This Page

has moved to a new address:

http://farmersgirlkitchen.co.uk

Sorry for the inconvenience…

Redirection provided by Blogger to WordPress Migration Service
----------------------------------------------------- Blogger Template Style Name: Snapshot: Madder Designer: Dave Shea URL: mezzoblue.com / brightcreative.com Date: 27 Feb 2004 ------------------------------------------------------ */ /* -- basic html elements -- */ body {padding: 0; margin: 0; font: 75% Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; color: #474B4E; background: #fff; text-align: center;} a {color: #DD6599; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;} a:visited {color: #D6A0B6;} a:hover {text-decoration: underline; color: #FD0570;} h1 {margin: 0; color: #7B8186; font-size: 1.5em; text-transform: lowercase;} h1 a {color: #7B8186;} h2, #comments h4 {font-size: 1em; margin: 2em 0 0 0; color: #7B8186; background: transparent url(http://www.blogblog.com/snapshot/bg-header1.gif) bottom right no-repeat; padding-bottom: 2px;} @media all { h3 { font-size: 1em; margin: 2em 0 0 0; background: transparent url(http://www.blogblog.com/snapshot/bg-header1.gif) bottom right no-repeat; padding-bottom: 2px; } } @media handheld { h3 { background:none; } } h4, h5 {font-size: 0.9em; text-transform: lowercase; letter-spacing: 2px;} h5 {color: #7B8186;} h6 {font-size: 0.8em; text-transform: uppercase; letter-spacing: 2px;} p {margin: 0 0 1em 0;} img, form {border: 0; margin: 0;} /* -- layout -- */ @media all { #content { width: 700px; margin: 0 auto; text-align: left; background: #fff url(http://www.blogblog.com/snapshot/bg-body.gif) 0 0 repeat-y;} } #header { background: #D8DADC url(http://www.blogblog.com/snapshot/bg-headerdiv.gif) 0 0 repeat-y; } #header div { background: transparent url(http://www.blogblog.com/snapshot/header-01.gif) bottom left no-repeat; } #main { line-height: 1.4; float: left; padding: 10px 12px; border-top: solid 1px #fff; width: 428px; /* Tantek hack - http://www.tantek.com/CSS/Examples/boxmodelhack.html */ voice-family: "\"}\""; voice-family: inherit; width: 404px; } } @media handheld { #content { width: 90%; } #header { background: #D8DADC; } #header div { background: none; } #main { float: none; width: 100%; } } /* IE5 hack */ #main {} @media all { #sidebar { margin-left: 428px; border-top: solid 1px #fff; padding: 4px 0 0 7px; background: #fff url(http://www.blogblog.com/snapshot/bg-sidebar.gif) 1px 0 no-repeat; } #footer { clear: both; background: #E9EAEB url(http://www.blogblog.com/snapshot/bg-footer.gif) bottom left no-repeat; border-top: solid 1px #fff; } } @media handheld { #sidebar { margin: 0 0 0 0; background: #fff; } #footer { background: #E9EAEB; } } /* -- header style -- */ #header h1 {padding: 12px 0 92px 4px; width: 557px; line-height: 1;} /* -- content area style -- */ #main {line-height: 1.4;} h3.post-title {font-size: 1.2em; margin-bottom: 0;} h3.post-title a {color: #C4663B;} .post {clear: both; margin-bottom: 4em;} .post-footer em {color: #B4BABE; font-style: normal; float: left;} .post-footer .comment-link {float: right;} #main img {border: solid 1px #E3E4E4; padding: 2px; background: #fff;} .deleted-comment {font-style:italic;color:gray;} /* -- sidebar style -- */ @media all { #sidebar #description { border: solid 1px #F3B89D; padding: 10px 17px; color: #C4663B; background: #FFD1BC url(http://www.blogblog.com/snapshot/bg-profile.gif); font-size: 1.2em; font-weight: bold; line-height: 0.9; margin: 0 0 0 -6px; } } @media handheld { #sidebar #description { background: #FFD1BC; } } #sidebar h2 {font-size: 1.3em; margin: 1.3em 0 0.5em 0;} #sidebar dl {margin: 0 0 10px 0;} #sidebar ul {list-style: none; margin: 0; padding: 0;} #sidebar li {padding-bottom: 5px; line-height: 0.9;} #profile-container {color: #7B8186;} #profile-container img {border: solid 1px #7C78B5; padding: 4px 4px 8px 4px; margin: 0 10px 1em 0; float: left;} .archive-list {margin-bottom: 2em;} #powered-by {margin: 10px auto 20px auto;} /* -- sidebar style -- */ #footer p {margin: 0; padding: 12px 8px; font-size: 0.9em;} #footer hr {display: none;} /* Feeds ----------------------------------------------- */ #blogfeeds { } #postfeeds { }

