Club chocolate messes with my life

I went to the supermarket after work today and came home and got myself all ready to make the world’s best ever chocolate cake for dinner guests tomorrow night and what did I discover but that in the new packaging Nestlé Club chocolate is only 180 grams, no longer 200 grams. I need 150 gms to make this cake. This used to be easy – six of the eight rows. But tonight I stood there perplexed and then had to get the calculator out to do 24(number of pieces)/180 x 150, – because once upon a time I did Pure Maths at university, and if you'd asked me then "if 180 gms of chocolate is 24 pieces how many pieces is 150 gms?" I'd have done it in a flash, but I haven’t used it since and was being lazy (and a bit exactingly curious too) – and then use six and two-thirds rows of the chocolate.

Nestlé is messing with my life (and I know they are messing with the lives of babies in Africa too, or used to be). If you have ever been to my house for dinner you have no doubt had this cake, at least the first time. If you come again, and I can remember that you have been before, I’ll make something different (which is not always an improvement – I tried this on the last guests, which was interesting), but the first time is usually the worlds best ever chocolate cake, especially if you come on a weeknight. When I am being pious I call it the "ministry cake". That’s because it has six ingredients, is easy to make, tastes amazing, and because it’s like a big slice of brownie you can eat it like cake or have it warm with ice-cream and some kind of fruit – and then just put the rest in the freezer to be pulled out whenever required.

I don’t know that I am up to sharing the recipe with the world-wide-web though. I feel a bit like Marilla Cuthbert, or some other village baking lady, who has her secret recipe. If you want my cake you have to either invite me to your thing or visit me.

The worst, or maybe the best, of it is that there are less pieces of chocolate hanging around when I'm finished.