Dairy Free creme "eggs"

A few weeks back, everyone was talking about creme eggs, and how the chocolate wasn't as good any more. In the past there has been much speculation about the diminishing size of the eggs too - so all in all, not good news for Cadbury. It got to a point where This Morning did a bit about it, and Paul Young showed the presenters how to make their own eggs.

This piqued my interest, as I had not considered making an egg before. The girls said that they would love to try a creme egg, so it was time to get the big bag of chocolate out and try for myself.

Ingredients

Vegan chocolate
Fondant icing sugar
Vanilla essence
Water

Silicon moulds are great for making chocolates, but as all I had were individual heart shaped moulds we had to have hearts and not eggs.

The chocolate I used was from Plamil. I've been using their chocolate for years now and you can buy the darkness of chocolate that you prefer by cocoa percentage (45%, 53%, 60% or 72%). For this I used the 53% cocoa, which is still quite dark. If you want to make them more like milk chocolate, you can use the 45% or the Moo free chocolate bars, which are both great.

So, I melted about 200g of chocolate slowly over a pan of gently simmering water, then turned the heat off, but left the chocolate so it would not set again. I put a few tablespoons of the fondant icing sugar into a bowl and added a little water and flavoured it with vanilla. It is a bit of trial and error to get the quantities right so add small amounts at a time until you get that thick, gooey icing that you know from creme eggs.

Next, take your silicon moulds and fill them nearly to the top with the melted chocolate. I put mine onto a plate, then popped them in the fridge for about 5 minutes. After that time, you need to take them out and tip the chocolate out. A thick layer will have started to set around the edges, and the rest will pour back into your melting bowl. Put them back in the fridge to set the chocolate.

Finally, add the fondant centre to the top of the chocolate shell and seal the top by totally covering it with the leftover melted chocolate. Put them back into the fridge and leave to set. When they are ready to be eaten, the silicon mould can be peeled off, but keep them in the fridge until you want to eat them. I haven't mastered how to temper chocolate yet, so they will be quite melty as you eat them!

3 ways with dates....and chocolate

Been away for a year, how did that happen? I've been baking and making but not blogging and I want to get back into it, so here is a great trio of things to do with dates.

A vegan friend of mine recently told me how she made her own twix bars, the recipe is from another site which I shall try to find in due course. The part that intrigued me was the use of dates to make the  caramel section. My girls can't eat dairy, and miss out on traditional chocolate bars, so maybe this was a way to create something for them. I already make dairy-free chocolate truffles with dates, cocoa and ground almonds and the girls love those, so today I tried out my own twix recipe:

1 pack of supermarket shortbread biscuits
100g moo-free chocolate bar
3 tbsp plamil catering chocolate
a block of dates (250g)
2tbsp cocoa powder
1 tsp caramel flavouring

I heated up the dates and caramel flavouring with about 100ml of water to soften them, then when they were cooled, I blitzed them to a smooth paste with 2tbsp of cocoa powder.
This mix was then smeared thickly over 9 shortbread biscuits.


I melted the two chocolates together and cooled slightly before dropping each biscuit carefully in and turning it over very gently to coat it, using a fork. The coated biscuits were placed on the cool windowsill for about 30 minutes before going into the fridge. Done.


Almost.

I had a huge amount of the date mix left and the scrapings of the chocolate, which I couldn't waste. So, I thought to myself, what can I use this for?
My girls are always on at me to make whoopee pies, which I'm not so bothered about, but I was feeling generous (why else would I have been making twix bars in the first place?) so I made up the following batter:

2oz sunflower spread
2oz date mix from above
about 2tbsp of melted chocolate
1 egg
2.5oz self raising flour
a splash of soya milk to soften the mix

I mixed all this and made 12 dollops on a baking tray, then baked them at 180c for about 15 minutes. They looked fine, but I think that the mix could have been even softer to let them spread better.

