Thursday 28 February 2013

Lemon Meringue Pie Rice Krispie Treats



I was in the mood for experimenting in the kitchen again, and I was craving some rice krispie sort of concoction, so obviously, RKT’s were the order of the day.

I have made a few different flavours of Rice Krispie Treats before, and this is sometimes dictated by what ingredients I have to hand. As it happened, I had some digestive biscuits open, and some lemonade flavour Kool-Aid. It had to be Lemon Meringue Pie flavour RKT’s, didn’t it?



They are pink, as you will see from the picture and the only reason for that is, that the marshmallows I used to bind the krispies together were overwhelmingly pink, and Tesco didn’t have any white ones on the shelf. Still, you could always think of them as Pink Lemonade Meringue Pie Rice Krispie Treats…

Ingredients:
200 grams mini marshmallows (any colour!)
30 grams unsalted butter
125 grams rice krispies
Sachet of Lemonade flavour Kool-Aid
50 grams digestive biscuits, crushed (or Graham crackers, depending where you are)
2 egg whites
115 grams caster sugar



Method:
Grease a pan, big enough to hold your krispie mix (I used my trusty lasagne dish). Set aside.
In a large saucepan, melt the butter and marshmallows, then add the Kool-Aid powder. Stir this through until dissolved then add the krispies and mix until they are all coated with mallow. Add the crushed biscuits and mix through. Transfer this to the prepared pan and press down firmly. Allow to set for at least two hours. Overnight is better.



When set, remove from the pan and cut into squares.



To make the meringue topping, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form, then gradually stir through the sugar. Pipe or spoon dollops of the meringue mix on top of each square and with a kitchen blow torch, scorch each meringue topping until it is lightly browned.



Your Lemon Meringue Pie RKT’s are ready to enjoy. The lemon flavour and the biscuit crunch taste just like the pie, especially with the soft crunch of the meringue on top.

(If you can’t get hold of Lemonade Kool-Aid powder, add 2 teaspoons of lemon extract. )

Wednesday 27 February 2013

Cartoon Time - Gingham Style

Thanks to Dolly from Friockheim for this one...she suggested that Cakeyboi gets a new gingham cupcake liner so he can go all....


Monday 25 February 2013

Strawberry Cheesecake Cake for Cake Club



How many times can you get the word cake in a food blog post title??!

It was that time of the month again last Sunday – Clandestine Cake Club! The good excuse to eat lots of cake, meet friends and chat about all things cake related.

The theme for February was ‘I Love Cake’ which was open to interpretation really. It could be a Valentine’s theme, or it could be a cake you love or one you have always wanted to give a try.

I have no idea why, but I chose a Strawberry Cheesecake Cake which I saw online. I liked the idea of combining a baked cheesecake with strawberry cake. And all the recipes I saw didn’t have a biscuit base, an essential element to a cheesecake, so I added one of them to my creation.



The cake was a labour of love. I started it on the Thursday and completed it by the Sunday. The biscuit base was made first, the cheesecake on the Friday (then frozen, as per the recipe) and the cake made on the Saturday. The cake called for a pound and a half of fresh or frozen strawberries. No frozen strawberries to be seen in my supermarket and fresh were way too expensive to buy that amount of. So I settled for (blushing with shame) tinned strawberries in juice. I had to boil these down, strain them, then boil that down to get a really concentrated flavour which was okay.



But I was not happy with the final result. The strawberry cream cheese frosting was way too loose (I'm sure I followed the recipe correctly?) and sort of slid off the cake. I kept adding more icing sugar to the frosting in hopes it would thicken and I could plaster more on, but to no avail!



But my fellow cake clubbers were very complimentary about the cake - and ate a lot of it! But the other cakes on offer were sooo good. They included a maple and pecan cake, red velvet cake with marshmallow frosting, a coffee cake (which looked like a mug of java!), a cherry and almond cake with neon pink icing (loved it Linley!), apple streusel cake, chocolate and orange bundt cake. So many to name, apologies for the ones I couldn’t remember the names of. The cake with the heart in the middle was amazing, but I don’t seem to have a photo of that sadly. Host Becca from Becca Bakes has written about the latest cake meet, and has much more pics of the cakes, so pop over and have a look.



