heard the two 8 year olds rushing around the house trying to find where the Easter Bunny had left their eggs that we realised the first ball of the day had been dropped. Twenty minutes later and a variety of chocolate filled plastic eggs and Haribo easter bags were around the garden with a number of clues leading to their hiding place. The hunt ended with a booty of eggs and chocolate chicks for which of course we gave credit to EB. Not sure if the kids really still believe but watching them run around the garden screaming with excitement makes it worth the while.

Day 45. Made with love.

Love it or loathe it, it can't have escaped your attention that today is Valentine's Day. Yesterday Bea and I spent a happy few hours creating these choccie goodies for her friends at school. There are eight milk chocolate lollies, each one initialed for the intended recipient - seven of them girls and one boy; nice to see she's keeping her options open! We also made our first batch of chocolates and bagged these up with red bows too.

The Tibetan charms say 'made with love' and it's fair to say these were. I hope they're well received, especially this dark chocolate 'K' which has a little more love in it than the rest of them.

Day 19. Willie's Chocolate Factory...well almost.

Last summer I bought Willie's Chocolate Factory Cookbook. Initially I struggled with the constant use of the word 'Cacao', probably because it's an unfamiliar term for me, but the book combines beautifully a selection of recipes, with the story of how this product arrived on our shelves.

Finally today I cooked with this exquisitely packaged Venezuelan Black for the first time, making the chocolate cupcakes featured in the book. Very different to the buttercream topped buns I usually make although not in a bad way.

General view here is that whilst tasty, they are not quite as good as our usual sweeter cakes using Green & Black's chocolate. Sorry Willie! Hopefully the savoury dishes will fair better in the taste test.