Comfort Book Food

Not only is autumn the perfect excuse to curl up with a book, it’s the perfect excuse for indulging in a cheeky bit of comfort food. So with autumn in full golden, leafy swing and with the final of  The Great British Bake Off this Tuesday *sobs dramatically* all the stars felt aligned for me to get out the mixing bowl, raid the cupboard, and make something yummy.

I headed over to The Little Library Café – a brilliant website full of recipes inspired by the food in books – for ideas. Sure enough, I found a recipe that I not only had the ingredients for, but was inspired by a book (well, series) I had read (well, listened to) as a child.

My sister and I used to borrow cassette tapes of Milly Molly Mandy from the library and listen to them before bed, and just the mention of those three ‘m’s is enough to bring back a flood of guilt at the late fines my mum had to pay when I lost one of the tape sets. She actually ended up having to buy them off the library in the end. Oops.

Sorry mum.

Library fines and childhood guilt aside, Milly Molly Mandy also brings back happy memories of being tucked up in bed, snug as a bug in a rug, listening and laughing and wondering at all her little adventures in the quaint English countryside.

Now it brings back yummy memories.

Chocolate? Love it. Ginger? Love it. Chocolate and ginger all smooshed together in a cake? That right there is a recipe for true and everlasting love.

The recipe itself was really easy to follow (although I did manage to mess up the tin size because I always have to do something at least a bit wrong. It meant I ended up with a slightly flat cake, but it also meant there was extra room for a thick layer of icing. Every cloud). I added chocolate chips to the batter* and I made a mascarpone and chocolate icing rather than butter icing, because the cake mix was quite sugary and I thought the creaminess of the mascarpone would balance out the treaclyness of the sponge (it did).

It’s safe to say that I’ll be staying away from the bathroom scales for the next few weeks, but the deliciousness was worth it.

Now I just have to emotionally prepare myself for Tuesday.

The cake will probably help.

❤

*the more I write about chocolate, the more I realise I should probably go on some sort of detox. This makes my soul hurt.