For Garam Masala, I’ve discovered, there are about as many recipes as their are people making it. There isn’t one authentic, or one original recipe, but rather it seems to be a matter of personal choice.
For a long time I would say that I didn’t like curries. I think this was because every curry I ever had from a takeaway was just an overkill of hot and I didn’t find that very pleasant. It was only when a friend served me a curry she made that I realised that there was a world of flavour out there that I knew very little about. Over the recent years I’ve learned to enjoy curries – but only those I make, so that I manage the heat!
Garam Masala is the foundation for many North Indian and South Asian dishes, but I’ve also learned that it can add amazing flavour to any meat dish without specifically making it a curry. Garam Masala actually means ‘warm spices’ and that’s precisely what these spices do – they add a warm depth of flavour to the meal.
As with all spices, if you’re able to blend it fresh when you need it, the flavours are stronger and richer, but I make a small amount at a time so that I make a fresh batch every month or so. You can freeze this and take it out as you need it, or just store in an airtight container.
DIY Garam Masala
Recipe Type: Seasoning, Spicemix
Cuisine: Asian, Indian
Author: Luschka
Prep time:
Cook time:
Total time:
Serves: 200g
Since I prefer to make this mix up fresh as often as possible, I keep the quantities small, meaning the Thermomix scales aren’t useful here, so this recipe uses a 5ml teaspoon and a 15ml tablespoon.
Ingredients
1 Whole nutmeg
10 Whole cloves
1 Cassia Stick (sold as cinnamon sticks in supermarkets)
1 tsp Black Peppercorns
2 tbs Coriander seeds
1 tbs Cumin seeds
1 tbs Fennel seeds
1 tbs Cardamom pods (about 6 pods)
1 tsp Cayenne pepper (add more if you prefer a hotter spice, or substitute for dried chillies)
1 tsp Turmeric
Instructions
If you’re using a Thermomix, you can add all the ingredients to the bowl and whizz at[b] speed 10 / 20 seconds[/b]. Check inside to confirm, but everything should be a fine powder.
If you’re not using a Thermomix or similar high powered blender, add the first four ingredients, and blend for 30 seconds or until broken into pieces. Add the rest of the ingredients and blend for a further 30 – 60 seconds depending on your blender, until all the spices are crushed.
Store in an airtight container and use within a month for the best flavours.
I love Basil. It’s such a sensory herb, with the ability to transport you to just about anywhere – usually in Italy.
I also love chocolate, and one of my favourite memories is from my honeymoon, some 10 and a bit years ago, where we spent time backpacking through Italy, from Sorento through to Bergamo. Our last night was in a hotel in Turin, and by the time we got there we were pretty worn out. The 4-star hotel had an amazing jacuzzi in the bathroom, and with promises to return one day, we didn’t venture further than the cafe on the corner.
This particular cafe, however, had a delicious selection of home made chocolates and ice cream, and I fell in love with the combination of Basil and Chocolate. No, it’s not one you come across often, but it works – trust me, it works.
I recently agreed to participate in a challenge where I had to come up with a recipe that speaks to the taste of Italy, and I can’t think of much that speaks of Italy like Basil does, so here is my contribution: Chocolate Mousse with Basil Cream – and here is my advice: don’t knock it till you try it!
This is an incredibly rich mousse. We had two people (including two children) sharing the two ice cream bowls of mousse & cream in the pictures, and it was still a lot. So it’s a great sharers dish.
We hope you love the Chocolate Mousse & Basil Cream as much as we do!
Easy French Chocolate Mousse – Kids In The Kitchen
Recipe Type: Dessert
Cuisine: French
Author: Luschka
Prep time:
Cook time:
Total time:
Serves: 2-3
Serve with home made clotted cream, strawberries & mint leaves!
Ingredients
335g double cream
10 fresh basil leaves
15g icing sugar
150g chocolate
2 large eggs, separated
2 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Instructions
For the Basil Cream
In a sealable container, add 200g cream and whole basil leaves together.
Cover and put in the fridge for 5 hours. After that time, remove the basil leaves and discard
Add the icing sugar to the cream and whisk to stiff peaks. (I find it easiest here to transfer into a piping bag, and set aside.
Regular Instructions
Melt the chocolate in the microwave, on a double boiler, in a bowl nestled inside a pot on the stove top (making sure not to get any water in) or however you normally melt chocolate.
