In the kitchen with little time, little money and little people
Magnolia flowers…. we’ve been eating a lot of them lately, between Magnolia Flower Pickle and Chocolate Dipped Magnolia Flowers and this amazing Magnolia Flower Drizzle. We’re two weeks into official spring and we’ve already finished off two of these beauties!
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:
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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.
Did you know?
You could also pick up this Special Edition Bambi & Friends issue for £9.99 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!)
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.
To stick to the vegan roots of this vegan chocolate cake you can make a delicious chocolate glaze instead.
I hope you enjoy this delicious cake and it’s multiple variations on decorations. And remember to have a look at Disney Cakes & Sweets magazine too!
I love Lemon Drizzle Cake. I have tried so many different recipes to find one that I love, and I think I finally have it. This recipe makes a beautiful sugary crust on top, while the cake stays moist and yummy. It’s lemony flavour goes throughout the cake, and is, quite frankly, delicious.
The benefit of doing it with the Thermomix is that it’s fast as can be – I made this and two other cakes and two breads in 90 minutes today!
I use a lemon zester for the skin as that’s easier for me than ‘peeling’ the lemon with a potato peeler to add the skins to the bowl. That said, I do use a peeler for a few bits for the top of the cake. I think that’s quite pretty.
If you don’t have a Thermomix, the original recipe is here. Below you’ll find it adapted for Thermomix, though you can do the same in any food processor, really – just use your beating fittings for the butter, and the mixing one to combine it all.
Since my gall bladder problems started, I’ve been focusing a lot on grain free recipes, but that means I really miss things like cake. Fortunately almond flour is easy to come by – I have a Thermomix, so I make it from whole almonds – and it’s good for gall bladder health too.
There’s a fair bit of sugar in this one. I want to try it with Rapadura, but my husband doesn’t like Rapadura so I don’t want to try it on a cake he has to eat.
I made these in a brownie pan, which I use for a lot of our snacks because they are then cut into squares and the children recognise them as snacktime treats. You can of course use a round pan or anything you fancy.
Also, I pour the drizzle over the hot cake so it will sink in. If you like it to look drizzled, you can wait till the cake is cool.
Every now and then, this girl just needs chocolate. Colour me wrong, but sometimes, I just need chocolate. Today was one of those days. No sooner was my youngest riding off into dreamland, and I was in the kitchen throwing together a chocolate brownie. This one uses Rapadura and hazelnuts, so it’s not perfect, but it’s better than refined sugar.
The calorie count difference between rapadura and brown sugar is minimal, maybe one or two, but the big difference between them is in the vitamin c and iron percentages. 200g of sugar contains no vitamin c, and 5% iron, while 200g of rapadura contains 7% vitamin c and 42% iron. You’re still having the calories, but at least you’re getting something good with them.
Serve with home made Rapadura ice cream, or on it’s own as a yummy snack.
