Cherry Ripe Slice

Cherry Ripes are probably my all time favourite chocolate bar and an Australian institution. If I had a ready and easy supply of the real thing I'm not sure I would make this, however, as they are hard to come by over here in the UK I thought I would look for a way to make them myself. If you have no idea what I am talking about, let me explain, Cherry Ripes are a dark chocolate dipped bar, filled with chopped glacé cherries and coconut filling. I'm not a great fan of glacé cherries, but in this, they are perfect and you simply can't substitute for fresh cherries.

There are a few variations to this recipe online, so I had a look through them all to find one that suited me. Most have a chocolate slice base, and look really nice, but I wanted to have no base so I could make some dipped in chocolate (see below), like the proper bar, and some in a slice form like this above.

This is a no bake recipe, super easy and totally delicious!

What will I change? I'll add more cherries next time, and less condensed milk. The original recipe called for copher (a uniquely Australian product), but I substituted with coconut oil. It was fine with that, and I would say much healthier.

Without further ado, here is the recipe (with adjustments to suit my changes):

Cherry Ripe Slice

Ingredients:

150-200g glacé cherries, chopped (depends on how full of cherries you would like the slice)

250g desiccated coconut

300g sweetened condensed milk

1 teaspoon vanilla essence

115g coconut oil, melted (or copher if available)

few drops pink food colouring until desired colouring

200g dark chocolate, melted

Method:

Line a large 20 x 30cm tray with aluminium foil.

Put condensed milk, vanilla, coconut oil and food colouring into a large bowl. Mix to combine. The oil will stay separate at this stage but will change soon.

Add cherries and coconut, mix well and if desired, add a few more drops of food colouring.

Spoon mixture into the tray and spread out evenly and carefully. I put just under half into a smaller tray to make into the dipped bars, but if you'd prefer the slice, put it all in the tray, it will just be thicker than mine.

Smooth the top with an offset spatula and chill in the fridge for an hour or freezer for 30 mins.

For the slice, once chilled, pour the chocolate over the top, smooth it out and chill in the fridge for a couple of hours or overnight. To slice it up, bring it out of the fridge for about 20 mins before cutting to avoid the chocolate cracking.

For the dipped bars, slice the coconut and cherry mixture into 4cm x 4cm squares, and dip into the melted chocolate, coating all sides. Tap off excess chocolate and then place on to a tray lined with baking paper. Allow to set and harden.

Best kept in the fridge.

Makes 20+ pieces.

Star Wars themed 7th Birthday

This week, is my son's 7th birthday. He is Star Wars mad...and I mean mad for it! My husband thinks he could enter the TV show 'Mastermind', and he's probably correct. Anyway, it was a simple choice for the theme for his party. I knew I had to keep it all simple, as it's also a busy time for me, work wise this month.

Anyway I found some ideas on Pinterest, most completely unachievable for me, some do-able. I love the idea of the Storm Trooper marshmallows, and after making ghosts for Halloween, I knew I could this easily. It just took white marshmallows, cake pop sticks and an edible black pen - all of which I had!

We had bought some Star Wars cookie cutters from Lakeland, and I used the Darth Vader & Storm Trooper ones to make some chocolate biscuits for the take home 'party bag'. I also put in the marshmallow pop, for a tasty goodie bag.

I use Sweetopolita's Dark Chocolate Sugar Cookie recipe for my biscuits. It's a really delicious biscuit, although quite a soft dough, so it needs a lot of chilling, between every stage.

I also used some cupcake wrappers, also from Lakeland, and instead of cupcakes, I made some chocolate crackles for the party.

Chocolate Crackles

Makes about 24

4-5 cups of rice krispies (rice bubbles)

1/2 cup desiccated coconut

1 c mini marshmallows

200g melted chocolate - I like to use Sainsbury's dark chocolate cooking chocolate

Mix all together until coated by the melted chocolate and then spoon into the wrappers. Chill in the fridge for 20 minutes.

Can be stored at room temperature in an airtight container for up to a week.

And now for the cake. These stress me out as I am NOT a good cake decorator and I am nervous and pretty hopeless with fondant covered cakes. I tried to come up with simple ideas and even bought some black and white fondant, but in the end I went for buttercream and ganache and used small Star Wars figures as decorations. They looked like they were playing 'Stuck in the Mud' (cake), and the bonus was my son had some new toys to play with afterwards! I thought the cake looked great.