Thursday, 13 August 2015

Chocolate Caramel Malteser Cake

Chocolate cake is the usual request for celebration cakes in our house and I've made quite a few different kinds of chocolate cakes over the years.  I'm easily bored, so always like to use or create a new recipe and I found my inspiration at Lavender and Lovage, where my friend, Karen had posted a Salted Caramel and Chocolate Fudge Birthday Cake, many thanks to Karen for allowing me to post her recipe here with my minor variations.

Salted Caramel is very on trend and we love it, but as this cake had to be eaten by family with ages ranging from 2 years old to 90+ years old, I needed to keep the flavours a little more traditional, so I took out the salt but kept the caramel.

Maltesers make a really effective and simple decoration and they certainly went down well with everyone.

Chocolate Caramel Malteser Cake

For the cake
140g crème fraiche
125g  butter
200g soft light brown sugar
2 drops vanilla extract
4 free-range eggs
170g plain flour
50g cocoa powder (not hot chocolate)
1 teaspoon baking powder

for the caramel spread
3 tbsp caramel sauce or dulce de leche

for the buttercream icing
125g soft butter
2 drops vanilla extract
250g icing sugar

for the caramel buttercream
6 tbsp caramel sauce or dulce de leche 

for the chocolate buttercream
60g dark chocolate

for the decoration
121g share bag of Maltesers

To make the cake
  1. Pre-heat the oven to 180C and grease and line two 20cm sandwich cake tins.
  2. Put all the cake ingredients into a large mixing bowl and beat well for 3 to 4 minutes with an electric hand whisk, or 5-6 minutes by hand.
  3. Spoon the mixture into the prepared tins and level the tops, leaving a slight dip in the middle of the cakes so they rise evenly. Bake for about 25-30 minutes, or until the cakes are well risen and shrinking away from the sides of the cake tins.  Remove from the oven and allow to cool in the tins for about 10 minutes, before removing them from the tins and cooling completely on wire racks.
To make the two kinds of buttercream icing
  1. First make the basic buttercream, beat the butter with an electric hand whisk until it is well blended.
  2. Sift the icing sugar and the vanilla extract into the butter and gently mix together, then using the electric mixer beat until the mixture is fully blended and fluffy.
  3. Remove a third of the mixture and place in another bowl, add 3 tbsp of caramel sauce or dulce de leche to the buttercream and mix again. If the mixture seems a little too stiff, then add a little milk.
  4. Place the chocolate in a bowl and either melt over a pan of hot water, or melt in the microwave in blasts of 30 seconds to make sure you don't over heat it. Cool the chocolate for about 5 minutes, stirring regularly.  Add to the remaining buttercream and beat with the electric whisk.
To assemble the cake
  1. Place one of the cake layers on a serving plate, spread 3 tbsp of caramel sauce over the base (it will sink in).  Now spread the caramel buttercream over the base and place the second sponge on top.
  2. Cover the top and sides of the sandwich cake with the chocolate buttercream and cover the top with Maltesers, starting at the outside and making concentric circles of the chocolates. 


