Cake Pops

Today I thought I would share my first attempt at making cake pops. One night when I was having trouble sleeping, I was in the mood to bake so I thought i'd give cake pops a go. After looking at a few recipes on the internet for some guidance I took the essentials and adapted them to what I had in the cupboard/ what I fancied making. I decided on all chocolate pops, that meant chocolate cake, chocolate buttercream, chocolate coating and chocolate sprinkles. If your not a fan of chocolate you will not like these.

To start I made my basic chocolate cake which I use in most of my chocolate cake recipes. For this I creamed together 200g of butter and 200g of caster sugar. You need 2 eggs and 200g of self raising flour. Alternate between adding small amounts of the beaten eggs and self raising flour at a time. Add a little vanilla extract, a dash of milk and 3 heaped tbsp of cocoa powder. Mix togethe and spread into your cake tin. Cook at 180 on a fan assisted oven for about 30 minutes or until springy to touch. It doesn't matter what tin you bake it in as once it's cooked it will all be crumbled up.

Whilst the cake is cooking you can make the buttercream so that it has time to chill for a while in the fridge. Mix butter and icing sugar together along with some cocoa powder. Mix until you have a smooth and creamy buttercream. Once the cake is cooked and had time to cool, crumble it all up until it almost resembles breadcrumbs. If you don't want the crispier edges of the cake in the mix then cut them off before.

Making sure not to add too much, add a spoonful of the buttercream to the cake crumbs at a time. You don't want the mixture to be moist as the cake will probably quite moist already. You still want the texture to be a little crumbly but with the ability to hold it's shape.

Shape the mixture into rolled balls, if they are not holding their shape then you will need to add a little more buttercream to the mixture. Once all of the cake balls are ready, allow them to chill in the fridge for 20-30 minutes.

Melt your chocolate and dip your sticks about 1cm into it, then insert the sticks into the cake balls about half way through. Now you are ready to dip the cake balls in the chocolate. Make sure that the bowl with the melted chocolate is deep enough to completely coat the cake ball. You could use proper lollipop sticks but I didn't have any of those so I used halved kebab sticks instead, they worked just as well.

Whilst the chocolate is still wet you can decorate the cake pops with any sprinkles you like. I chose white chocolate stars and some chocolate crunchy balls. Once decorated, pop them in the fridge to let them set. You could spend a long time making them perfect and identical but I took more of a random approach by literally sprinkling the decorations on. My chocolate cake pops are far from perfect but they are rather yummy!

If you don't fancy the cake pops, why not try my Ultimate Chocolate Cake which I posted about a few months ago. Or do you have a better recipe for cake pops which I could try?

x

Ultimate Chocolate Cake

After my tweet about the chocolate cake I made today I thought I would share the recipe for it.
It's a simple chocolate cake, with a vanilla buttercream and chocolate topping.

For the cake:
Cream together 200g of butter and 200g of caster sugar. You need 2 eggs and 200g of self raising flour. Alternate between adding small amounts of the beaten eggs and self raising flour at a time. Add a little vanilla extract, a dash of milk and 3 heaped tbsp of cocoa powder. Mix together, seperate into 2 greased cake tins. Cook at 180 on a fan assisted oven for about 30 minutes or until springy to touch.

For the buttercream:
Mix butter and icing sugar together along with some vanilla extract. Mix until you have a smooth and creamy buttercream.

For the chocolate topping:
Cream equal amounts of butter and icing sugar together, then mix melted chocolate until you have the right consistency, add a little water if needed. You need to work quick and get it onto the cake as soon as possible before the mixture cools down too much.

To decorate add your favourite chocolate pieces and sprinkles. I added choco crunchies from Asda and some yummy Hersheys Kisses.

x

A Yummy Piece Of Cake

Yesterday afternoon, after a tasty roast dinner cooked by my lovely mum I was craving something sweet. Nothing quite grabbed me so I decided to make a cake, as you do. I've got so used to this cake recipe because I've baked it so many times, but it is really simple.

Cake mix:

200g of Caster sugar

200g of Butter
200g of Self raising flour

2 eggs

Splash of vanilla extract

Splash of milk

1. Cream together the sugar, butter, milk and vanilla extract.
2. Then alternating between the beaten eggs and flour, adding small amounts of each at a time and then mixing in until you have a smooth cake mixture.
3. Then bake at 180 on a fan assisted oven for 25-30 minutes, or until springy to touch.

For the filling of the cake I used a strawberry jam and a vanilla buttercream, I don't usually measure my ingredients for the buttercream. I simply mix icing sugar with butter and vanilla extract until it's the right consistency and the right taste (not too buttery).

As you can see from this cake it's not the prettiest of cakes but my my it did taste lovely, even if I do say so myself. I didn't have much patience when making this cake as I didn't allow it to cool properly, hence why there is a big crack down the cake. I have therefore settled that it's a broken hearted cake with a make shift plaster to patch it back together.

 

Next time i'll be sure to let it cool before trying to decorate!

x

The Fabulous Fruity Slices

Recently I've seen a lot of "The Fabulous Bakin' Boys" range about but have been trying to avoid temptation and save myself a few calories. However, on Saturday I gave in and bought 2 packs of their fruity slices.

I'm not usually keen on flapjack type things as they can usually be quite dry and flavourless. These however are absolutely lovely, Full of flavour and not dry at all. Both the apple and strawberry flavour slices were gorgeous, so fruity and the right balance between oats and fruit so that it's not sickly.

I'll definitely be buying these again and would recommend them to anyone who likes the idea of a fruity flapjack.

At the moment you get get them for just over £1 or 2 for £2 in some shops. They're not too calorific at around 165 Calories a slice, but I think I'll have to hide them away and keep them as a weekend treat!

x