Once cooled, I made my third date and cocoa creation - frosting. Yep, if you mix equal quantities of the date mix and sunflower spread, you get the beginnings of a very good frosting consistency; it's not chocolatey enough, so I tagged another tbsp of cocoa powder and the same of icing sugar to get the texture just right. I spooned the frosting onto one cooled cake round, then sandwiched another cake on top.



A sprinkle of icing sugar and they are ready to eat:

Chocolate ginger cupcakes

A fair few months ago I went to a friend's baby shower and her sister-in-law had made a selection of delicious cakes. My favourite were her chocolate ginger cupcakes, a name which does not begin to describe the mix of flavours hiding inside. I made a version of them for the cake sale at the school Christmas Market today, here is the recipe.

Ingredients

4oz brown sugar
5oz self raising flour
1/4tsp bicarbonate of soda
1tsp ground ginger
1/2tsp ground cinnamon
1/4tsp ground nutmeg
4oz soya margarine
2 eggs
2tbsp golden syrup
3oz dark chocolate, coarsely chopped

Method

Sift the dry ingredients into a bowl, then add the eggs, margarine and syrup.
Whisk with an electric whisk until smooth then add the chocolate and mix together.
Spoon into 12 cupcake cases and bake at 150c for about 20 minutes, until cooked through.

When cool, the original recipe calls for whipped cream on top with chopped Crunchie bars sprinkled on top. I made frosting with philadelphia, butter and icing sugar, then sprinkled the Crunchie on top. To make them dairy-free, I have spooned cooled, melted dairy-free chocolate over the top, then topped with chopped honeycomb pieces.

Hummingbird cakes

Today, I had promised Charlotte that I would make chocolate cupcakes with her. A friend of mine made some lovely chocolate cupcakes for the Macmillan coffee morning the other week, and when I asked her, she said the recipe was from the Hummingbird Bakery cookbook. I have that book, so Charlotte and I dipped in and found the recipe - yippee! Also, Emma was loitering and looking over our shoulders, so I agreed to make a batch of vanilla cupcakes with her too.

The sponge was much less fine textured and moist than my normal sponge recipe, which meant that the cases didn't peel away from the sides of the sponge for once, which was fantastic. Also, as the recipe uses a lot less margarine and milk instead (soya, obviously, for us) there were no ugly oily marks bleeding through the cake cases. These people know what they are doing!

Anyway, Charlotte did all the measuring and mixing and filling of cake cases herself for the first time. She also iced them with the icing that I made. Emma made hers with a little interference from mummy, but iced them herself. I tried half filling some cases and then dolloping a 1/2 tsp of lemon curd in, then topping up with mix. I haven't tried one of these yet, but they smell delicious.

Orange and poppyseed cupcakes

I am going to my local "World's biggest coffee morning" in aid of Macmillan cancer support tomorrow. Instead of taking a cake that would need cutting up, I decided to make some cupcakes. I normally bake dairy-free, as I like to at least let the children try what I bake, even if they don't like it. It just seems a bit mean to bake something that I know they can't eat. But, they won't be eating these cakes, as they are for grown-ups only, so I could do something I don't normally get the chance to do.

I made up a batch of my orange and poppyseed loaf cake mix, but used cows milk instead of soya. This was split into 16 cupcake cases, with each around 2/3 full and baked at 180c for about 18 minutes. Once cooled, I iced them with vanilla cream cheese frosting (3 tbsp cream cheese, 1 tbsp butter, 1 tsp vanilla and enough icing sugar to make a soft consistency) then sprinkled caramelised orange peel and poppy seeds on top. 

To make the caramelised orange, I carefully peeled an orange so I only took the top layer of the skin and not the white pith underneath. I then sliced each piece into 1mm wide strips and heated them in a frying pan with a couple of tbsp of caster sugar. Once the sugar was melted and bubbling, and the orange peel softened, I turned off the heat. As the orange cooled and the sugar re-solidified, the peel turned crunchy, sweet and very intensely flavoured. 