I've made this cake recipe before, but in a Bundt tin, so this time I split the mixture into 3 x 8 inch tins and cooked them each for 23 minutes on 180deg C and layered them with homemade raspberry jam in the middle. I much prefer this to buttercream between the layers.

The ganache on top is my favourite kind - dark chocolate and coconut milk instead of normal cow's cream.

Coconut Milk Ganache

(Dairy free, but without a strong coconut flavour)

200g dark chocolate

1/3 c coconut milk - mainly solid, and a touch of the liquid.

Chop the chocolate into small pieces and place in an heatproof bowl. Gently heat the milk until it is hot but not quite boiling and pour over the chocolate. Mix and then leave until the chocolate has melted.

Mix until it is smooth and silky. Cool and pour onto the cake and use a offset spatula to spread and drip off the edges of the cake.

Any left over ganache is DELICIOUS on top of vanilla icecream.

Good luck and May the Force be with You!

Halloween Oreo Spider Cake

 

I love Halloween! We didn't celebrate it at all as kids in Australia, and I think even now it's pretty low key, but here in the UK it's bigger and I am loving it. To be honest, we didn't do much for it before we had our son, but for me, having kids is a good excuse to get into it!

Each year now, we hold a party at our place for the kids in our street (and sometimes a few extra friends). It's so much fun, a few games, some fun food and then out trick or treating! The kids get super excited, all dressed up and gorging on sweeties and chocolate.

I love all the baking for the party, with my cake always a centre piece. So, this year I decided to make this Oreo Spider Cake - I had found the idea on Pinterest and adapted it to suit my recipes.

I reuse my cake bunting each year. I painstakingly made it a couple of years ago, cutting all the tiny triangles and sewing the letters together with needle and thread. It's super cute!

 So, basically, this is a chocolate cake with an oreo buttercream inside and out. This cake recipe is a real favourite and one portion of the recipe made all four layers; it's huge! The spiders are made from mini oreos and I piped on some plain buttercream for the eyes. The legs and middle of the eyes are made with a chocolate ganache. More about my ganache later!

 

The cake itself is not overly sweet, but be warned, the oreo and buttercream combo more than makes up for it...good though!

Oreo Spider Cake

• Servings: 15-20

For the Cake:

1 1/4 cups water
3/4 cup cocoa powder
2 1/4 cups sugar
1 teaspoons salt
2 1/2 teaspoons bi carb soda (baking soda)
2 whole eggs
1 egg yolk
1 1/4 cups buttermilk
1 cup sunflower oil - or a similar neutral oil
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 3/4 cups plain (all-purpose) flour, sifted

1. Place an oven rack in the centre of the oven and preheat to 180 degrees C.

2. Line 4 x 20cm pans with baking parchment on the bottoms only.

3. Whisk water and cocoa powder in a small saucepan and bring to a boil, whisking frequently. Remove from heat and let come to room temperature.
4. In the bowl of a stand mixer with a whisk attachment, mix together sugar, salt, baking soda, eggs and egg yolk on low for just one minute. Add the milk, oil and vanilla extract and mix on low again for another minute.
5. Add the flour and mix on medium speed for 2 minutes more.  Add the cooled cocoa mixture and mix on medium speed for 3 minutes. The batter will seem quite loose and liquid.  Pour evenly into the prepared cake pans and cook for 25 mins , or until a cake tester or toothpick inserted in the cake comes out clean. 

6. Let the cake cool for about 10 mins in the pan and then invert onto a cooling rack. Once cooled you can trim off any uneven tops to make it level, or just leave it as I did this time.

For the Oreo Buttercream:
I have to now admit I cheated here, and used tubs of Betty Crocker ready made vanilla buttercream. (Shocking, I know! LOL) I almost always use this, as my son is allergic to cow's milk and these tubs are dairy free, and I am yet to find a dairy free 'butter' that makes a buttercream as nice as the real thing. Anyway we like this buttercream and it's easy to use. But it is an expensive way to do it.
(You can, of course, use your usual buttercream recipe, but do keep some aside for the eyes and crumb coat before you add the oreos).

3.5 tubs of vanilla buttercream style frosting
1 x packet of oreo biscuits, crushed

I crushed the biscuits and then mixed them with 3 tubs of buttercream (although I didn't quite use all of it).
The remaining tub I kept plain to use as the spider eyes and for the crumb coat.