While it’s melting, whisk the egg whites to stiff peaks, adding the sugar slowly as you whisk, then put the egg whites in the fridge.
Next, whisk the cream to stiff peaks, and place in the fridge.
Finally, in a large bowl add the vanilla extract to the egg yolks and mix until smooth. Pour the melted chocolate slowly in to the egg yolks, stirring all the time.
Next, add the cream to the egg and chocolate mix, and stir till it’s all combined.
Finally fold in the egg whites. Do not beat, whisk or over stir this as doing so will cause the mousse to collapse. Follow instructions below for combining.
Thermomix Instructions
These instructions are for one bowl. If you have two, melt the chocolate in one and do the whisking in the other.
Place the egg whites and sugar in the Thermomix bowl and whisk with the butterfly speed 4 about 1 minute. Keep an eye on it – the freshness of your eggs and the temperature will affect how long you need to whisk this for, and you don’t want it to collapse again, so just stop when you reach stiff peaks.
Scoop into a bowl and set aside in the fridge
Wash out the bowl and dry thoroughly.
Pour the cream in and add the butterfly again. Whisk the cream for about 30 seconds/speed 4. Again, keep an eye on it – freshness of cream and starting temperature of cream will affect how long it needs to be whisked for. You don’t want butter!
Set aside the cream, and wash and dry the bowl.
Add the chocolate to the Thermomix bowl and chop speed 5, 10 seconds.
Heat to 50C/Speed 2/ 3 minutes. Meanwhile in a large bowl, mix the egg yolk and vanilla extract and stir to combine. When the chocolate is melted pour in a thin stream whisking together. (Don’t pour the egg into the hot chocolate or you’ll end up with scrambled eggs.)
Add the cream to the bowl, whisking to combine.
Finally, add the egg whites and gently fold them in. If you whisk or stir too vigorously you’ll knock all the air out of the egg whites and your mousse will fall flat.
To Finish
Smaller ramekins or glasses are better for this desert as it is very rich.
Place a layer of chocolate mousse in your serving dish and flatten out.
Next you need a layer of basil. I find piping it around the edges first then in through the centre the easiest, before adding a final layer of chocolate. If you’re confident in your piping skills, pipe a pattern of the basil cream on top – I messed it up first time, so scooped it up again, hence mine looks a bit chocolatey.
You can serve it immediately for a light and fluffy mousse, but it’s equally delicious, if a bit denser and less airy a few hours later.
I bought pears a few weeks ago thinking my girls would eat them, but they were hard, and stayed hard, till they started looking beyond their best, so I decided to make a baked pudding with them. I have been trying to use my Varoma more, so thought a steamed pudding would be nice too, specially since this ‘summer’ is hiding behind thick rain clouds today.
I have no idea how you would steam a pudding on the stove top, but if you do, I’m sure this will be easy to make even without a Thermomix.
I also think the flavours in this can easily be adapted – adding cloves, raisins, cardamom as you like. And I like to serve this with home made clotted cream or ice cream.
Steamed Pear Pudding With Orange Butter Sauce
Recipe Type: Dessert
Cuisine: Steamed
Author: Luschka
Prep time:
Cook time:
Total time:
Serves: 4 puddings
Serve with home made [url href=”https://www.keeperofthekitchen.com/2015/08/19/diy-clotted-cream-in-the-slowcooker-or-crockpot/” title=”DIY Clotted Cream In The Slowcooker Or Crockpot”]clotted cream[/url] or ice cream, or just on it’s own
Ingredients
For the fruit
2 pears, cored and chopped in rough cubes
25g butter
20g sugar
teaspoon cinnamon or all-spice
juice of one orange
For the pudding
125g butter
110g caster sugar
2 eggs
130g self-raising flour
zest from 1 orange
Instructions
Chop pears into cubes and place in the Thermomix bowl.
Add butter, sugar and spices and orange juice and cook 5 mins/ Varoma Temp/Speed 1
Spoon into rammekins or heat-proof dishes
In the Thermomix, whisk the butter and sugar together for 50 seconds/speed 4
Add the eggs, self raising flour and zest and beat together for 30 seconds/speed 4
Spoon into rammekins, above the fruit
Place the rammekins into bottom ‘shelf’ of the Varoma and put the lid on
Add water up to the 1l mark in the bowl, place the Varoma on top and steam for 25 mins/Varoma Temp/Speed 3
Turn upside down onto a serving dish and serve with clotted cream or icecream
We’re still learning about France this week, and another recipe from the France: Food and Celebrations* book that we’ve been using that we just had to try is the Chocolate Mousse. According to the Frenchling in this book, this dessert is only for special ocassions, but a great thing about it is that it’s really simple to make.
