Mini Chocolate Cake Doughnuts - and Home Made Cake Release - Perfect for use with Silicone Moulds

These iced (or chocolate dipped) mini cake doughnuts are really easy to make and a huge hit with kids. My little boy is now 7 years old, and can easily devour several of these as fast as they can be dipped / iced.

 Have a few disposable piping bags to hand to pipe the batter into the cells of your mould - otherwise this ends up a VERY messy job !

HOMEMADE CAKE RELEASE 

First up has to be the easiest and cheapest recipe you'll ever make. This stuff is AWESOME. If you are used to greasing and flouring baking pans, tins and silicone moulds - you'll just love this. IT saves so much time and works like an absolute charm.

Make some homemade cake release and your cakes will never again stick in your silicone moulds. This stuff will keep in jar in your fridge for a good month or two. Just lightly apply inside any baking tin or silicone mould (when making cakes) lightly with a pastry brush. Those cakes will literally just flip out the pans when done.

Mix equal WEIGHTS of plain cake flour, white vegetable fat such as TREX (UK) or CRISCO (USA) and vegetable oil and then mix together with a hand mixer. I find that 75grams of each is a perfect amount and will treat dozens of moulds :-)

I've absolutely always got this in the fridge.

Anyway - here is the recipe for the mini chocolate cake doughnuts. I'll warn you now - you need at least two moulds and the recipe makes tons (around 40)

Prepare your silicone mini donut / doughnut pans but either greasing and flouring or with a very light coating of cake release. If you can't be bothered making your own,  Dr Oeteker does an aerosol one and Wilton's comes in a little bottle. Cake release is so fast and easy for prepping pans.

Place mould on baking tray for support. I can get two of these pans on one tray at the same time.

Preheat the oven to 200deg C / 180deg C fan

Recipe 

1 cup (250ml volume) white granulated sugar

2.1/2 cups of self raising flour *

1/2 a cup of cocoa powder

2tsp of baking powder

2 tsp vanilla extract

300ml milk (warmed)

3 eggs

2 tablespoons of  golden syrup

115g melted butter or use vegetable oil

can be substituted for 2.1/2 cups normal plain (cake flour) plus 6 tsp baking powder

Sieve dry ingredients together, then mix with a whisk to make sure properly combined.

Combine wet ingredients together.

Add wet and dry ingredients together and then mix with a hand or stand mixer just until you have a smooth mix.

Put a disposable piping bag into a small jug or large glass to hold upright and fill 3/4 with the cake batter. Twist the top and then cut off the point of the bag. You can now pipe the batter into the prepared cake pans which is both quick and relatively mess free.

Do not over fill. You want to fill the cells to approx 1mm BELOW the raised part in the centre. This way, your cake doughnut will rise and retain the hole in the centre.

Bake for approx 7 > 8 minutes or until done. Remove from oven and allow to cool for approx 5 mins before turning out

Sarah-Jane Nash - www.siliconemoulds.com - January 2016

Alfajores with Dulche De Leche - Biscuits with a Difference (Digital Pressure Cooker Recipe)

Alfajores are meltingly tender little cornflour based biscuit / cookies, typically filled with Dulce de leche. They look robust, but are actually very very delicate and need handling with care.

Take a bite and you will find that from the instant your teeth touch the surface, they practically disappear like a puff of smoke. If you like Viennese fingers / whirls, then you will adore these. Alfajores are far lighter still and a cut above the rest. Given they are filled with Dulche de leche, you would think they would be ultra sweet, but surprisingly not so.

Makes 20 cookies

85g caster sugar

200g salted butter

140g plain flour

210g cornflour

1.1/2 tsp baking powder

1 can of dulce de leche (or condensed milk - to be cooked)

small amount of Malibu or water
dessicated coconut (about 3 > 4 tbsp)

First of all, if you do not have any dulce de leche - we need to make this. Typically, I make 3 or 4 cans at a time as although this method does not involve boiling on the stove for many hours - the cans need to sit for a while before use. Once cooked, the unopened tins will quite happily store in your store cupboard for several months (check expiry date before removing labels).

Ideally, it's something to do on an evening shortly before bed.

Put either a pad of foil (length folded 3 or 4 times) or a tea towel inside your pressure cooker pot and place the cans on top. I can cook up to 4 cans at a time in my 6ltr electric pressure cooker. I forgot to take the labels off last time. I figured it wouldn't be a problem, but the extra gluey residue on the inside of the pot was a pain to clean afterwards - so I recommend removing labels !