Scooby Doo Birthday Cake

I have a confession, I faked the icing on a cake. It is not like me to pass up the chance of an icing challenge, but I am trying to pace myself and not take on too much at once. I'm so glad I did it, the cake topper that I bought was fantastic, and it took a lot of pressure off an already complicated cake. I also had time to make Scooby snacks for the party as I didn't end up spending a whole afternoon icing an intricate cake design. I bought the icing topper on eBay for £3.50. Bargain.

So, the cake. I decided to try out a 3 colour sponge cake like I have seen all over the place recently. Charlotte decided on purple, orange and pink and as luck would have it my baking trays are just the right size to make an A4 cake - the same size as the icing topper. I decided to make each sponge separately (a 2 egg batch of my 5:4:4:2 mix with added vanilla), colouring the egg with my colour paste before incorporating it. I started with purple, which baked well but the colour was not very nice. I then made the orange and pink which were lovely.

I ran out of eggs, so while I was out buying more I had a re-think. Green would be easier to achieve than purple, so the 3rd sponge was a glorious froggy green. Once I had made the 3 sponges, I assembled the cake. I put home made plum jam between the pink and orange, then buttercream between the orange and green. I then put a thin layer of buttercream over the whole thing and covered it with white rolled icing.

To attach the icing topper, you have to remove it from it's plastic backing and place it on tacky icing. I slightly dampened the icing on the cake then placed the topper on top. Perfect. Unfortunately the cake was more risen in the middle, so a couple of edges rucked up a bit, but that was hidden by the piped blue icing that I put around the top and base of the cake.

I also made some Scooby snacks using my gingerbread recipe, then piping the design on top with leftover icing from the cake.

Big Georgie cake

My niece turns two tomorrow and I was very pleased to have been asked to make her birthday cake. What did she want on her cake? "Big Georgie" (from Peppa Pig) was the answer, so I trawled the internet for a Peppa shaped cake pan. No such luck, so I made a round cake and drew an icing George on it. This is only my second character cake, so was a bit daunting, but I have to say, I really enjoyed it.

I made two round sponges 10" across, then sandwiched them with strawberry jam and covered the whole thing in a thin layer of dairy-free buttercream icing. I then laid a ready rolled circle of icing on top and smoothed it down. I then used a print-out of George to transfer the image onto the icing. I did this by pushing a pin through to make a dotted outline (I did this for the other character cake, and it works pretty well as long as you cover all the holes with outline icing) and then used my icing paints to do the block colouring. I then made up icing in the colours that I needed for outlining and piped all the outlines.

It took a while, but I am very happy with the result.

Bowling cake

It was my husband's birthday yesterday and we all went bowling then had a barbeque at home. I decided to theme his cake, and although he plays golf a lot more than he goes bowling, I didn't fancy making a green cake.

I made 2 square sponges and put them together on a big breadboard. I used my fail-safe sponge cake mix, but needed it to be 8 eggs and the rest of the quantities increased accordingly. I've never made so much cake mix in one go before! Oh, I nearly forgot, I added 1tbsp vanilla to the mix too.

Once the cakes were in place, I made up enough buttercream to cover them with a thin layer, then rolled out some ready made white icing and put it on top. I trimmed the icing to fit and kept the trimmings covered, I would need them later. I used my icing paste colours to make up a brown and watered it down so it wasn't too dark, then brushed it lengthways down the cake to make the wooden floorboard effect of a bowling alley.

With the spare icing, I fashioned 10 white bowling pins, then painted red rings on the necks and left them to dry. Each pin had a toothpick pushed up inside it with about 3cm sticking out at the bottom. When the cake was dry I added these at one end and made a ball out of black ready-coloured icing and made 3 holes in it with the end of my paintbrush. I placed the ball against the pins on the cake. I then used dark brown icing colour to paint the dark arrows on the cake.