I think if you have two Thermomix bowls this is the simplest recipe in the world. I just have the one and it’s still dead simple, just requires a bit of a wash inbetween.
Of course I am trying to teach the kids to cook without the Thermomix too, so there’s a bit of ‘elbow grease’ required in three sets of whisking, but that’s good for them too. They used the Annabel Karmel Casdon Baking Set which has a fabulous bowl and whisk, perfectly child sized and very effective in whisking.
I had each girl responsible for her own whisking ingredients while I did the chocolate, but managing kids whisking liquids doesn’t leave much time for photo taking!
The original recipe calls for three hours in the fridge, but I’m not convinced by that. After an hour the mouse was almost more of a pudding, whereas initially upon finishing it, I couldn’t resist tucking in a little had to perform a taste test and it was very light and airy.
You can add flavoured chocolate to this to make a flavoured mousse – mint, orange, strawberry, whatever you like. I used dark chocolate in this recipe.
Easy French Chocolate Mousse – Kids In The Kitchen
Recipe Type: Dessert
Cuisine: French
Author: Luschka
Prep time:
Total time:
Serves: 3
Serve with home made clotted cream, strawberries & mint leaves!
Ingredients
150g chocolate
2 large eggs, seperated
2 tablespoons sugar
125g (125ml) whipping cream or double cream
1 teaspoon vanilla
fruit and cream to serve
Instructions
Regular Instructions
Melt the chocolate in the microwave, on a double boiler, in a bowl nestled inside a pot on the stove top (making sure not to get any water in) or however you normally melt chocolate.
While it’s melting, whisk the egg whites to stiff peaks, adding the sugar slowly as you whisk, then put the egg whites in the fridge.
Next, whisk the cream to stiff peaks, and place in the fridge.
Finally, in a large bowl add the vanilla extract to the egg yolks and mix until smooth. Pour the melted chocolate slowly in to the egg yolks, stirring all the time.
Next, add the cream to the egg and chocolate mix, and stir till it’s all combined.
Finally fold in the egg whites. Do not beat, whisk or over stir this as doing so will cause the mousse to collapse.
Once combined, dish into serving dishes and place in the fridge for 1 – 3 hours to set.
Top with strawberries, mint leaves and cream for a luxurious finish.
Thermomix Instructions
These instructions are for one bowl. If you have two, melt the chocolate in one and do the whisking in the other.
Place the egg whites and sugar in the Thermomix bowl and whisk with the butterfly speed 4 about 1 minute. Keep an eye on it – the freshness of your eggs and the temperature will affect how long you need to whisk this for, and you don’t want it to collapse again, so just stop when you reach stiff peaks.
Scoop into a bowl and set aside in the fridge
Wash out the bowl and dry thoroughly.
Pour the cream in and add the butterfly again. Whisk the cream for about 30 seconds/speed 4. Again, keep an eye on it – freshness of cream and starting temperature of cream will affect how long it needs to be whisked for. You don’t want butter!
Set aside the cream, and wash and dry the bowl.
Add the chocolate to the Thermomix bowl and chop speed 5, 10 seconds.
Heat to 50C/Speed 2/ 3 minutes. Meanwhile in a large bowl, mix the egg yolk and vanilla extract and stir to combine. When the chocolate is melted pour in a thin stream whisking together. (Don’t pour the egg into the hot chocolate or you’ll end up with scrambled eggs.)
Add the cream to the bowl, whisking to combine.
Finally, add the egg whites and gently fold them in. If you whisk or stir too vigorously you’ll knock all the air out of the egg whites and your mousse will fall flat.
Once combined, move to your serving dishes and refrigerate for 1 – 3 hours.
Top with strawberries, mint leaves and cream for a luxurious finish.
This week my home schooled kids are learning about France, because we’re heading off to Disneyland Paris in a few weeks. They don’t know this though – they think we’re going to Paris to learn about ‘old stuff’. We will spend a day in Paris too though, just to make sure their learning wasn’t for nothing.
