BookGang Chocolate Cake

Cake and the BookGang have become synonymous with each other.  Our weekly gatherings seem to have developed quite a trend towards cake.  The guys are now competing with each other on the cake front and even one of the grandmothers has been baking for us.  This is a brilliant trend.  As your librarian and a cake lover I think this should be encouraged!

In the last week of term Chris Harbrow bought along a fantastic chocolate cake with a coffee flavour.  His mum has provided us with the recipe.  It is a great recipe, really easy to make and it makes a very generously sized cake - perfect for 20 boys and a hungry librarian!  I made this cake the other night to take to a meeting of lots of other school librarians and they loved it too, and I promised the recipe would be on the blog, so here it is!

Mrs Harbrows Large Chocolate Coffee Cake
1 3/4 cup sugar, 2 cups flour, 1 tsp baking powder (or 2 cups of self-raising flour), 3/4 cup cocoa (depending on how rich you want it, sometimes 1/2 a cup is enough), 2 tsp baking soda, 1 tsp salt, 2 eggs, 2 tsp vanilla extract, 1 cup strong coffee (aprox 3 tsp instant coffee in 1 cup water), 1 cup milk, 1/2 cup oil.

Mix everything together in a bowl and blend on medium/high speed for 3 minutes.  Bake in oven at 180 degrees for approximately 1 hour to 1 1/2 hours.  (Best to check after 1 hour and make a judgement call on how much longer)  Ice with chocolate or coffee or chocolate and coffee icing!

Percy Jackson and the Titan's Curse by Rick Riordan

Reviewed by Thomas Keane (Year 10) as part of the 50 Book Challenge

I really liked this book, and I give it a 5 our of 5!  I am hooked on this series.  This book is like the 1st and 2nd Percy Jackson books ish!  A group of people set out to save a Artemis, the goddess of the hunt, and Percy follows them to help out and to save Annabeth.  They need to get Artemis back in time for the big meeting where her vote is really important.  It is a really long journey with lots of battles that must be fought.  It is fun and the fighting is awesome!

If you want to find out more about Rick Riordan and his other books try his website here

Welcome back to school for Term 3

Image on Flickr by Merge Merlin Buebynie

There have been no updates here on the blog because of the school holidays when your librarian took to the wilds of Central Otago and surrounds for two weeks (well nearly two weeks) of rest, recreation and reading. 

I have lots of books to review and I know from the hoards of books returned by the avid readers today that there are some great reviews coming from you boys!  Start handing them in now, or you can email them to the address up the top of the blog.

New fiction books are heading to the shelves when there is time to get them processed.  You can look forward to new books such as:


Monsters of Men by Patrick Ness - the third book in the Chaos Walking Trilogy
The Ask and the Answer by Patrick Ness - the second book in the Chaos Walking Trilogy
New books from Darren Shan such as Dark Calling
New copies of lost books such as Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist (a must read for seniors), Lee Child, and Terry Brooks.
Five Greatest Warriors by Matthew Reilly
Under the Dome by Stephen King - it's a great read

Already the BookGang have been in to visit and there are promises of cake for Thursday.  Watch this space for the recipe for Chris's fantastic chocolate cake which we enjoyed on the last BookGang before the holidays.

Remember to fill in your 50 Book Challenge forms the competition is heating up!

Hope your term is full of great learning, lots of great reading and that sometimes you can combine the two.