If you like the idea of pairing chocolate with other flavours, here are a few ideas for great combinations from popular UK Food Blogs:

Slow Cooker Chocolate Mint Aero Bubble Cake - Baking Queen 74
Triple Layer Chocolate Mud Cake - Made with Pink
Chocolate Orange Cake - The Foodie Couple Blog
Jelly Tots Chocolate Cake - Planet Veggie
Moist Chocolate After Eight Cake - Tinned Tomatoes
Chocadoodledoo Cake (with minted strawberry cream) - Tin and Thyme
Chocolate and Porter Cake - Kavey Eats


I'm entering this for Bake of the Week run by Casa Costello and hosted this week by Jen's Food

This is my first entry for  Cake Club at Kerry Cooks. Kerry is also featuring a Chocolate Malteser cake, they are obviously popular!
 

Anything goes at We Should Cocoa this month as long as it contains chocolate which this surely does! We Should Cocoa is a long standing blog challenge run by Choclette at Tin and Thyme.

Labels: , , , ,

posted by Janice @ 13:02 34 Comments

Sunday, 7 October 2012

Sticky Toffee Pudding Cupcakes for Macmillan Cancer Support

Sticky Toffee Pudding Cupcakes

I thought I'd show you the baking I did for the Macmillan Cancer Support 'World's Biggest Coffee Morning.  We didn't have our coffee morning on 28th September, we had ours on Friday 5th October.  There are three different buildings where I work and usually all the bakes would be brought together in one of the buildings.  However, staff in the building where I work were having a staff meeting at the time of the coffee morning, so I agree to keep my bakes in our building so they could make their donations and enjoy the baking.  I'm pleased to say that the cakes raised £30 and along with the sale of raffle tickets and some additional donations, we raised a total of £85.


Mini Sticky Toffee Pudding Cupcakes
I made some teeny tiny cakes for those who wanted a small sweet treat.
Rum and Raisin Chocolate Chip Cookies
This cookie recipe is in the Great British Bake Off book 2. I used Old Jamaica chocolate which is a dark chocolate with rum and raisins. These were very popular especially with men!
Lorraine Pascale's Party Time Chocolate Fridge Cake
These sweet treats went down well at the coffee morning,  adding maltesers to a chocolate 'tiffin' recipe is a great idea from Lorraine Pascale and the recipe is in the 'Little Book of Treats' sold by Marks and Spencer on behalf of Macmillan Cancer Support.

 

Sticky Toffee Pudding Cupcakes

for 12-16 cupcakes

180g (6 1/2oz) pitted and chopped dates
180ml (6 1/2 fl oz) boiling water
80g (3oz) unsalted butter, softened
150g (5 1/2oz) soft brown sugar
2 large eggs
180g (6 1/2) plain flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1tsp bicarbonate of soda
1/4 tsp salt
1tsp vanilla extract

for the buttercream
75g (3oz) butter, softened
225g (8oz) icing sugar, sieved
3 tbsp milk

for the decoration
Toffee or fudge pieces

1. Place the chopped dates in a bowl, pour over the boiling water and leave to soak for about 20 minutes.
2. Preheat the oven to 190C/375F, Gas 5 and line a muffin tin with cases
3. Beat the butter and sugar together until soft and fluffy.  Break in the eggs, one at a time and mix well.
4. Sift together the flour, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda and salt. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the egg and butter mixture and mix until the batter is smooth.
5.  Add the vanilla extract to the date mixture, add this and mix by hand until evenly dispersed.
6.  Fill each case about 2/3 full with the mixture.
7. Bake for 18-20 minutes until risen and springy to the touch.  Leave to cool slightly before removing from the tin and place on a wire rack to col completely before icing.

 Buttercream
1. Place all the ingredients together in a bowl and beat until they are smooth and blended, about 2-3 minutes.
2. Fill a piping bag and using a Wilton 1M star nozzle, pipe from outside to the centre of the buns.
3. Decorate  with toffee or fudge pieces



Labels: , , , , ,

posted by Janice @ 10:53 13 Comments