Another awesome Bebop AMV

Another AMV I found on Mrs Spooky’s page about the movie, with Johnny Cash’s “God’s Gonna Cut You Down”. Really awesome. I love the way they changed the colours and made it kind of zoom in to the beat. Clever .

Hospital Beds

So eh, yeah. I don’t know how this came about. I was just thinking of something to write about and THIS happened! Hurrah. There’s probably too much dialogue, and it doesn’t really have a proper ending or message – it’s just a bit of fun. Enjoy! Oh, and the title’s based on the song by Cold War Kids.

HOSPITAL BEDS

Spike opened one eye and it met with a dazzling artificial light that gave him a headache. He closed it again and felt around him for signs of where he was. A bed, judging by the sheets and pillows. There was a beeping noise not far off, and some quiet talking going on at the other end of the room.
“Uh…” he managed to mumble. Nothing happened, so he opened his eye again. The ceiling was tiled, with boring strip lights glowing over head. The bleeping was coming from a monitor to his right, a familiar green line wiggling across the tiny screen.

Hospital. Great. Now if he could just remember how he’d got here.
“Uh…” he said again. There were footsteps and a shadow fell across him. “He’s coming round, Doctor.” A woman’s voice. Must be the nurse. Another shadow came up on his right. It smelled of mint and cigarettes. Mmm cigarettes.
“You got a cigarette, doc?” Spike mumbled to the old doctor. The man didn’t reply. He just leaned down, uncomfortably close, forced open one of Spike’s eyes and shone a light in it, causing the pain in his head to triple.
“Pupils still dilated.”
“I need a cig…”
“There’s no smoking in here, sir,” the nurse said sympathetically in a sweet southern drawl. She was holding his chart as if it were the key to his entire life, which was probably more true than Spike would have liked. He wished she’d put it down. “You’re much, much too sick for cigarettes.”
“No!” Spike said, all of a sudden feeling panicky. His head gave a horrible throb. “Never! Never…”
“Are you ok, sir?” the nurse asked. Spike was gripping the sheets as if he was having a bad dream. “Doctor, he’s still having symptoms. Over-reaction, loss of control…”
“Then apply the correct procedures, Molly,” the doctor said exasperatedly, moving on to the next patient. “You know what those are, don’t you?”
“Y- Yes sir!”
“Molly?” Spike’s voice was weak.
“Mmm?”
“You don’t smoke, do you?”
“Oh no, sir, it’s bad for you!” Molly said, getting something from a cabinet. “My ex-boyfriend did though. I thought he was just the sweetest thing in all the world until I caught him sleeping with my dirty, cheatin’ whore of a sister. And then he went and blew all his money on the roulette at Uncle Mo’s, dunno if you know it, and he got in trouble with the cops and now he’s been put away for a very, very long time. I mean, I’m just so angry at him that he could die tomorrow and I wouldn’t give a tink.”
Spike carefully raised an eyebrow. Despite being extremely cute, Molly’s bedside manner needed work. Realizing what she’d just said, Molly quickly turned to face him, blushing from a mixture of hatred and embarrassment. And before Spike could respond, she stabbed a long needle into his arm. Spike fell into a happy sleep.

