F1 Foods: Belgium roundup and the next challenge: Italy

The Belgian Grand Prix gave me a great excuse to make a Belgian chocolate cake! Actually I was going to make it anyway and realised afterwards I could enter it into Formula 1 Foods - it was a practice run for making a wedding cake! I'd never made a 12 inch cake before so had no idea how long it would take in the oven so wanted a run through, and that weekend was pretty much the only one I had free before the wedding of Ros from The More Than Occasional Baker, who is getting married in only a short number of weeks! I'm glad I made it when I did as I will now have even less free time.... as I have to start wedding planning myself. I got engaged last weekend!

So here's the chocolate wedding cake I made - you're not going to see it in all it's glory as I don't want anyone to see how it is going to be decorated yet!

Suelle from Mainly Baking made these Belgian-inspired chocolate, peanut and biscuit spread cookie bars which I'm getting hungry just thinking about! She used Speculoos biscuit spread, peanut butter and chopped roasted peanuts. Suelle said she doesn't think they were entirely successful but they look pretty good to me!

 

I've never heard of Carbonnades Flamandes so thanks to Jane from Onions and Paper for introducing me to it. From the name I expected it to be a sweet dish for some reason but it's actually a beef and ale stew - a great idea to use Belgian beer. And just the thing for a cold day which we have unfortunately had rather too many of in August!

 

Funnily enough the final entry was also a Belgian Carbonnade, this time from Elizabeth at the Law Student's Cookbook.  She served it with bread and apple sauce which sounds like a nice combination.

 

The next Formula 1 Grand Prix is in Italy, over 4-6 September. I'm giving you until Weds 16th to get your Italian recipes in (as I will be away and can't do the roundup any earlier) so that's plenty of time!