Use half the oreo buttercream in between the layers of the cake. Then use the plain buttercream to make a crumb coat. If you have never crumb coated before, check out this video for a quick tutorial.
Chill your coated cake in the fridge for at least 30 mins. I left mine in overnight as I was working in the evening.

Use the remaining oreo buttercream to cover the cake completely.

For the Dark Chocolate Ganache:

200g best quality dark chocolate, chopped (I used Sainsbury's dark cooking chocolate as it is dairy free and I simply like it)
1/cup (125ml) coconut milk (from the tin)

To make the ganache, heat the coconut milk in a heavy pot, just until it begins to simmer. Remove from the heat and add it to the chopped chocolate. Let the chocolate melt for a a few minutes or so, then mix to combine. 

Leave the ganache to cool down and thicken.

For the Spiders
10-12 mini oreos
Ganache (see above)
buttercream eyes (see above)

Separate the mini oreos and scrape out the filling. Pipe on the eyes and leave to dry overnight.
Stick the spiders onto the cake and then pipe the ganache legs on each spider.

Store in an airtight container - this will stay fresh for about 10 days, if you can resist it for that long!

Notes:
The ganache recipe makes FAR more than you will need, so you can reduce it all, but it is such an utterly delicious recipe (and no strong coconut flavour really) so we use to dip fruit in, over icecream etc, so it's worth having a bigger batch! And dairy free- so a real bonus!

Wagon Wheel Slice

Wagon Wheels are a favourite biscuit of mine - they remind me of my childhood, although I swear they were much bigger in those days. Over here in the UK, you get a choice of wagon wheels with or without jam in them. In my opinion, what's the point of leaving the jam out? I am 'Team Jammy' all the way!

Anyway I saw this recipe posted on a fab Facebook group I am in, and knew straight away I wanted to give them ago. The original post came from a FB page called Aussie Tucker - The Great Australian Bite.

The biscuit base is quite soft like the original, not crunchy at all. Interestingly enough I didn't have quite enough jam in the house, so I thought that layer would be quite thin, but in reality it is plenty and any more would be too sickly sweet I think.

Wagon Wheel Slice

From Aussie Tucker - the Great Australian Bite

Ingredients

For the base:
60g (¼ cup) unsalted butter, melted
1/3 cup caster sugar
1 egg, beaten
1 cup + 3 tablespoons plain flour
¼ teaspoon baking powder
Pinch salt

For the jam:
1/3 cup raspberry jam

For the marshmallow:
2 dessertspoons gelatine powder
1 cup water
1 cup caster sugar
1 cup sifted icing sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla essence


For the chocolate layer:
185g dark chocolate, broken into pieces (I used dark choc chips)
1 T sunflower oil

Method
Preheat oven to 180°C/160°C fan-forced. Grease a 3cm-deep, 16cm x 26cm slice pan. Line base and sides with baking paper, extending paper 2cm from edge on all sides.

Melt butter. Set aside to cool slightly. Add sugar and egg and mix well. Add sifted flour, baking powder and salt and stir until dough comes together. Press mixture into prepared pan. Bake for 15 minutes or until golden. 

Spread warm base with jam.

Meanwhile, soak gelatine powder in 1 cup of water (give it at least 10 minutes to soak properly), after 10 mins add 1 cup caster sugar and dissolve gently in a saucepan over a low heat, then raise heat and boil for 8 minutes. Allow to cool slightly and then add 1 cup of sifted icing sugar. 

In a large, deep bowl, beat with an electric mixer until white and thick (should take about 3-4 minutes). Add vanilla essence, and beat until well combined. Spoon almost all (*SEE NOTE BELOW) of the mixture over jam layer and place in refrigerator to set.

Place the chocolate and oil in a small, clean, dry heatproof bowl. Place the bowl over a small saucepan of barely simmering water over low heat (make sure the bowl doesn't touch the water). Use a dry metal spoon to stir gently for 2 minutes or until chocolate melts and is smooth. Pour evenly over marshmallow layer and smooth the surface with a knife.

Refrigerate for 2 hours or until set. Stand at room temperature for 5 minutes (I waited about 30 just to make sure the chocolate wouldn't crack) before cutting into pieces with a hot knife and serving.

*NOTE: I find that this makes a little more than needed, but this isn't a problem! Just lightly grease a small plastic container and pour excess in. I put my excess into some silicon jelly moulds for a bit of fun!

Place in refrigerator for about 20 mins to set; a nice, but sugary treat for the kids!