“Uh…”
“You’re awake!”
“Uh.”
“And I must say that last one improved your condition a lot! You should be ok this time around, your heart rate’s back to normal anyway.”
Spike wondered where he was. He couldn’t remember anything, but his stomach was grumbling more than Faye and he wondered when he’d last eaten.
Someone forced his eye open and shone a light in it. There was a faint whiff of perfume. “Oh and your eyes are back to normal too. Well, I say normal…” Molly giggled pleasantly.
Spike felt the room come into focus. Hospital. Great. But he was feeling better as each second passed.
“Once you wake up properly you should be able to leave, it takes a little while for all the drugs to wear off. But the swelling on your arm’s gone down and everything’s just great.”
“Is there any food in this place? Real food? The type you can recognize without having to read the can.”
“Well, it’s steak day today, but by now it’ll only be vegetables.” Molly began plumping up the pillows and straightening the sheets. “I’m sorry, it’s one of those things. We run out of steak by two o’ clock and from then on it’s just broccoli and cauliflowers, you know?”
Spike groaned. No food, and probably no cigarettes. He wondered whether the nurse might have one. “Do you have any cigarettes?”
“We’ve been through that already, Mr Spiegel!” Molly said, turning red despite of herself. “And I told you there’s no smoking.”
“Man, I always wondered why I hated hospitals. I could murder a Ganymede lobster around now.”
“Sorry, sir, we don’t serve that here. I’m surprised you still like those things after what happened.”
“Huh?”
Some vague image flashed in Spike’s mind, but it wasn’t very clear.
“What’s your name?”
“Molly. Molly Wiggs. I’m only a trainee nurse at the moment and I’m not the best in my class but I get to look after the patients that need injections. I’m real good at stabbing people with needles.” She giggled again.
“It’s a good trait to have, I guess.” She checked his pulse and then gave a huge sigh that was almost a sob.
“In all honesty, Mr Spiegel, I’m going to miss you when you leave. We all will. You know, you mutter some real crazy stuff in your dreams, and me and the girls like to spend our quiet afternoons in here just to hear you. Some of it’s pretty difficult to decipher but some of it’s so funny I couldn’t have made it up if I tried! I mean, ‘Save the Ganymede Sea Rats’? Ain’t that just the cutest thing? You a pirate or something, Mr Spiegel?”
Spike cringed. They listened to him?

“How’d I get here anyway?” he said, quickly changing the subject.
“Oh the paramedics brought you in. Apparently your ship landed in the dock and nobody was paying so the dock workers broke in, found y’all looking as dead as doornails and phoned us. Well, that was around two weeks ago now. You’re the only one left.”
“The only one…?”
“… of your crew!”
“Huh? They’re dead?!”
Molly snorted, but in a nice way. “No, silly! They all left, said something about going to Ganymede to party it up until you recovered. Not a good idea if I may give my professional opinion, but it sure beats hanging around this dump, I suppose! Oh yeah, I nearly forgot! They left you a cake!”
Spike suddenly became very uneasy as Molly reached under the bed and pulled out a paper plate with what looked like a chocolate sponge plonked untidily on top, covered in cling-film. He thought it was chocolate because it was brown, but it might not have been chocolate.
“Your girlfriend made it, she said she thought you’d like it after all you’ve been through. Would you like a slice now?”
“Huh? Faye’s not my… And I’ll pass, thanks,” Spike said before Molly could unwrap it, edging away from the cake as if it were some bomb that was about to go off. “Er… So what happened to me back on the ship? I hardly remember anything.”
“Well, when they brought y’all in you had these terrible marks on you, like you’d been bitten by some kind of purple radioactive alien or something! I mean that big guy – the one with the beard and the creepy arm – he was barely even breathing! Of course we got him up and about again a few days later, same with your girlfriend.”
“She’s not -” Spike mumbled again, but Molly kept steamrollering on.
“She’s a real tough cookie, though, you two must make a real cute couple. At one point Doctor Everett said she’d have to stay in longer than expected, and she kicked him real hard in between his legs and started shouting stuff about how he’d been harassing her the whole time! He had to take the rest of the afternoon off, the poor dear.”
“Yeah, that’s Faye alright.” Spike pulled himself into a sitting position and studied his arm. It was all coming back to him now. The fridge, the lobster, the flame-thrower, the airlock… He’d set the Bebop to land on Mars! That explained the landing. So here they were. Well, here he was. Everyone else was apparently on Ganymede, sucking up cocktails while he had nothing to eat but cabbages, brussels sprouts and a not-chocolate cake.

“What about Ed?”
“Oh you mean that strange little creature that was on your ship too? She’s so darling! She took that cute puppy dog of yours to the vet, then spent sixteen hours straight jumping up and down on one of the beds in Ward 15 shouting rhymes at the top of her lungs. The doctors tried to get her to stop until she bit them and they left her alone! Must be a real whale of a time on your ship, Mr Spiegel. Y’all so eccentric, but so kind-hearted too. I wish my family were like that but we don’t get along too well. Mainly ’cause of my rotten, lousy whore of a sister… Oh, but I told you all about that bitch already, you probably don’t wanna hear any more!” Molly giggled nervously again, although thinking about her sister caused a sadness to creep over her pretty face.
“You wanna share the cake?” Spike asked, as a half-hearted attempt at comfort. While under any other circumstances the cake would’ve been floating away into the dark depths of space before you could say Sporkey Dokey, his stomach gave an angry grumble that seemed to say Listen up, pal! If you don’t eat something now I will make you suffer.
“Aww! Ain’t you a sweetheart? But it’s hospital policy never to accept gifts. I’ll cut you up a slice, though. It sure looks good!” She got a knife and fork from a cupboard and set about cutting up the cake with difficulty. It seemed to have a strange crust on top like a loaf of stale bread. Yum.
It wasn’t chocolate. Spike didn’t know what flavour it was. It was strangely bitter. Had Faye left out an ingredient, or had she added something? He nearly choked at the thought.
“Yummy, huh?”
“Mmm…” Spike mumbled, his mouth full of flat, burnt sponge. He managed to swallow the slice after chewing it gingerly for a couple of minutes. His stomach grumbled ominously.

