I know I have posted about this before but it is that time of year again…. my husband’s birthday and this year Zoe made him a spacerocket ice-cream cake with smarties and chocolate buttons and to switch it up a little bit, brunch ice-cream.

Blowing out the candles before they melt the cake!!

Ingredients:

• 2 Litres Ice-Cream of your choice ( we used HP Brunch )

To Decorate:

• Chocolate Buttons
• Mini-Smarties
• Milky Bar Discs
• Smarties

To Make:

Take the ice-cream out of the freezer to let it soften. Get a 21cm Cake tin and line it with cling film with extra dropping over the edges.

When the ice-cream has softened, spoon it into the lined cake tin pushing down to ensure it fills the tin completely.

Cover completely with cling film and place back in the freezer for at least 4 hours.

Take the ice-cream cake out of the freezer, remove the cling film lid and turn it upside down onto a cake board or plate, then remove the rest of the cling film.

Now the Fun bit! Decorating.

Space rocket ice-cream cake

Zoe decorated this cake with smarties in the shape of a space rocket, the moon and stars. If you give your child free reign to design their own cake theme it will just add to the fun and excitement for them. As ice-cream can be tricky to decorate without melting, I recommend you set out your design on a plate first so you leave as little time as possible decorating the cake outside of the freezer.

With Pancake Tuesday around the corner I had to post a recipe for some of the tastiest pancakes around.

This recipe is my husband’s creation, they are savoury pancakes but they go very well with some sweet additions like jam or banana and honey.

Ingredients:

• 300 ml of milk
• 2 eggs
• 175 g of plain cream flour
• 10 g of caster sugar
• Half teaspoon of turmeric
• Half teaspoon of paprika
• Pinch of ground cumin
• Pinch of garam masala

Butter for frying

Method:

Put all the ingredients into a bowl or jug and blend until mixed evenly.

Let settle for 30 mins

Heat some butter in a pan, pour a portion of the pancake batter and fry on a medium heat for approximately 2 to 3 minutes each side until golden. Repeat, this batter should make between 6 to 8 pancakes.

These pancakes can be served with your favourite toppings, our favourites are: jam, banana and honey, cheese and rashers and of course the traditional lemon and sugar.