Another family birthday so another birthday cake. Since I'm finding the little oven (in the little kitchen in the little flat) a bit temperaturemental (I slightly over-browned (burned) my Dad's birthday cake last week), I decided to try something a bit different for daughter R's birthday. I had a mad pancake making session one evening last week as I just mixed far too much pancake batter (using freshly ground buckwheat flour), so froze the surplus pancakes. I then made some homemade Nutella from the Deliciously Ella cook book, defrosted the pancakes and made a layered pancake cake with pancake spread with nutella, then whipped double cream and then repeated with about 6 pancakes. I melted some dark chocolate and drizzled this on the top in an appealing swirly way. Then I added single cream to the remaining melted chocolate with some maple syrup to make a thick and sweet chocolate sauce. Mmmmmmm. It looked good (or interesting  as described by R) AND tasted really good. 

The baking session was not over as I made a sourdough loaf and some sourdough cheese scones. I was really pleased with the loaf as for some reason my more recent loaves have been a bit undercooked and doughy. Definitely disappointing. I've no idea why, but changed the recipe a bit to put in slightly less water and then baked at 220c for 1 hour in the cloche instead of the usual 45 at 200c and 15 at 200c. I managed to get the rising timing right as well, including overnight in the fridge, which is a bit challenging in the recent warm weather. 

I'll add some photo's when I get organised!