Just then, the door of the ward swung open and the rest of the Bebop’s motley crew trooped in.
“Ganymede’s night life is so much better than I remember,” Faye was saying. “I didn’t know anyone could drink that many banana daiquiris before they started projectile vomiting.”
“It was a real sight to behold. Kinda brought a tear to my eye,” Jet sniffed.
Faye rumpled Spike’s hair and then gasped, studying his face as if he’d grown an extra eye. “Hey! He’s actually eating it!”
“You’re kidding?” Jet peered around for the evidence.
“Look there’s a slice missing!”
“He managed to cut into it?!”
“Yeah, and he didn’t even spill a crumb!”
“He must have one indestructible stomach.”
Ed said nothing.

Faye poked the cake with a finger. “I’m surprised you managed to eat that entire slice. We ran out of most of the ingredients so I had to improvise: salt instead of sugar, oil instead of butter; that kind of thing.”
Spike did gag then, but his stomach seemed to be clinging onto the not-chocolate cake like a lifeline. “I’m gonna kill you…” he choked hoarsely, and Faye pretended she didn’t hear. She’d actually gone out of her way to bake him a cake. He didn’t know whether to find it terrifying or heartwarming.
“Don’t you owe me for getting our asses back to Mars?” he said, once his voice had come back.
“We owe Ed. She’s the one who got rid of the monster.”
“What?!”
“Don’t ask me how she did it but it worked much better than your stupid macho attempt. I mean, a flame-thrower? What was that about? Boys, you always over-complicate matters. If you had any sense at all you’d leave it to the girls to solve the real problems.”
Spike was speechless. Partly because of what she’d just said, partly because the cake was still refusing to go down properly.

A few hours later, he was up and changed and feeling perfectly healthy except for a mild stomach cramp. Molly was standing behind the reception desk, ticking off the last few things on the chart.
“Do I really have to leave, Molly?” The prospect of going back to the Bebop didn’t seem all that bright and shiny now. The nurse ripped off a piece of paper and handed it to him.
“Sorry, Mr Spiegel! We’ll be sad to see you go. Here’s your bill.”
“My…?”
“25,000 woolongs altogether. 2 weeks in a bed with constant monitoring. Mr Black paid for you already, but there’s a little extra interest.”
Spike felt all the colour drain out of his face. Jet was going to kill him. His friends were all waiting for him back on the Bebop, and Ed had taken the cake as well for some reason.
“Ok, thanks Molly! Thanks for everything!”
“Bye, Mr Spiegel! Hope you manage to save the sea rats!”

Back on the Bebop, Jet was cooking dinner. It smelled wonderful. Spike’s mouth was watering as the crew sat around the coffee table, ready to dig in to whatever sumptuous meal had been painstakingly created. Jet brought it out on a silver platter. Faye gasped as the beautiful red carapace was revealed amongst a bed of lush greens.
“Isn’t that…?” she said, dazzled by its beauty.
“It sure is.”
“Oh wow, Jet!”
“You see, Spike? This is what a real Ganymede lobster is meant to look like. Not purple goop with anger issues.”
“Well excuse me for saving all your lives.”
“You owe me 25,000. I shouldn’t be letting you eat this at all,” Jet said, gruffly.
“Then why are you?” Spike grinned, ungratefully grateful.
Jet sighed, and they tucked in. Everything was back to normal.