One of the things you learn when learning about France, beyond capital city and population size, is food, and since we have very little by way of groceries at the moment (someone left the car door open, leaving the light on over night and us with a flat battery today. RAC finally reached us well after bed time tonight, so grocery shopping tomorrow!) I was quite literally faced with four onions, two day old bread and some cheese to come up with a dinner idea… you can see where I’m going with this, I’m sure.
One of the books we’re using for our studies at the moment is called France: Food and Celebrations* by Sylvia Goulding, with a bunch of recipes for kids to make, so while I could do this with so much more ease in the Thermomix in 15 minutes, I still feel it’s really important for my kids to learn to cook traditionally first, so that they can understand the basics of cooking – and from there the sky is the limit.
For this French Onion Soup, I didn’t add the traditional Gruyere, so the kids’ just had a strong cheddar on theirs. I added some Chaource to mine. Chaource is a French cheese, originally manufactured in the village of Chaource in the Champagne-Ardenne region. Chaource is a cow’s milk cheese, cylindrical in shape at around 10 cm in diameter and 6 cm in height. It has a soft inside, like an already baked Camembert, and has a beautiful very mild blue cheesy tang to it. It’s really lush, a very unknown cheese in the UK and easily available from Tesco and just works in this soup. (Sorry French traditionalists!)
I had my 5 year old slice the onions (we use this ‘safe’ Pampered Chef slicer) and then stir them on the stove till they were translucent. Meanwhile my 3 year old layered bread and grated cheese in soup dishes. I poured the water in to make the soup, transferred everything to the grill and removed it from there again.
I should add here that this is probably a meal for two, but for one adult and two children it’s ample. Considering you’re eating a slice of bread and an onion with some cheese, it’s incredibly filling, and very rich.
French Onion Soup – Kids In The Kitchen
Author: Recipe adapted from France: Food And Celebrations
Prep time:
Cook time:
Total time:
Serves: 3 soups
The original recipe calls for duck or goose fat. I used regular salted butter.
Ingredients
2 large or 4 small brown onions
large dollop butter (20g)
1 teaspoon sugar
1.5 litres beef stock (reduce to1000g if using TM31 Thermomix and cook without MC)
4 – 8 slices day old bread
100g shredded cheddar cheese
100g other cheese (for kids I leave this one out and use just cheddar as that’s rich enough for them) Gruyere or Chaource
salt and pepper to taste
Instructions
Regular Recipe
Peel and thinly slice onions.
Add butter and onion to a pan and sauté till they are translucent and beginning to brown, about 5 – 8 minutes.
Add stock and simmer for 25 minutes.
Meanwhile, grate the cheese, and layer cheese and bread in an oven proof soup bowl (Individual bowls are better than one serving dish) Start with a thin layer of cheese, top with bread, another layer of cheese, and end with a layer of bread, reserving some cheese for later.
When the soup is cooked, spoon onion and soup into soup bowls and top with remaining cheese.
Place under grill for 5 – 10 minutes, keeping an eye on it till the cheese is browned. The dishes will be hot, so transfer carefully to a counter.
For the Thermomix
Add one or both cheeses to the Thermomix (drop over running blades) speed 5, 10 – 15 seconds.
Clean the bowl and set the cheese aside.
Add the onions and butter to the Thermomix and blend 10 seconds speed 4.
Sauté for 8 mins/100C/spoon speed. (If you can, do this on the stove, I do prefer the flavour)
Add the stock (remember to keep to the limits in the Thermomix, so 2000g for TM31)
Cook reverse speed, Varoma/15 mins, without the MC
Meanwhile in the soup dishes, start with a thin layer of cheese, top with bread, another layer of cheese, and end with a layer of bread, reserving some cheese for later.
When the soup is cooked, spoon onion and soup into soup bowls and top with remaining cheese.
Place under grill for 5 – 10 minutes, keeping an eye on it till the cheese is browned. The dishes will be hot, so transfer carefully to a counter.
I know you’re wondering what on earth I’m doing posting a Christmas recipe in August, but since I’m in the Northern Hemisphere, and it’s summer here, now’s the right time for me to test something I’ve been toying with in my mind for ages.
We spent last Christmas in Australia, and Christmas day was really very hot, as Perth is wont to be late December. I bought the Christmas pudding my mum used to buy and made her special brandy sauce and we ate our Christmas pudding – but we ate it because my mum used to make it and she wasn’t there anymore, but it lead me to thinking that it would be great to have the same flavours, but in a more seasonally appropriate fashion.
