Its my 1st yr blogaversary - Baking Mad giveaway

My blog is one year old today!

Where has that year gone from my first post to now, where has all that food gone *looks down at widening hips*, where have all these foodie friends/fellow bloggers, Twitter/Facebook, Clandestine Cake Clubbing, hen loving/keeping followers come from? Well I'm not really sure, its all a bit of a wonder to be honest, but I love my new found blogging hobby, and my new found acquaintances and people I now like to call 'friends' and I wanted to express many heartfelt thanks to those of you who have read, followed, trusted me to review, commented on and supported my blog in its first year. Many, many thanks.

Susan x  

Time to celebrate with a slice or two of cake...and because this post has a birthday theme its about baking cakes at home that would be suitable for a birthday cake, for children or for grown ups. I know you can go to a range of well known supermarkets and buy (quite cheaply too) a ready made cake, and they don't taste too badly either. But whatever is in those cakes, however cheap they are and however character themed/attractive they are, such cakes will never match the taste of a homemade cake, and trust me when I say people do remember a cake that's been made FOR them, but by next birthday they will have forgotten last years shop bought cake.

So here is a simply easy family recipe for an easy but moist, chocolate rich, delicious cake that would be more than acceptable as a birthday cake, no fancy decoration required really and the only skill you need is to be able to a) make a sponge and b) make some chocolate fudge type topping. You won't even need a food mixer to make this cake, its that simple and as it contains sunflower oil no creaming or major arm breaking beating is required. The sunflower oil helps to make the cake moist and light too.

Stick a few candles on top of that cake and its a complete triumph. Or just have it as a dessert, or as a treat.  The recipe for this cake came from the Baking Mad website, I am a frequent visitor and a member of that site (there is a baking/members forum there and I add some of my own recipes, try some of Baking Mad's recipes and have a look at whats going on, the competitions they have are quite good too...its free to join the site).

And...while its my blogaversary the kindly folk at Baking Mad have given me a range of Silver Spoon cake decorating goodies to give away.

To enter this giveaway just leave a comment below and briefly describe to me the best birthday cake you remember having, as a child or as an adult, and where it was from? This is just ONE opportunity to enter there are other chances too. For a second entry tweet about the giveaway. For a third entry follow @TwitTottee on Twitter, and let me know below you have done so below. For a fourth entry follow A Little Bit of Heaven on a Plate and 'like' that page on Facebook and let me know below you have done so below. Its easy peasy if you FOLLOW THE RAFFLE COPTER INSTRUCTIONS BELOW.

You have 7 days to enter, the deadline is midnight on 8th February 2012 and you must live in the UK to take part. Winners will be chosen by me (its my blogiversary party after all). One lucky person will receive a parcel of goodies from Baking Mad from the Silver Spoon cake making/decorating range, this will include vanilla sachets, chocolate cake topping, jelly drops, fudge pieces, chocolate hearts, white chocolate stars and giant snowies. I'm sure this bundle of goodies will be a very welcome addition to your baking stocks and that along with the Baking Mad website will help to give you lots of cake decorating inspiration.

My thanks to Baking Mad for providing this lovely cake decorating inspired giveaway.

N.B Baking Mad have not given me any recompense or asked me to say nice things about the Baking Mad website or the recipes on there. I made this cake with ingredients I paid for because I wanted to. a Rafflecopter giveaway