SEE YOU, SPACE COWBOY…

Black Bird Blues

Spike, Julia and Vicious during the time Spike’s being healed at Julia’s apartment. I always wondered about Vicious’ bird. Where’d he get it? Does it have a name? Does he really care about it? Why did he keep it? This doesn’t really answer those questions, but it was a lot of fun to write. I actually wrote two versions, one funny one and one more badass but still funny one (aka this one).

BLACK BIRD BLUES

It was a major operation. Syndicate members flocked to the building like flies to a light, and Vicious was the ring leader. He stood there in his huge black coat, hands in pockets, commanding authority. He was forbidding enough even without his trademark katana at his side, let alone surrounded by people whose faces had been slashed and beaten up so many times they resembled nothing but scars with mouths. Julia stood to his right, speedily shouting orders into her communicator, feeling tense about what was about to go down. Vicious glanced at her, and she nodded. Time to go.

The building they drove to was huge. It had been abandoned for years and the agency that was trying to rent the place had evidently given up long ago. It was the perfect place for two syndicates to go head to head, in the middle of the desolate warehouse district in Tharsis where nobody was around to alert the ISSP.

Shin parked at the other end of the street, out of the artificial glow of the street lamps. Without saying a word, everyone got out of the car and began walking towards the open mouth of the warehouse. It was quiet except for the sound of heavy breathing and, if you listened really closely, the sound of everyones hand on a gun.
They stepped into the cavernous room. There was a shuffling in the shadows around the building, up in the rafters things stirred and rattled the chains that hung from the ceiling.

“Vicious.” Someone hidden in the darkness made a sudden movement, a gun swung up from out of nowhere and met with the sharp edge of a sword. Vicious’ eyes were wide, his teeth were bared.
“So the Red Dragons think they can come here and take our property. This is the seventh time, Vicious. We’re not happy.” The man with the gun walked into the moonlight and Julia saw him properly for the first time. He was short, with slick, greasy black hair and a thin mustache squiggled like a worm on his upper lip. He was wearing an expensive white suit, and his fingers were covered in heavy gold rings. Gangster much? Julia thought. There was a bird on the man’s shoulder, a huge, beautiful black bird with a long, thin neck and eyes like shiny black stones. Julia had never seen anything like it. As if it knew she was looking, its head twisted towards her and it screeched a tremendous “AWWWK!”.
“Neither are we,” Vicious said, unperturbed by his enemy or the bird. His cold voice was a veritable whisper, “you owe us nineteen men and three hundred million in Red Eye.”
“That much? Well, we did tell your Elders we were good, right boys?” The last bit was directed at the room in general. Leering, snivelling sniggers emanated from various dank corners.
“If you stop now, we can prevent any harm coming to either party. If you don’t…” Vicious’ knuckles turned white as he gripped his katana.
“Well, how can we refuse such a peaceful offer?” the boss said, turning his back and once again addressing the crowd. He was calm, laid back. He stopped, checked his cufflinks and smoothed back his greasy hair. “You know the problem with you Red Dragons?” He said, turning. He walked closer to Vicious and clapped him on the shoulder like he was confiding in his best friend. “You’re too old-fashioned. You think being a syndicate is all about killing and murder and being feared. It’s not. Not anymore. But you know what? Your way is all fun and games. So we’ll let you have your fun tonight. I’ve got a real party lined up.”

Julia didn’t even anticipate Vicious’ next move. He swung suddenly with his sword and sliced straight through the unfortunate man, before moving on to the people standing in shadow around him. The bird took off in a flurry of black feathers as bullets started to rain down on them. The chaos began. Julia ducked and dived behind crates and stanchions, shooting amidst the noise and wild movement around her. Men fell from the walkways, crates fell from other crates and some idiot decided to throw a grenade. Julia edged away from the blast and felt something soft touch her back. She whirled around, gun raised, to find Vicious standing behind her, his sword thoroughly bloodied and a lion-like grimace on his pale face. “We need to get to the other end. Run, I’ve got your back.”

Julia ran as fast as she could to the other end. Bullets whizzed around her, one grazed her leg and she stumbled. She heard Vicious behind her, firing at unseen enemies and heard more shouts and thuds of bodies hitting the floor. She managed to get up and kept running until she reached the back of the warehouse.
“You go that way.” Vicious pointed with his gun and Julia headed right. She took a couple of men by surprise, shooting them from behind. She creeped up on one man who thought she was his buddy who’d gone to nick some smokes. “Holy shit, a woman!” he shouted in amazement, before the butt of Julia’s gun made contact with his jaw.