Anyhoo, I won’t give the instructions for the cake, as they were from a couple of sites – the cheesecake bit and the frosting, I took from Recipe Girl, the strawberry cake was from Confections of a Food Bride and the biscuit base was from my Key Lime Pie Trifle recipe, which I halved the amounts of. Make them all in the same cake pans and you should have success….


This month's cake club was held in Braes pub, Dundee. A great venue, where you are always guaranteed a good time!


Saturday 23 February 2013

The Cakeyboi Alphabet - H

H in the Cakeyboi alphabet stands for H. So now's as good a time as any to meet Cakeyboi's friend Honeybunch the bee...


Honey which is made by bees from the nectar of flowers is a very versatile ingredient in cooking and baking. It can be used in sweet and savoury dishes and has approximately the same relative sweetness as granulated sugar.

Thursday 21 February 2013

Pennsylvania Dutch Spice Loaf



I hope you have entered the Great British Bakeware giveaway? If not, pop to the link after you have read this post (and good luck).

This bake was inspired after I was asked to review a part of the range and I chose the loaf tin. Loaf tins, I find, can be notorious for not releasing their baked goods, or cleaning up very well. As it turned out the Great British Bakeware loaf tin was the exception. I looked through several recipes to bake in the tin and plumped for this PA Dutch Spice Loaf from the Outsider Tart cookbook, Baked in America.

I hadn't heard of this particular cake and liked the aforementioned spices in it – lots of cloves and cinnamon, so I set to...

Ingredients:
375 grams plain flour
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
½ tsp salt
2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp ground cloves
1 tsp ground allspice
225 grams softened, unsalted butter
450 grams dark brown sugar
2 large eggs
240 ml buttermilk

Method:
Grease a 12x9” loaf tin and dust with flour. Preheat the oven to 150oC.

In a large bowl sift together the flour, soda, salt and spices. Set aside.

In a food mixer, cream together the butter and sugar until pale and creamy. Add the eggs one at a time, and mix well. Add the buttermilk and stir through. Lastly add the flour mix and stir this through until no streaks of flour can be seen. Place the batter into the prepared loaf tin.

Bake for 50 minutes to an hour, or when a cake tester comes out clean from the centre of the cake. Let the cake cool for about 15 minutes before removing from the tin. Place it on a cooling rack and let cool thoroughly.



I took this cake into work and my colleagues loved it. It’s not unlike ginger loaf, but more focused on the cloves, although not in a dentistry way. The cake is very moist and would be delicious with some cream on the side or even a spread of butter on top. If you make, I hope you enjoy.


Disclosure Statement: I received the loaf tin free to review and was not committed to writing a favourable review. The views expressed are my own.

Wednesday 20 February 2013

Cartoon Time - Spongecake Squarepants

From one cartoon creation to another...


Monday 18 February 2013

Great British Bakeware Review and Giveaway



I have been lucky enough to be asked to review a new limited edition range of bakeware by the people at George Wilkinson. Named Great British Bakeware, the range has vintage styling on the outside twinned with superior non-stick coating GlideX on the interior. The bakeware does look very appealing, and I was given a 2 lb loaf tin to review.




The range also features an 8” cake tin, a 14” baking sheet and a 12 cup deep muffin tray as you can see in the images above and below. As well as being able to review this great range, I also have a set of the four items to giveaway – the entry form for the giveaway is at the bottom of this post.




Back to the review for now, and I chose to review the loaf tin. I don’t know about you, but I always find loaf tins are the one piece of bakeware which never truly releases it’s baked item, or cleans up 100%. I decided to make a Pennsylvania Spice Dutch Cake (more about that in my next post) as it was a very wet, sticky batter.




I greased the tin lightly as recommended and popped it in the oven to bake. And I can honestly say that the resulting loaf cake turned out from the pan with ease and had the sharpest corners on a loaf I have ever seen. When washing by hand, the tin cleaned up exceptionally well, with no hard scrubbing, and there were no gungey bits left in the corners, as I usually find in loaf tins. Bonus!!

I would thoroughly recommend Great British Bakeware for it’s fantastic non-stick qualities. And the design on the outside makes it stand out from all the other drab and boring tins in my collection.

The bakeware can be bought from Amazon. But if you would like the chance to win the loaf tin, cake tin, baking sheet and muffin tray – worth £55 in total, please enter below. The giveaway is open to UK residents only and the closing date will be midnight on 18th March 2013, giving you a full month to enter.