Enjoy! xx

Grandma Shipway's Apple Pie

My Grandma made the best apple pies. A simple statement, but true. She also made the best pickles...she used a vegetable called choko to make the pickles. I hated choko with a passion, but I loved her pickles.

Now in my garden I have an apple tree that gives us a pretty healthy crop of cooking apples each year. This year they seem ripe earlier than usual so we started picking them yesterday. I had also been out the back of our street to collect what looked like the last of the wild summer blackberries to add to the apples for this pie.

The pastry for this recipe can very easily be made diary free, in fact up until this year, I HAVE made it dairy free for my son - he can now tolerate butter in baked goods so I used real butter within the recipe.

The photos I took this time aren't great - it was night time, we were all eager to eat and it just didn't cut well....so you are going to see the realities of baking and eating for the family, not just for the blog! Let's face it, that's how most people cook anyway, don't you?

Inside...it was jam packed full of apple and blackberries - possibly the highest pie I have ever made!

I'll add some more photos of other ones I have made with the same recipe - in tart tins, cute little individual ones with just plain apple.

Righto, so I'm guessing you want the recipe?

Grandma Shipway's Apple Pie

Ingredients:

Filling

4 - 6 green apples   (cooking apples preferably)

4 cloves

5-6 tablespoons sugar

1 c water

1 c blackberries (optional)

Pastry                                             

1 cup plain flour (150g)

1 c self raising flour (150g)

1/3 c caster sugar (80g)

2/3 c cold butter (150g)

1/3 c water (85ml more if needed)

Method:
      
Apple filling
1. Peel, core, slice and cook the apples with the cloves in 1 c water for 10-15 mins. My apples cooking very fast and in seconds can go from looking underdone, to being mush, so do watch them.
2. Drain and then add sugar, mix through and then remove the cloves. I added the blackberries in at this stage too.
3. Pre-heat oven to 220°c.

Pastry
4. Cube the cold butter and lightly rub in the sugar and sifted flour, both plain and self raising, until the mixture looks like fine bread crumbs. You could do this in the food processor if you have one, which I tend to do these days.
3. Add water and mix to a soft, but not sticky, dough. Wrap in cling film and rest in the fridge for 20 minutes.
4. Roll half the dough between two sheets of grease-proof paper to make it big enough to cover the pie dish.
5. Place the pie dish on top of pastry upside down and lift the paper and pastry (and pie dish) up and over to get the pastry onto the dish without breaking it.
6. Fill with apple mixture and top with the rest of the pastry (rolled out).
7. Trim excess pastry from the edge of the dish and use a fork to press down around the edges. Decorate with extra pastry if you want - I always use cookie cutters to match a theme - this time it was woodland creatures.
8.Brush with beaten egg and sprinkle sugar on top. Use a fork to pierce a couple of steam holes on the top. To avoid the egg (allergies!!), I brushed mine with some soya milk - did the same job equally as well, in my opinion.
9. Cook for about 10 minutes and then reduce the oven to 150°c until brown on top - total of about 35-40 mins.

Enjoy this delicious apple pie fresh from the oven, with custard, cream or ice-cream.

Notes: 

• I don't ever blind bake the pastry - and I never have a soggy bottom! However, if you'd like to blind bake, then line the raw base with baking parchment and then fill with baking beads or rice - cook for 10 mins, then remove the beads/rice and paper and bake for another 10 mins. Then, add filling and proceed.
• Add the sugar to the fruit after cooking and draining, or the sweetness (which you really need with cooking apples) will go down the drain too.

Strawberry Jam - the easy way

The last time I made jam was about 18 years ago, when one summer in Australia, my lovely friend Liz and I realised we both had a glut of fruit - she had a heaving plum tree and my Dad had an apricot tree dripping with ripe fruit. So we picked and halved and both made some plum and some apricot jam. One of my lovely Grandads was in Canberra visiting at the time and I will always remember how complimentary he was about the jam; he was so supportive, and the jam did taste delicious, it just wasn't as set as it should have been.

So this holidays I wanted to have another go with strawberries. We have a local Pick you Own (PYO) farm near us called Garson's Farm, and it is full of all kinds of seasonal fruit and vegetables to pick. So, yesterday on impulse, my son and I went over to get strawberries. We were fairly late in the day so all the best and easy to find were almost gone, but we managed to find a decent batch of shiny red ones.

For this jam, I took the easy way out and used Jam Sugar. It comes with pectin already included. It's probably not that much easier than buying pectin separately, but for a novice like me it make the whole jump into jamming again easy and motivating!