After much confusion and screaming, things began to calm down a bit. Julia found Vicious again, busily slicing his way through the last few bewildered henchmen. He wiped the bloody sword on his even bloodier coat and sheathed it, then made his way to the centre of the room. A couple of bullets pinged in his direction, but were quickly silenced by the Red Dragons.
“Easier than expected,” Vicious said, completely unfazed by the whole thing as usual. He checked his watch. “We’re half an hour ahead of time.” From above them came a whirl of feathers and beak and talon. The bird shrieked and came to a rest on Vicious’ shoulder. Julia stared at it, wondering what terrible fate Vicious would now bestow upon it. But her lover merely turned his steely gaze on her and motioned for her to follow him from the old, abandoned warehouse, empty except for dead men. His hands were in his pockets, his katana was at his side and now a black bird rested on his shoulder, oblivious to everything but its new master.

*

It was 2am. Spike was stretched out on the sofa of Julia’s apartment, his leg propped up with pillows and his face buried in a book. Calming hotel jazz was playing quietly in the background and there were cigarettes and a bottle of whisky on the coffee table beside him. It was the epitome of bliss. Except for being unable to move.

There was the scratching of keys at the door and Julia pushed it open. She flicked on the hall light as Vicious came through the door in a rush of black feathers and swishing trench coat, followed by an almighty “AWWK!”. Spike looked up.
“Yo.” Then, since no one else seemed to be noticing it: “What’s with the bird?”

“I think it suits you,” Julia said. Vicious had sat himself in an armchair. She stroked the bird’s long head gently with the tip of her finger. “You look like a pirate.”
“A pirate?” Vicious mumbled. He glanced at himself in the mirror. His face was still bloodstained, as were his hands and coat. The bird stared at itself and squawked again.
“More like a wizard,” Spike suggested from the couch. “Don’t they use vultures?”
“No, and it’s not a vulture,” Julia pointed out. The bird flapped wildly, flinging black feathers into the air.
“You don’t say… What do wizards have, then?” Spike asked, putting down his book and scratching his head in confusion. “Owls?”
“Ravens?”
“Wasn’t it magpies?”
“Maybe crows.”
“Crows, yeah.”
“But I’m pretty sure it was ravens. Anyway,” Julia said to Vicious, “it seems to like you.”

“I have places I need to be. I will buy food on my way home.” Vicious stood up.
“Couldn’t quickly go and pick me up a triple cheese chicken pizza could ya? I haven’t had anything to eat since lunch time.”
“I meant for the bird.”
Spike lit up a cigarette and lied back, an arm behind his head. “You’d buy food for that thing but not your best friend? I actually feel a little hurt about that.”
“When you stop unashamedly leeching from others I might reconsider. Until then…”
“Hey! How’d you like seventy stitches in your chest, huh? And when you find yourself at the mercy of people you trust, don’t come looking to me for sympathy.”
“You brought it on yourself,” Vicious returned Spike’s pissed-off look with his usual expressionless one. “Julia, I’ll see you tomorrow.”
They kissed, the bird squawked. Spike poured himself a glass of whisky and then Vicious departed.

“Well that was new,” Spike said. “Y’know, I don’t think if I’ve ever seen him look so tenderly at anything before.” He downed the alcohol. “Not even you. Is he gonna keep it?”
Julia took a seat at the desk and examined her injured leg. The bullet had just missed her calf, but she’d managed to bandage it roughly in the car, and the bleeding had mostly stopped. It still stung like a bitch, though. She stole Spike’s whisky in hopes of dulling the pain a little.
“Well I think it’s safe to say he won it fair and square,” she said after a huge gulp.
“Actually,” Spike said, absently thumbing through the rest of his book, “it might be good for him to have a pet to care for. I mean, it’s quite a big responsibility when you think about it. Feeding it, cleaning up after it…” He mulled this over and blew a smoke ring. “I give it three days before it flies away.”

SEE YOU SPACE COWBOY…

Awesome Cowboy Bebop AMV

Found this on MrsSpooky’s page, it’s awesome. Captures everything about CBop so brilliantly, the family spirit of the crew and the sadness of the ending. I love it. The song fyi is August Moon by Dylan In The Movies.