Disclosure Statement: I received the loaf tin free to review and was not committed to writing a favourable review. The views expressed are my own.



a Rafflecopter giveaway

Saturday 16 February 2013

The Cakeyboi Alphabet - G

G is for Ginger


Ginger has many uses in the kitchen, sweet and savoury. It comes from the Zingiber Officiale plant and fresh ginger root can be substituted with the dried variety at a ratio of 6:1. Powdered dry ginger root can be typically used as a flavouring in gingerbread, cookies, cakes and ginger beer, to name but a few recipes.
Fresh ginger can be placed in a plastic bag and frozen to preserve it's shelf life.

Thursday 14 February 2013

Malted Banana Speculoos Smoothie




Try saying that when you are three sheets to the wind!!
It’s funny how some of the things you decide to make when you are a food blogger, are dictated by the ingredients you have lying about and/or used recently. And this recipe is exactly one of these!

You may have seen recently my malt and chocolate cookies, and the frosting and blondies that I had incorporated the Speculoos spread, I bought recently, into. Also, I had a couple of ripening bananas lying about. What could I make using the Horlicks, banana and Speculoos, I pondered and the answer seemed kinda obvious. Why not make something akin to a peanut butter banana milkshake?



I decided to use fat free plain yogurt. so this was slightly healthier, and I could get away with calling it a smoothie!

Yield: 500 ml of Smoothie

Ingredients:
One banana, peeled and chopped
250 ml of fat free plain yogurt
120 ml milk (any type)
1 tablespoon Malted Drink mix (such as Horlicks)
3 tablespoons Speculoos



Method:
In a food blender, add all the ingredients. Blitz until the mixture is completely smooth. Pour into a drinking receptacle of your choice and enjoy!



Of course, you could add ice to this, if it was a hot day, and if you can’t get the Speculoos spread, Peanut Butter would work just as well.

Wednesday 13 February 2013

Valentines Cartoon Time

Have a Happy Valentines Day everyone! And a big big happy 8th birthday to my nephew Jamie!!


Monday 11 February 2013

Strawberry Choc Chip Cookies




This is a bit a follow on from the cupcakes I made a couple of weeks back, using vanilla cake mix and a can of soda. That’s because these cookies are also made from a box of cake mix – who knew it could be so versatile?!



I saw these cookies over on another site, Sally's Baking Addiction, and remembered I had a box of strawberry cake mix in the cupboard – they looked perfect for Valentines and I set about making them. Only thing was, my Strawberry cake mix was not pink! So I cheated and added a few drops of pink food colouring paste. A bit more than I meant to, to be honest, but the colour certainly stands out!



A lot of websites have the instructions for cake mix cookies and the general rule of thumb seems to be a box of cake mix, 2 eggs and 125 ml of vegetable oil. Mix this all together (plus chips, flavours and colourings if you like) and you should get a mixture the consistency of cookie dough – if not, add some plain flour until it gets to the right stiffness. I added 100 grams of dark chocolate chips to mine.

Spoon large mounds (I got 10 cookies from my mix) onto a prepared cookie sheet and bake in an oven, preheated to 180oC, for 12 to 15 minutes. Let them cool, then enjoy!



This should work with any boxed cake mix and is a great way to put it to use if you are in the mood for a batch of warm cookies.

Saturday 9 February 2013

The Cakeyboi Alphabet - F

F is for Fairy Cake


What is the definition of a fairy cake? What is the difference between a fairy cake and a cupcake? Well it depends on where you look on the internet. But the majority seem to agree that a fairy cake is the same as a cupcake, it's just the term which used to be used more commonly in the UK, but now not so much. And a cupcake of course is a cake in single serve version, decorated with frosting (or icing) and other such deliciousness.

Thursday 7 February 2013

Valentines Bark




It seems like I was taking down my Christmas decorations just the other day, but Valentines is nearly upon us. This is a sure sign of getting older, time just seems to fly by!

I couldn’t let this holiday pass without sharing my idea for a Valentines Bark. Bark, you know the stuff – or my version - white chocolate, krispies and whatever takes your fancy on top of all that. I have made various different types such as Christmas, Halloween, Great British. So why not for the ‘loved up’ holiday?