Put enough water in the pressure cooker to cover the cans about 1" over the top. Seal the lid and set pressure to 20 > 25 mins depending on how deep a caramelisation you would like. When cooking time is up, switch the oven off at the wall (or pull the plug out) and just leave your electric pressure cooker, unopened until morning. 

These tins were cooked at pressure for 25 mins.

For the biscuits :

Cream butter and sugar together. Sift in flour, cornflour and baking powder, then mix in with a wooden spoon. It needs to come together as a dough, so you will need to add some liquid. I used Malibu (coconut rum) though you could use water. Don't add too much - just enough to bring it together. I needed about 3 tablespoons, but amount may vary depending on your flour.

Wrap and chill dough in the fridge for a couple of hours.

Roll out to around 4 or 5mm thickness. If you use 50mm diameter cutters, you should get enough to make 20 > 22 sandwich cookies.

Bake in a fan oven at 160deg C for 8 minutes, then allow to totally cool before filling.

Take care when filling. Put the dulce de leche in a disposable piping bag (or sandwich bag with a corner cut off) and pipe on to the base of one cookie right to the edge. Place a second cookie on top and give a little wiggle. Do NOT press down or they'll basically fall apart.

Once filled, sprinkle a little dessicated coconut on the edges of the dulce de leche.

These little cookies really need eaten the same day they are filled. If you have more than you need, the dough will happily keep wrapped in the fridge for a week or two uncooked. If you cook all the cookies at once, store unfilled in an airtight box and put any opened dulce de leche in the fridge so you can fill when required.

Sarah-Jane Nash - May 2015

New York Cheesecake With Oreo Cookie Crust and Salt Caramel - Digital Pressure Cooker Recipe

Yesterday, I made a baked New York style cheesecake in my digital pressure cooker.

Don't believe me ? I swear - this was one of the tastiest and easiest cheesecakes I've ever made and it didn't even go near my oven. I've been using my electric pressure cooker more and more for all sorts of things.... From curries to soups, one pot meals, pasta, rice, puddings. It's such a handy appliance that I'd be lost without it. 

This cheesecake was made in a 6" dia x 3" deep loose bottomed tin. I do not have a trivet for my pressure cooker, so I folded a length of foil over 3 or 4 times to make a pad to go on the bottom. 

RECIPE

(adapted from Pressure Cooking Today)

All ingredients should be room temperature before you start.

1 x 154g packet of Oreos (minus 3 cookies) - filling removed

25g salted butter (melted)

400g of full fat cream cheese
80g of double cream
80g of greek yogurt
160g of caster sugar
3 tsp vanilla extract
3 eggs
2 tablespoons of flour

Prep your baking tin by greasing the inside with butter or spray with cake release.

Crush the oreo cookies and mix with the melted butter. Don't use the whole packet (you will have three left) - or there will be too much mix for the tin Pack the crumbs into the bottom of a 6" x 3" high loose ring base or springform tin using something with a flat base - such as a glass or mug.

Chill in the fridge whilst you make the filling.

Cream together the cream cheese and sugar until smooth. Beat in cream, yogurt and vanilla - followed by sifted flour. Add eggs last, one at a time and beat as little as is required to get them to blend in.

Remove tin from fridge. Put a piece of foil over base and up sides.

Pour in mix.....

 

Take another piece of foil and grease the underside or spray with cake release. Put a pleat in the middle and then put this over the top of your cake tin with the cheesecake mix.

Put a trivet (if you have one) in the bottom of your electric pressure cooker with 2 cups of water. If you do not have one, a pad of folded foil or a folded tea towel will work perfectly as a substitute.

You may wish to use a sling made from tin foil to lower your tin into the pressure cooker. Leave the sling in place and it will make for easy removal after cooking.

Cook at pressure for 35mins and then wait 10 minutes more for natural pressure release.

Remove from oven and allow to cool before refrigerating overnight.

I decorated the top with drizzled salt caramel (recipe on blog here), fudge chunks and grated chocolate.

This cheesecake is very deep and very rich. Although only 6" diameter, it will easily serve 6 to 8 people.