A quick Google showed me that my genius idea of brandy butter ice cream isn’t original (isn’t it sad when that happens 😉 ) but I looked at a few recipes, made some adjustments and came up with this below.
I don’t have an ice cream maker either – just to add to the complication, so you can make this recipe with any and all or absolutely no gadgets. As it happened, I also didn’t have butter, so had to first make that from some extra cream!
Brandy Butter Christmas Cake Icecream
Recipe Type: Dessert
Cuisine: Christmas
Author: Luschka
Prep time:
Cook time:
Total time:
Serves: 700g
Ingredients
130g butter
100ml/95g brandy
300ml/300g milk
2 egg yolks
175g light soft brown sugar
150ml /150g double cream
Christmas Pudding (as much as you have)
Instructions
Melt the butter on a stove till it’s just browning, then remove it so it doesn’t burn.
Add the brandy and set aside to cool.
Warm the milk in a pan, while you whisk the yolk and sugar till it is lighter in colour. Don’t let the milk boil.
On the stove
Pour the hot milk over the sugar mixture, whisking continuously, then return to the saucepan set over a low heat. Cook for 3-4 mins, stirring the whole time until the custard thickens enough to coat the back of the spoon.
In the Thermomix
If you’ve whisked the sugar mixture in the Thermomix, add the hot milk to the sugar mixture and cook on 60C/3:30mins/speed1. This should make a custard, thick enough to coat the spoon.
Once all the sauces are cooled:
Whisk the double cream to stiff peaks. Mix the brandy butter with the custard then mix in to the cream. Make sure it’s all combined well, then put it in the freezer.
Making the ice cream
If you have an ice cream maker, follow the instructions to make ice cream. If you don’t, add it to your Thermomserver or any other dish and remove from the freezer every half hour to stir and break down all the crystals.
After 5 times – about 2.5 hours – crumble the Christmas pudding into the ice cream mix together, and leave to set till you’re ready to serve. (If you’re using an ice cream maker, follow their instructions on adding bits.)
Remove 10 – 15 minutes before serving, depending on your outside temperature, and enjoy.
3.2.2925
This recipe features in A Very Thermie Christmas, where you can find it and 50 other recipes perfect for a Thermomix assisted Christmas. Read more about it here.
My children have always been fond of spending time in the kitchen with me, so when we were offered a review of the Casdon Annabel Karmel Baking Range, I said yes – we have a ton of play kitchen stuff, but real kitchen goodies made for kids? Well, what’s not to love?
My brother has been visiting from Australia this week, and he mentioned wanting coconut ice, so I pulled up an old recipe from the Disney Cakes and Sweets series that’s fantastic to makes with kids, since it doesn’t require any boiling or cooking.
Disney Cakes and Sweets is a really fantastic magazine to subscribe to, and along with fantastic quality bakeware and silicone moulds there are step by step instructions and recipes for every Disney character you could imagine. It’s something else. You can find out more about what’s available in the Disney Cakes & Sweets Magazine subscription by clicking here
Most of our equipment came from the Casdon Annabel Karmel Baking Range and while it’s supposed to be for pastries and cakes, it worked really well for coconut ice.
We used the mixing bowl and mixing spoons to mix our ingredients together, and then we used the cupcake tray and silicone mini cupcake cases to add a layer of white and then a layer of pink coconut ice.
The kit is really great for little hands, strong and well made. It doesn’t feel at all flimsy or weak – in fact the opposite – it’s really well made and conveniently designed, down to the silicone ‘handles’ on the tray to make it better to hold out of the oven (that we didn’t use this time).
I am really impressed with the quality of this set – honestly I’ve had ‘real’ pans and silicone that haven’t been as good.
The ‘My Perfect Pastry Set’ contains 10 cookie cutters, a round baking tin, six measuring spoons, a silicone spatula, a measuring jug, a mixing bowl with an anti-slip base, a silicone handle whisk, a rolling pin, a mini tart pan and 10 recipes from Annabel Karmel – we’ll try those next!
Casdon Annabel Karmel Baking Range And No-Cook Coconut Ice
Author: Luschka
Prep time:
Cook time:
Total time:
Serves: 1 kg
Ingredients
397g can condensed milk
300g (11oz) icing sugar
300g (11oz) desiccated coconut (we used organic)
½ tsp vanilla extract
food colouring of choice
Instructions
Instructions
Set out silicone cupcake cases or a baking tray, ready for use.
