Sharing the Chocolate Love

It is a truth universally acknowledged that cake does not last long in an office. At least, it doesn't in my office. It is around for an even shorter length of time if it is of the chocolate variety, as I discovered today.

I had to adhere to that annoying tradition in the workplace - if it is your birthday you have to treat everyone else to cake. This is not a new tradition to me, I've been part of it since I was 2. At playgroup, at milk and biscuit time, if it was your birthday you provided cake for everyone instead of biscuits. The cakes I always had were amazing. They were made by a friend of my mum's, vividly coloured, full of sugar and wonder. My favourite, which I can still remember the smell of, was a cake in the shape of Love-a-lot Bear from Care Bears for my 3rd birthday. Amazing.

Anyway, now I'm an adult the onus is on me myself and not my mum or anyone else to provide cake for my colleagues. This requires considerable effort. Either you spend hours scouring supermarket shelves for the best offers on Mr Kipling's and then still cough up half a month's salary to pay for them, or you slave away in the kitchen covered in flour attempting to 'out-do' other colleagues who must secretly (surely) be related to Nigella Lawson or Jamie Oliver or some other cooking/baking genius. So this year I decided to do what I felt like. I love chocolate and I know what I can make with it, and that's what my colleagues would get, like it or not!

I made my signature, easy-peasy but very delicious, chocolate flapjacks and chocolate cornflake cakes. It's obviously the chocolate that makes them taste so good as they require very little skill to make! I also made some vanilla cupcakes which I then covered with choc fudge icing (licking the saucepan after making that was immensely satisfying). I then had to supplement these with some chocolatey bite-sized snacks from Waitrose as I work with many gannets people who enjoy cake and I didn't have enough time, butter or eggs to make anymore.

To my, admittedly somewhat naive, surprise all of these delights had vanished by lunchtime. I was pleased because they obviously taste all right but quite a few people missed out which means I will have to double my efforts for my last day when more cake shall be required (it's one of those unwritten parts of the contract, or maybe it's somewhere in the font 4 small print *shrug*).

Alas! it seems I am not the only chocoholic in that place. What a relief I'm leaving...

Chocolate for Girls

Most evenings we unwind with an episode of 'West Wing' or 'House', accompanied by a good cup of tea. Sometimes we enjoy a little bit of chocolate or some other delicious but slightly naughty snack. We usually share whatever snack it is we have, but a couple of nights ago we had both chosen different bars of chocolate. My fiance was happily tucking into bar of Montezuma's finest 70% dark chocolate, whilst I enjoyed fig and orange dark chocolate by Seeds of Change. Whilst my fiance made the tea I was amused to read what was printed on the back of my bar:

"Open this wrapper and, summoning all the willpower you can, hold back for just a moment.
First, breathe in this chocolate's aroma: Trinitario cocoa giving the chocolate it's rich complexity. The delicate orange zest with tangerine overtones. All imbued with fragrant figs, ripened under the hot Aegean sun.
Now taste.
By the way, we only use figs from female fig trees (the males being inferior, are discarded). Sexist? Fruitist? Unashamedly yes."

It made me chuckle, especially when my fiance declared, "SEXIST chocolate?", his eyes wide with horror. It reminded me of Yorkie bars a few years ago when they boldly stated that they were 'Not for Girls.' Well, here I have found a far tastier alternative for us women than nasty Nestle. And my fiance was most miffed when I refused to share my chocolate, because it was chocolate for girls... ;)