chocolate nutella clouds

We have illness in our house this week.  Remember this?  This was the last time the boys were actually properly sick, and it was very coincidentally a year ago, just before Max's 1st birthday party.  With his 2nd birthday this weekend, it's a little unfortunate that we're back here again, but this time with dry, barking coughs and unrivalled fatigue and general lowness and fingers crossed, just about enough time to recover, unlike last year when we had to postpone the festivities.

That said, Ollie's coping with it ok.  He's tired, but he's not fighting the need to sleep which is good, and judging by the way he ate the chocolate cloud nutella cupcakes I made yesterday, his appetite seems to be ok, although I think he'd eat the icing off a cake any day of the week.

Here's the recipe for these intense little mamas, which I made under the ruse of practising for Max's party next weekend (any excuse).  Of course mine didn't turn out quite so cute, but they were pretty good nonetheless.  The frosting, whilst cloud like and pretty spectacular, was actually too much for me and Will, way to buttery and sweet but the cakes themselves... they were arguably the best chocolate cakes I've ever eaten.  And I'm not that big a fan of chocolate cake (a vanilla butter cake is my choice).

But the children loved the frosting, and not so much the cake, so I guess there's a symmetry there that's cute.  It was nice to see them enjoy the messiness of chocolate cupcakes when they were both feeling a little fragile and it was particularly nice to know I could make them feel that way with something so simple.  Yeah, they should have been eating chicken soup but you know as well as I do that was never going to happen.  In fact I did make chicken dumpling soup for dinner with last night's leftover chicken and broth (and predictably the boys didn't touch it) but Will and I loved it and felt great afterwards.  That has to count for something.