Sarah-Jane Nash - www.siliconemoulds.com - May 2015

Apricot Macarons / Macaroons with Curaco Liqueur Buttercream - RECIPE - www.siliconemoulds.com

I really have not baked much at all in recent months - apart from the odd celebration cake here and there..... so for this reason, my blog has been rather sparse for some time.

Most regular bakers will, I'm sure, agree - that controlling their weight whilst baking lots of yummy things can become a problem. Bloggers even more so. After all, there is no point in posting recipes if you have not actually tasted and eaten the food from the recipe you are posting. My only real solution is to not bake so much, resist the temptations or both. I'm in the both camp. If it isn't there, I do not have the urge to eat it - but I miss the therapeutic side of baking.

Creating celebration cakes is not a problem. I can happily make those with no temptation of nibbling off cuts. It's not for me. My recipes are tried and tested, so I have no need to taste. Off-cuts either go to work colleagues or straight in the bin. As a regular baker, the safest place is straight to the bin and eradicate any temptation to want a sneaky piece.

Macarons on the other hand, are a different story. I love ADORE making macarons. 

I love the smooth, shiny surfaces, their little ruffled feet. I love seeing lots and lots of shells, all perfect in size and shaped lined up in little rows. I like to make them just a little bit different almost every time. To box them up oh so pretty... and then photograph them. Yes. It makes me smile inside - without so much as taking a bite,

I mean - how darn adorable are these little apricot macarons with their blushing cheeks. You'd think they would be really hard to make - but no - it isn't that hard or as scary as you may think.

I made a Youtube tutorial (several years and stones heavier) if you want to watch how I make them.

Since then, I've adjusted things a little....

During the months of high humidity, I have previously had problems with batches of macarons cracking. I went though a spell of making them during the day in high humidity a couple of summers ago. Batch after batch and tray after tray of cracking macarons. I couldn't understand it at all. Settling for nothing other than perfect, they all went in the bin.

I was literally at the point of chucking the towel in one evening and made a last ditched attempt. Humidity had dropped to much lower than during the day and those macarons were perfect.  I could replicate this and knew the humidity was my ultimate problem, but it took a while to suss out the solution.

I've now increased the sugar content a little in my shells. Not a lot. 

When they bake, the shells come out a little drier. Especially if I want to make really pale coloured shells like these and not have them discolour at all around the edges. What this means is that when you eat a plain shell, it's more crispy and less soft and chewy in the centre, which isn't good. The solution ?  Well, most places that make macarons in France cook them so the shells are quite dry like this. 

The secret is to fill them at least two or three hours before serving if filling with buttercream and jam. Leave overnight if filling with ganache. The moisture in the filling re-hydrates and restores the centres. If you want to make macarons the easy way - give them a little time to "mature" after filling rather than eating them off the baking tray.

The other good thing about shells which are on the dry side is that they keep quite a while in an airtight container unfilled. Once filled, store in the fridge, but serve at room temperature. Best used within 3 days of filling.

RECIPE

180g of ground almonds

200g of icing sugar (220g if humid)

180g of egg whites - split into two lots of 90g

200g caster sugar

80mls water

Grind together the ground almonds and icing sugar in a food processor or spice grinder until smooth. By grinding both together, you get a much finer powder and much nicer texture.

To the above, add one lot of 90g of egg whites and mix thoroughly to form a stiff paste. 

If colouring your macarons, add gel paste food colouring now and mix in thoroughly. Add enough gel paste to roughly get the colour you want and then double it... at least ! Macarons will lighten a lot on baking and you still also have the other ingredients to add. For vivid macarons, I often add up to 1/2 a small tub of Wilton gel paste colour to just one batch. These were to be pale and I still used at least 1/2 tsp minimum (mix of golden yellow and rose to create a medium orange colour before baking)

For fan oven, set to 140 deg C for pale, 150deg C for bold colours.

Put the sugar and water in a pan. Bring to the boil without stirring. When temperature reaches 110 deg C on a sugar thermometer, whip the second batch of egg whites to stiff peak.

At 118deg C, take the sugar syrup off the heat. Whip the eggs at high speed with a hand mixer whilst pouring in the sugar syrup and whip until lit looks like meringue and the outside of the bowl is warm but not hot.

Mix 1/3 of the meringue into the almond / sugar / egg white paste to loosen, then gently stir in the rest. Pay attention to mixing in thoroughly so there are no streaks and the mix is even. It should be thick but just pourable and lava like.