Finally, I made 40 stars out of white icing and used a little water to stick them all around the edges of the cake, mainly to pretty it up as the icing was a bit wobbly where it met the board. I coloured a couple of them red too.

When we put the candles on, they each sat at the broad end of one of the arrows.

More chocolate brownie cake!

I made the cake for my friend's son yesterday. I finished off the icing today before taking it to the party. I had a flash of inspiration, and decided to make a number 5 in the sprinkles. I printed out a big number 5, then traced it onto a big piece of greaseproof paper. I carefully cut the 5 out to leave a stencil, then also cut a 5 shape out as a second stencil.

I placed the 5 shape in the middle of the cake, then sprinkled chocolate vermicelli all over. When the 5 was removed, I was left with plain icing only in that area. I then placed the 5 stencil over the cake, leaving just the 5 of icing showing. I carefully pressed star shaped sprinkles into the icing to make the 5, it turned out pretty well.

Jubilee biscuits

Yesterday, I thought I'd make something quick to tide us over until the big cake making session on Monday. We will have our village tea party on Monday afternoon, so I need to provide something special for that. I wanted biscuits, but couldn't be bothered with the hassle of rolling out dough, so this recipe was perfect.

Ingredients

300g plain flour
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 tablespoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon ground mixed spice
125g soya margarine
100g light brown soft sugar
80g dark brown soft sugar
50ml hot water
1 tbsp golden syrup

Juice of 1 lemon
Icing sugar

Method

Rub the flour, bicarb, ginger, mixed spice and margarine together to make crumbs.
Stir in the 2 sugars.
Melt the golden syrup into the boiling water and then stir this into the crumbs to make a soft dough.
Using a dessert spoon, dollop around 24 balls of dough onto lined baking sheets and flatten slightly with your fingers.
Bake at 180c for about 15 minutes, then leave on the trays to cool for a bit.
Mix the lemon juice and icing sugar together to make a thick paste.
Put the biscuits on a wire tray to finish cooling, then spread a layer of icing on top and finish with some sprinkles.

Jubilee school cake sale

It was the monthly cake sale at school today. I decided to go all out and make a Union flag cake and some chocolate crunchie cakes.

Union cake method

Make a 5:4:4:2 cake mix, using 3 eggs, so it becomes 7.5:6:6:3 with 1 tsp vanilla extract added.
Pour into a 9"x7" lined baking tin and bake at 180c for around 30 minutes until a toothpick poked in comes out clean and the cake is light brown on top.

Make a batch of icing, using 3 tbsp cream cheese, 1 tbsp butter, 1 tsp vanilla and enough icing sugar to make a soft consistency. Split the icing into 3 bowls and add blue food colouring to one and red to another. Use icing bags to pipe the icing into the flag design once the cake is cool. I used a flat icing nozzle to make the icing lines reasonably neat and flat.


Chocolate crunchie cake method

Make up a batch of simple chocolate cake mix and add about 100g of dairy-free "milk" chocolate chips.
Spoon the mix into 12 large cupcake cases and bake at 180c for around 18 minutes, until cooked through. Leave to cool in the tin.
When cooled, melt together 100g dairy-free "milk" chocolate and 50g dairy-free dark chocolate.
Spoon a dessert spoon of melted chocolate onto the top of each cake and sprinkle honeycomb pieces on top.

Lemon cheese-cakes

It's a friend's birthday today, and my husband will be seeing her later, so I decided to send him off with a batch of cakes for her. She also bakes, so I thought I'd try something new to see what she thinks of it, and these little babies turned out remarkably well.

Method

Make up a batch of 5:4:4:2 cake mix with 1tsp vanilla extract in it.
Place 8 large cupcake cases in a 12 bun muffin tin, then put about 2cm depth of mix in each case.
Dollop about a teaspoon of lemon curd on the middle of each cake, then cover it with another couple of cm of mix. I'm not being very specific about quantities as I was rushing a bit, and didn't concentrate!
Bake in a 180c oven for about 18 - 20 minutes until they are browned on top and cooked.