I use an awesome brownie pan for most things, and the cupcake cases work well too.
Pour condensed milk into a large mixing bowl and sift in the icing sugar. – I opened the tin of condensed milk and poured it out into the bowl to avoid the sharp edges.
Add the coconut and vanilla essence or extract and mix together until well combined.
Spoon half the mix into your baking tray and flatten out pressing down tightly. Add a few drops of food colouring, and mix well to combine. This is such a messy, fun job, the kids love it.
If you’re having two coloured layers, add the required colour to the other bowl.
Mix well and add to pan, flattening till all the first layer is covered, and it’s all flattened.
Place pan in the fridge for six hours or overnight to set.
Once set, turn out and cut the coconut ice into squares.
If you use the brownie pan, cut it while still in the pan. This will make huge slices though, so use a knife to cut again.
For the Thermomix:
Make your icing sugar first, if you’re making your own.
Add all but the colouring and mix on speed 2 for 30 seconds.
Split the mixture into two, put one layer in the pan and flatten it with a spoon or with your hand, then add the food colouring to the other one.
Layer the next into the pan and leave to set in the fridge for at least 6 hours.
I’ve tried to make pull apart breads on, well, more than one occasion, but I’ve never found them to be perfect. They’ve just never been ‘right’ – till today. Today I made a most beautiful garlic & herb pull apart bread. It was light, fluffy, airy and delicious. My kids loved it. I loved it. Now I’m writing it all down step by step so hopefully next time I make it, it’ll be as good! I have a hankering to try this with bacon too. Just saying.
You can make this with or without the cheese, and you can vary the herbs to your preference. The main thing is to make sure you add some of the garlic butter to the bottom of the baking dish so that it seeps through to make these beautiful, fluffy and delicious breadrolls for a tear & share bread.
Garlic & Herb Pull Apart Bread Recipe
Recipe Type: Side Dish, Bread
Cuisine: BBQ, Bread
Author: Luschka
Prep time:
Cook time:
Total time:
Serves: 8 – 10
You can make this bread with any recipe you prefer, really, but this one is adapted from the Bestest Breadrolls recipe on the Thermomix community.
Ingredients
For the bread
10g dry yeast
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon sugar
510 g bakers flour
30 g garlic flavoured olive oil
310 g warm water
For the garlic butter
4 garlic cloves
15g flat leaf parsley
60g parmesan or other cheese
60g butter
Instructions
Add all the ingredients to a clean Thermomix bowl.
Mix at speed 5 for 10 seconds, then knead for 90 seconds using the dough setting.
Oil a glass bowl and place the dough inside. Cover the dough and set aside to rise to double it’s size.
For the butter
Add the garlic, parsley and cheese to the bowl and mix on speed 5 for 8 – 10 seconds.
Add the butter and melt at 50C/Speed 1/2 mins.
Pour a third of the melted butter mix into an oven safe dish..
Take the dough and split it into 8 – 10 balls. Put them on top of the butter mix in the dish, making sure they touch lightly. Drizzle over the remaining butter mix.
Turn the oven on to 180C and put the breadrolls into the oven (while it’s still cold).
Bake bread for 20-30 minutes depending on your oven. It should be golden brown.
Remove from oven dish so the base doesn’t get soggy.
I know leftover cake is a bit of a foreign concept in most cases, but after making the Vegan Chocolate Cake the other day, we had loads left over. We could of course just sit down and eat it, but we had one of those days here today and I decided my kids and I needed a party for three. It was misty and cold and overcast for most of the day too, so we had to bring the beach indoors.
I recently bought these fun bucket and spade silicone cups that you can bake your cakes in, but I thought we could go with the cake pop idea instead.
At least it gave my kids something to do rather than bicker and argue for a few minutes!
There are no specific amount here because, well, it’s leftover cake!
Roughly, though – half a cake, a small amount of icing sugar, and a sand-coloured biscuit and you’re set.
Put equal amounts of butter and icing powder in a mixing bowl and mix till it looks like icing, a minute or two is normally sufficient. (Thermomix: 2 mins/speed 4) A good start is 50g butter and 50g icing sugar.
Add the cake to the bowl and crumb by hand or in the Thermomix, mix at speed 5 for 30 seconds.
Spoon the mixture into the buckets and squish it flat to compact it.