I like to put the mix (macronage) into a disposable piping bag. I work with about 1/2 the mix at a time. One batch is enough to fill 3 tray loads of macarons using the large side of the revolutionary macaron mats

I pipe centrally, to within 5mm of the outer ring. As the mix relaxes, it will perfectly fill each cell.

Pop the trays in the oven for 5 minutes with the oven door ajar. This creates the skin and sets the macarons without the need for leaving them for ages on the kitchen worktops. After 5 mins is up, close the door and bake for a further 20 mins at 150deg C or 22 / 23 mins at 140deg C

Remove the trays from the oven and allow to totally cool before removing.

FILLING

To fill these macarons, I made two batches of the buttercream below. Pipe a ring round the inside edge of the bottom of a shell and plonk a teaspoon of jam in the centre. I used Lidl's Apricot jam - which I really like as they add a little citric acid which means it's a little more tart than most apricot jams.

230g icing sugar

65g salted butter

30mls Curaco (or other orange liqueur)

Beat together until smooth. If a little stiff, add a little more Curaco. If too soft - add a touch more sugar. I usually make buttercream by eye - but on this occasion I weighed it specially for you.

The stalks are little pieces of broken pretzel inserted between the shells.

The shells were dusted with dry powdered food colourings and a brush, a little like applying blusher. Couldn't be simpler.

Have fun !

Sarah-Jane Nash - www.siliconemoulds.com - April 2015

Chicken and Chorizo Jambalaya and Homemade Harissa Paste (Digital Pressure Cooker Recipes)

Some of you may know, I'm addicted to cooking with my digital pressure cooker and I LOVE one pot recipes... especially when they are simple, easy and packed full of flavour. The fact that from start to finish, you can have this meal on the table inside 20 minutes is simply a huge extra bonus !

Last week, my husband and I went out for a meal to Marrakech Restaurant in Wymondham and had a super meal. If you live locally - do pay it a visit.. can highly recommend. Ali makes his own 3 month fermented harissa which is simply amazing.

We didn't have Oliver with us - he had a few days in Scotland with my parents. Photo below of him with my mum at the train station.

This little monster is getting huge and is now 6.1/2yo. Doesn't seem that long ago he was icing biscuits in his high chair !

My Kinda-Harissa has little to compare with that (especially since I only made it yesterday !) - but it doesn't half liven things up and makes a fab flavour infuser to add to a dish. I reckon it would make an awesome marinade too.

The harissa recipe makes about a standard mug full of paste in volume - so you'll probably want to store it in a 500ml jar or similar. I had already used about 1/4 of the paste made from this jar before the photo was taken.

For the Kinda-Harissa

6 tsp dried flaked chillies (1/2 one of those small supermarket jars)

2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp dried chopped garlic

2 tsp ground coriander

2 tsp ground cumin

1/2 tsp ground ginger

4 tsp smoked paprika

1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

1/2 jar of Lidl sundried tomatoes (about 8)

100g of hot and sweet peppadew

3 tbsp mirin

6 x 4 > 5" long, red finger chillies - seeds and all

1 x seeded red bell pepper

75ml olive oil

Very little to this. I basically sprayed a little oil on the bell pepper and chillies and roasted in the oven for about 15mins.

Add all dry ingredients to the jar.

Blend the peppadew, pepper and finger chillies together. Add to the jar, followed by olive oil and give a good stir. Refrigerate at least over night - but I imagine flavour improves after a few days. You'll need to wait on an update for that !

Chicken and Chorizo Jambalaya (Digital Pressure Cooker recipe)

I'm sure you can adapt this as you wish. I made this today at work for lunch and volume wise, it will easily serve 3 > 4 adults. Basically, add whatever you like meat and vegetable wise to bulk it out.

I was purposely trying to cook on a budget today to see how good a meal I could make for as cheap as possible. We worked out that including the harissa paste used, this worked out approx £1.10 per serving.... cheaper and tastier than a basic sandwich !

You may want to go easy on the harissa paste until you work out how hot it is..... our jar is quite pokey.

Ingredients : 

1 x chicken breast (diced into approx 1cm pieces - to make it go further !)

g of chorizo (cut similar to above) (1/3 of a chorizo from Lidl - whole thing was £2.09)

1 cup of long grain rice (washed and uncooked)

1 x carrot, diced

1 x onion, diced

1/2 can sweetcorn

1/2 can kidney beans

1 x knorr chicken stock cube

good pinch salt

2 tablespoons of harissa (from above recipe)

2 tablespoons tomato puree (double concentrated)

Switch on digital pressure cooker and set time for 12 minutes. Timer will not start count down until the unit reaches pressure - so you can also use it on any section to brown.