I left them to cool in the tin, before removing them and icing them. You can see that I broke one open to check out the inside. It was still a dollop of lemon curd, and had not stopped the mix around it from rising. Some had leaked out a bit, you can see the dark patches on the cases where the lemon curd started to caramelise.

I made up some cream cheese frosting using 1tbsp full fat Philadelphia cheese, 1tbsp soya margarine and kept adding icing sugar until I got a thick, smooth consistency. I also added 1tsp of vanilla extract to the icing. I am already considering the next batch, and have plans to make strawberry jam ones with strawberries and whipped cream on top.

Orange and poppyseed loaf cake

I mentioned a while back that I love making the orange and poppyseed cake from one of my recipe books. It is made in a baba tin and I was wondering if it would be possible to scale it down a little and make it as a loaf instead.

Here is a picture of it, made correctly in the baba tin.

So here is the new recipe:

Ingredients

30g poppy seeds
120ml sweetened soya milk
170g caster sugar
2 eggs
170g self raising flour
140g soya margarine
1tsp vanilla extract (not necessary, but I love vanilla with orange)
2 oranges

Method

Warm the milk in a cup in the microwave carefully (about 30 seconds with a stir half way), then add the poppy seeds and leave to stand while you do the rest of the preparation.

Zest the 2 oranges and add to a large mixing bowl along with the flour, sugar, margarine, eggs and vanilla. Finally, add the poppy seeds and milk and whisk the whole lot up until it is a smooth, creamy batter.

Pour the batter into a lined loaf tin and bake at 180c for around 50 minutes.

Leave in the tin to cool.

Make a thick icing with orange juice (around 3 tsp.) and icing sugar and spoon over the slightly warm cake and spread to the edges.


I made the icing too thin, so it ran off too quickly, next time I'll make it thicker, like the cake at the top.

Fail-safe sponge recipe

When I talked about fairy cakes, I didn't explain how I make them. I shall remedy that today with the recipe that I use and adapt for all my sponge cakes. The recipe was originally my grandma's but I have adapted it slightly to make the cake a little less moist.

The basic recipe that my grandma used was a 4:4:4:2 ratio. Sounds complicated, but is surprisingly simple:

4oz self raising flour
4oz caster sugar
4oz margarine (I use Pure soya spread as it is dairy-free)
2 eggs

So no matter what size cake you are making, you just keep to that ratio and the cake mix is always perfect. I have started adding an extra 1/2oz of self raising flour per egg (so it's now 5:4:4:2) to make the cake less moist, and am very happy with the result. When I make fairy cakes I add 1tsp of good quality vanilla extract per 2 eggs to give a little more flavour.

Method


Cream together the margarine and sugar.
Add one egg and mix in, followed by a tablespoon of flour.
Repeat with the other egg (and vanilla if you are using it).
Add the rest of the flour and mix until it is all combined, thick and creamy.

The 2 egg quantity makes around 15 fairy cakes, which are cooked in around 12 minutes at 180 degrees. Let them cool in the tins for a little while before taking them out to cool completely before decorating them.

The cakes for Emma's party used my 2 basic methods of icing.

1. Mix up icing sugar and water to a thick consistency and dollop some on the cake, followed by sprinkles - very easy, and usually left to the children to design each cake.

2. My first cheat of the blog. Buy ready rolled white icing and cut out circles with a biscuit cutter. Use a little of the icing from above to stick the circle of icing on the cake and decorate.

The swords, shields and bows were cut out of the ready rolled icing and placed on top. I use coloured pastes to paint the colours onto icing with a paintbrush and writing icing to do the details.

For a Chinese New Year cake sale at school, I went all out and painted a picture of a dragon on a stiff board and made fairy cakes to be it's body. The cakes were simple, rolled icing placed on top and painted, but with the background of the dragon they looked a lot more special. I think this idea may be repeated again in the future.