This morning I couldn't wait to try some on my toast - it was so delicious, although very sweet....I would normally put less on my toast but for my first batch I lathered it on!

I love all the chunks of strawberry - I've always liked my jam with bits in it, seeds, pieces; somehow it feels more real.

Strawberry Jam

Ingredients:

1 kg fresh strawberries, washed, drained and hulled

1 kg jam sugar

Juice of 1 lemon

Method:

1. Put the strawberries and lemon juice in a very large, heavy bottomed saucepan and heat for a few minutes to soften.

2. Add the jam sugar and stir until dissolved and then boil steadily for about 15 minutes, or until setting point is reached. I added my candy thermometer to the pan and could see it boiling consistently at 105C/220F.

3. To test for the setting point, place a teaspoon of jam onto a cold plate, leave for a few seconds, push the jam with a finger, if the surface wrinkles, setting point has been reached. I did this quite a few times from about the 6 min mark. I took it off only because it was starting to stick to the bottom on the saucepan. It could have done with a bit more cooking I think. Perhaps I should have stirred the mix more as it boiled to avoid the sticking.

4. Remove the foam from the top with a slotted spoon while it is hot. Allow to stand for a few minutes and then spoon into sterilised jars. Seal and allow to cool on the bench.

5. Once opened, store in the fridge.

Notes:

To sterilise the jars, I washed them and then put them into an oven at 110C for 15 minutes. I dipped the orange seals into boiling water.

When putting into the jars, it really helps to have a metal, wide opening funnel - you can buy them easily at this time of year.

I will admit to using my potato masher to break the strawberries up a bit as they boiled!

Enjoy! x

Passion for Baking Turns 1 today!

HAPPY 1st BIRTHDAY TO Passion for Baking!

A year ago today I made the impulse decision to start my own baking page - I named it Baking For Passion because I thought it was fitting, and off I went! I didn't expect to take up so much of my time, but I have loved learning new skills, trying new recipes and having fun in the kitchen. I have loved sharing my bakes with friends and neighbours - someone has to eat it all, it can't just be us!

I want to say a heartfelt thank you to all my readers, followers, friends, family and fellow bloggers for your support and joining me in this baking journey - I am only a little way along the path so far....here's to many more miles!

Anyway, for the occasion, I have made a Chocolate and Raspberry Mousse Cake. You can find the recipe here.

This cake took me HOURS to make (not everything went to plan), but I have really loved making the layers and it is absolutely delicious. Each layer adds its' own flavour (& texture in some cases) but they all compliment each other beautifully.

The bottom layer is chocolate brownie; then chocolate mousse; raspberry mousse, with fresh raspberries inside; vanilla mousse - with a strong honey flavour; and, topped off with a chocolate ganache and fresh raspberries.

Best cut while chilled, but best served after is has been out of the fridge for about 20 mins.

Anyway, Happy 1st Birthday to Passion for Baking!

Chocolate and Zucchini Bread

I've been wanting to bake with zucchini (courgette) for a long time now and have been looking at some recipes, but this week one came up in my fb newsfeed that was just too irresistible to pass up.

Looking back over my recent bakes, I have realised just how much chocolate features and I feel I need to explain myself. Whilst I do love chocolate cakes, I also like a range of other flavours too. But my son has multiple food allergies and part of a desensitisation program he needs to eat cake or biscuit with egg and butter in it three times a week. And because chocolate cake is his favouite and one he is guaranteed to eat, to tend to go for those. I have, however, really enjoyed making a variety of new recipes for him, and the last few have been stunningly delicious. I did substitute soya milk for the sour cream in the recipe, as my son can't have the cream.

This cake, has a whole zucchini in it - I still call it zucchini, as that's what we call it in Australia, but over here in the UK it is called courgette. I made sure to squeeze the excess juice out of it after I grated it. It's a very runny mixture anyway so I'm not sure if it matters that much, but worth doing anyway.

On the top is the most deliciously crunchy crust made from sugar and cinnamon...I just love it. Oh by the way, I halved the amount of crunchy topping you need, and even then I didn't use it all...worth noting.

So, have I tempted you yet? I hope so, this was such a quick and easy bake to make, and so deliciously moist and flavoursome. 

And the best bit? My son, who hates zucchini, said he absolutely LOVED this cake (I didn't tell him the secret ingredient!!)

You can find the recipe here:

Chocolate and Zucchini Bread

Happy baking!

Kris x