Review: Paperchase Recipe File

After realising all of my recipe's were scattered on bits of paper, in random recipe books and on my blog, I thought it was time to get them organised and put them all together in one file! So as I love stationary and organising so much anyway I knew the place to go would be PAPERCHASE! *Celebratory dance*

Paperchase have so many different files to choose from with different designs on the front too, so the one I chose is this 'Hand-drawn recipe file' (available online here). This file costs £15.00 which to begin with I did think it was a little pricey for somewhere to keep your recipes in but it actually has so many different compartments inside, is designed so well with the little hand drawings throughout the file and it even comes packaged in a nice box!

So here are some photo's of what's inside, and yes, that is a chocolate cupcake in a tea cup case..

I have started to write some of my recipes in this book but I haven't quite decided which order I want things in yet. I've also decided to only write down recipes I've actually used and know are great - and one of my favourite things about this file is that there are little pockets throughout the file to keep little magazine cuttings and notes for recipes you might want to try out before actually writing them down. And if you do write a recipe in the 'wrong' section of the book or want to rearrange some of the pages, you can due to it being a ring binder!

It includes stickers for the tabs and stickers for you to write your own label and even a conversion chart which I know I'll find useful. It also includes a 'dinner party' planning section which is great - I'll just have to throw a party for an excuse to use it, right?

Abigail x

Quick & Easy Chocolate Orange Cake

Christmas is a time when we usually receive quite a few boxes of chocolates, so over the Christmas holidays this last year I decided to be a bit more creative and make something with some of them. So here's my recipe for a Terry's Chocolate Orange Cake! I didn't really know how to go about making this so I found a recipe for a microwave chocolate cake and just swapped the cocoa powder ingredients for the melted chocolate.

Ingredients:

• 100g Margerine
• 75g Self-Raising Flour
• 100g Caster Sugar
• 2 tbls Water
• 2 Eggs
• 1/2 tsp Baking Powder
• 1 Terry's Chocolate Orange

Method:

In one bowl I broke up the chocolate and put in the microwave for a couple of minutes until it had melted, and in the other bowl I added all of the other ingredients together. When the chocolate had melted I added it all to the bowl with the other ingredients in and whisked them together.

I cooked my cake in the microwave on high power for 6 minutes, which was what the original recipe suggested. Although some microwaves may need more or less time, it worked pretty well for mine despite how messy it looks.

Then simply turn it upside down onto a plate and ta-daa, I also added cream but that's totally up to you!

Let me know if you like to make anything in-particular with your Christmas chocolates. You can see some other yummy recipes I wouldn't mind making on my pinterest board here.

Abigail x