There are plenty of additions I could have added on top from the confectionery world (and not all for family viewing, surprisingly!) but I settled for Love Hearts. Known the world over (I think), they are fizzy little discs of candy, with a love heart and message stamped on top. I also went for cherry lips atop my bark. I had wanted to get jelly hearts, but then I came across little white candy hearts in my cupboard, and thought they’d be perfect. No baking required…



Ingredients:
450 grams white chocolate, chopped
60 grams rice krispies
Pink food colouring
1 roll of Love Hearts
1 bag of Cherry Lips
White Heart nonpareils

Method:
Line a cookie sheet with greaseproof paper and set aside.
Over a pan of simmering water, place a bowl filled with the white chocolate. Stir until melted and then add pink food colouring until you get a shade you are happy with. Stir in the rice krispies so they are all coated with the pink white chocolate.



Spread the krispie chocolate mix into the cookie sheet and spread out as thin as possible without it breaking up. Then randomly add your toppings. Once done, take another sheet of greaseproof paper, place this on top of the bark and with your hands gently smooth over it, to embed the add-ins into the molten chocolate.



Pop into the fridge until the chocolate has set, or preferably overnight. Remove from the fridge and break into chunks. Now you can give your valentines bark to the person of your dreams! Enjoy…


Wednesday 6 February 2013

Cartoon Time - Mule the Muffin

Thanks to Katie T for this idea, based on an old TV show she is way too young to remember!


Monday 4 February 2013

Choc Malt Swirl Cookies




I almost called these ‘Teaser Twirls – they combine the malt and chocolate elements of Maltesers (I think they’re called Whoppers in the US) in a cookie you see. I wanted to make quite a straightforward cookie and saw a recipe for swirl ones, where you make two doughs, then roll them up like a swiss roll, slicing them to expose the swirled dough.

I came across one recipe for chocolate and matcha (or green tea), but I had recently heard horror stories about green tea cookies, so left that well alone. I then thought why not make Malteser flavoured cookies. So I made chocolate dough and malted dough (using Horlicks). The result was a delicious cookie, that looked as good as it tasted.

Yield: 30 cookies approx.

Chocolate Dough Ingredients:
140 grams granulated sugar
40 grams cocoa powder
Pinch salt
115 grams unsalted butter, softened
1 small egg
75 grams plain flour

Malt Dough Ingredients:
55 grams granulated sugar
1 tablespoon icing sugar
Pinch of salt
1 small egg
115 grams unsalted butter, softened
75 grams plain flour
25 grams malted milk drink (such as Horlicks)

Chocolate Dough Method:
Sift together the flour, cocoa powder and salt, set aside. In the bowl of a food mixer, cream together the sugar and butter until light and creamy. Add the egg and beat until pale and slightly thickened. Add the flour mix and beat just until everything is combined and a dough has formed. Place the dough onto some cling film, wrap and place into the fridge to chill for 2 hours.

Malt Dough Method:
Similar to above, sift the four, malted milk powder and salt together. Beat the butter with the sugars, then add the egg. When combined, add the flour mix, beat until a dough has formed. Wrap the dough in clingfilm and cill for two hours.



Making the swirl:
Roll each of the doughs into two oblongs the same size – mines were 7inches by 12 inches. If the dough is too soft after rolling, place them back in the fridge to harden slightly. 



Next brush the chocolate dough with some water and place the malt dough on top , pressing down to stick them together, cut off any excess from the sides. Slowly roll the dough into a sausage shape, with the longest side facing you.. 



Wrap again in film and place back into fridge for half an hour. Preheat the oven to 160oC and line a couple of cookie sheets with greaseproof paper. Remove the dough sausage from the fridge and with a sharp knife cut into slices about ¼ thick. Place onto the cookie sheet and bake the cookies for 12 to 15 minutes, until they have turned pale golden. Allow them to cool and you have delicious Malteser inspired swirl cookies to admire and devour. Enjoy!


Saturday 2 February 2013

The Cakeyboi Alphabet - E

E is for Electric...


If you can, invest in an electric food mixer, and preferably a stand-mixer. Although not an essential, they save huge amounts of time in the kitchen and do a lot of the work for you. In fact, some recipes can't be made without one (see my marshmallow recipe).