Songwriter’s Block

Ok, I really want to write a song, and I keep coming up with good ideas, but I just lose it after about 20 minutes or so. I’d really like to write that epic meta wizard rock Platform 9 3/4 song I’ve been dreaming about for ages, but it will be a miracle if I pull it off exactly the way I want, I’ll probably have to just settle for second best on that score.

I think I’ll keep going at it, I’ll come up with something eventually. I’ve got a lot of stuff in the pipeline, bits and pieces that need re-arranging and sticking together. I may also have to settle for 8 or 10 songs on the album instead of 13, although to be honest I’d prefer it that way, seeing as there are a lot of chapters I’d rather not write about.

Time Lord Rock is also a big thing I want to work on. I think my Trock music, true to its namesake, has taken me somewhere I wasn’t expecting to go. I think my production skills have much improved since I’ve been doing it, and I’m just really proud of the songs I’ve written for it. Not to say it’s better than Wizard Rock, obviously, but it’s just a different aspect. I don’t really want to write songs like Beyond the Veil or 16 Years Ago for Trock.

But whatever. I’ve just been feeling odd lately, after everything that happened in London it’s been kind of weighing on my mind. I guess these things happen, but it’s still extremely annoying. XD

Recipe – Gingerbread Men

This is a great Delia recipe for gingerbread men. We made other shapes such as stars and moons too. They’re really easy to make and fun to decorate and, most importantly, they taste amazing.

If they try to run, they won't get very far!

8 oz (225 g) plain flour
3 oz (75g) soft brown sugar
3 ½ oz (95g) butter or margarine
2 tablespoons golden syrup
1 tablespoon black treacle
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon ginger
½ teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
2 oz (50 g) currants (optional)
finely grated rind ½ orange (optional)
1 pinch ground cloves (optional)

(Makes about 20)

1. Pre-heat the oven to 180ºC /350ºF/Gas 4. Grease a baking tray or cut out greaseproof paper.

2. Put the sugar, syrup, treacle, 1 tbspn water, spices and rind together in a large saucepan. Bring them to boiling point, stirring all the time.

3. remove the pan from the heat and stir in the fat, cut into lumps, and the bicarbonate of soda. Stir in the flour gradually until you have a smooth, manageable dough – add a little more flour, if you think it needs it.

4. Now cover the dough and leave it in a cool place for approximately 30 minutes, until it becomes firm.

5. Roll the dough out on a lightly floured surface to roughly 1/8 inch (3 mm) thick and cut out the gingerbread men. Currants can be pressed into the dough for eyes, noses, mouths and buttons down their fronts.

6. Arrange them on the baking trays  and bake for 10-15 minutes, or until the biscuits feel firm when lightly presed with a fingertip.

7. Leave them to cool on the trays for a few minutes before transferring them to a wire rack.

Recipe – Jaffa Cakes

A great Jaffa Cake recipe I found here. They’re so delicious they taste better than the ones you get in the shops. I used home made plum jam the first time around, and that tasted extremely good, but I think marmalade would be even better.

Omn nom nom... Delicious Jaffa Cakes!

3½ oz (90 g) caster sugar
2 eggs
2 oz (50 g) plain flour
3 oz (75 g) orange marmalade or apricot jam
4¼ oz (125 g) plain chocolate

(Makes 18)

1. Preheat the oven to 190ºC/375ºF/Gas 5. Grease a muffin or cake tin.

2. Stand a mixing bowl in very hot water for a couple of minutes to heat through, keeping the inside dry. Put the sugar and eggs in and whisk with an electric mixer until light and frothy and the beaters leave a ribbon trail when lifted. Sift flour and stir in gently with a large metal spoon.

3. Divide the mixture among the cake tins. Bake for 10 mins until just firm and pale golden around the edges. Using a palette knife lift from the tins and transfer to a wire rack to cool. (If your cakes get stuck in the tin, you can use a tablespoon to scoop them out. If you turn them upside down, they’ll still look really good!)

4. Press the marmalade or jam through a sieve to remove any rind or fruit pieces. Spoon a little of the jam on to the centre of each cake.

5. Break the chocolate into pieces and place in a heatproof bowl set over a pan of gently simmering water. Heat, stirring frequently, until melted and smooth.

6. Spoon a little chocolate on to the top of each cake and spread gently to the edges with a knife. Leave to set for at least 1 hour.