In a clean bowl, crumb some sandy-coloured biscuits – in the Thermomix, that’s 10 seconds on speed 5. I used the honey-waffle biscuits, but anything that colour will do and you need only one or two biscuits per bucket.
Spoon the ‘sand’ over the compacted cake – it’s a bit like cake pop consistency – and stick your spade in it.
With the left over left overs we made cake pops by forming balls and rolling it around in the sandy coloured biscuit crumbs before putting them on sticks. I popped a little love note in a jar for each of my girls for a ‘message in a bottle’, put the cake pops in and there we have it:
Left over cake for a party of three (or however many you need!)
We aren’t vegan as you can tell by the creamy and beautiful buttercream or chocolate that decorate this cake, but the cake itself is vegan, and beyond being a really tasty treat, it’s also a useful recipe to have to hand when you don’t have eggs, which often happens in my life.
So, this cake is vegan, the chocolates aren’t and the buttercream isn’t. But there’s a lovely topping that you can use if you’re particularly after a vegan cake too – I’ll include that in the recipe.
As for the Bambi shapes, they are moulds from the Disney Cakes and Sweets range from Eaglemoss. We subscribed to this a couple of years back and now have 79 issues filling up my shelves, and a ton of baking goodies too. Ameli’s birthday party last year was a Princess Party, where we used some of the supplies from the Disney Cakes & Sweets magazines, and obviously this Bambi, owl, rabbit and little birds are from that too. It’s a really fantastic magazine to subscribe to, and along with fantastic quality bakeware and silicone moulds there are step by step instructions and recipes for every Disney character you could imagine. It’s something else. You can find out more about what’s available in the Disney Cakes & Sweets Magazine subscription by clicking here.
Now, on to the cake. These characters use 3 standard slabs of chocolate. You could get away with two and just make them a bit thinner. I used two dark and one milk, melted together (I use a Thermomix, 90C, 3 mins, speed 2, but you can use a double boiler).
For this particular cake I also bought the flowers, and my 3 year old called it a ‘forest cake’. When a grown-up friend at our party said ‘Oh, they’re even resting on the grass’ I was very pleased that my marbled green fondant icing, with the bits of ‘soil’ towards the bottom actually translated as such!
Last year I made a similar cake for a spring party, and I added toadstools, flowers and other Disney Cakes & Sweets foresty themed buttons and it looked really pretty. (If you ignore the actual cake baking skills!)
Easy Vegan Chocolate Cake
Recipe Type: Cakes,
Cuisine: Dessert, Cakes, Vegan
Author: Luschka
Prep time:
Cook time:
Total time:
Serves: 1 cake
The vinegar and baking powder cause a reaction so you need get the cake into the hot oven as soon as these two ingredients are mixed, so start with the dry ingredients. In the images above, I have made three batches of the recipe below.
1 tsp [url href=”http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B0069KOLY6/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1634&creative=19450&creativeASIN=B0069KOLY6&linkCode=as2&tag=diaofafirchi-21&linkId=IT2MPEJH5DJ5AXSK” target=”_blank”]vanilla extract[/url] (I recommend this one)
60g (1/3 cup) vegetable oil
1 tsp distilled white or apple cider vinegar
1 tsp baking soda/bicarbonate of soda
Instructions
Regular Instructions
Preheat the oven to 180C.
Oil or prepare your baking tin.
In a bowl, mix all the ingredients, adding the baking powder and vinegar last.
Pour into an ovenproof dish, and put in the centre of a hot oven.
Bake at 180C for about 30 mins.
Cool completely before icing.
Thermomix Instructions
Preheat the oven to 180C.
Oil or prepare your baking tin.
Add all but the last two ingredients listed to the bowl, and mix speed 4, 5 seconds.
Add the vinegar and baking powder and mix speed 1, 5 seconds.
Pour into an ovenproof dish, and put in the centre of a hot oven.
Bake at 180C for about 30 mins.
Cool completely before icing.
3.2.2925
For my cake I made a buttercream icing, and topped with fondant. My mother used to make the best buttercream in the world. Here’s her recipe, adapted to the Thermomix, but you can use any electric beater for the job – just focus more on the appearance than the timing.
I like to use a beautiful rich yellow salted butter for this, as it cuts the sweetness a little.
A quick Google showed me that my genius idea of brandy butter ice cream isn’t original (isn’t it sad when that happens 😉 ) but I looked at a few recipes, made some adjustments and came up with this below.