Brown the chicken, chorizo and onion for just a few mins with a little oil. Be sure to use a silicone spatula or similar so not to damage non-stick coating in the bowl. 

Crumble in the stock cube and add all the other ingredients plus 325ml of water. Give it a good stir, then pop on the lid and allow to cook at pressure for 12 mins.

Carefully release steam, give a stir and it's ready to serve :-)

Sarah-Jane Nash - www.siliconemoulds.com - April 2015

Fabulous Fruity Flapjacks - A Simple Recipe to Make with the Kids

These flapjacks are seriously tasty and very easy to make. The recipe is also incredibly versatile....

Add some of this and a bit of that - dried fruits, chocolate chips, nuts, seeds and the flavour transforms.

You could make these bars in a standard type silicone mould or tin and cut into squares, but I used our 6 cell Toffee / Fudge Bar Mould (available from www.siliconemoulds.com ). They were very easy to release and I ended up with universal sized bars which were easy to wrap and store.

The bet bit is the fact I can break a large bite sized chunk from a bar to munch at my desk in between phone calls !

Ingredients 

420g of porridge oats

80g dessicated coconut
250g salted butter
250g soft brown sugar
6 > 8 tablespoons of golden syrup
(for a chewier flapjack, use half golden syrup and half corn syrup)

I also added 250g of dried fruit. Total, with the fruit made 18 flapjacks

Simply melt together butter, sugar and syrup. When melted and combined, stir in coconut, porridge oats and any other add-ins. If you don't like coconut, replace with some extra oats.

Place moulds on to baking trays. Spoon mixture into the cells of your moulds and press down. Leave a couple of mm from the top of each cell, as the syrup will bubble up a little during cooking.

Bake in a preheated fan oven at 160deg C for approx 12 mins until light golden. Allow to cool and then refridgerate for a couple of hours to harden before wrapping. Seem to keep, wrapped for a good 10 days or more.

I like Mornflake Jumbo Scottish Oats because they are very coarse and chunky. You may prefer a finer porridge oats of making for children (though my 6yo didn't seem to mind the oats - he just didn't want flapjacks with fruit !)

Sarah-Jane Nash, www.siliconemoulds.com - April 2015

Homemade Walnut Whips - RECIPE (Cheats Method !)

Like Walnut Whips ? You'll love these !

With out simple recipe, they are SO easy to make as well as being cheaper, bigger and tastier than shop bought.....

No cooking and just 3 (or 4) ingredients

INGREDIENTS (makes 8)

8 Walnut halves
400g of your choice of chocolate - I used Belgian milk chocolate

1 jar of marshmallow fluff

3 tablespoons (approx) of nutella - optional

To make these, you will need an 8 cell silicone DARIOLE mould - available from www.siliconemoulds.com in a choice of red or black. The 8 cell silicone dariole mould is a really handy silicone bakeware mould to have in your kitchen. We also used it to make these english madeleines and bicardi jelly shots - both of which are very easy recipes to make

The pretty gift box was made using the Crafters Companion - The Boxer ... which is a scoring board for making gift boxes. I used two sheets of Kanban A4 stock card and scored them at 5cm right round. I cut an aperture window for the box lid and put some acetate behind it. So simple.

First of all, chop up your chocolate and put it into a PLASTIC microwavable bowl. 

I only ever use plastic bowls when working with chocolate, as chocolate is very heat sensitive. Glass retains heat and keeps warming the chocolate long after you want to.

Microwave at 50% power for 30 second bursts, stirring each time and scraping the bowl with a silicone spatula - even if it looks like nothing is happening to start with. When the chocolate is about 50% melted, take out and just keep stirring until all the chocolate melts. If you microwave or over heat chocolate and take it out of temper you will either get fat bloom or sugar bloom.... so don't over-do it.

Using a brush or back of a spoon, coat the inside of all the cells of your dariole mould with chocolate. As it sets, you can add a second layer if required. Remember to keep back some chocolate to cap the walnut whips after adding the filling. 

You will need a plastic sandwich bag or disposable piping bag. I turned mine inside out and rubbed a little oil into the surface. This was to help make it easier to open up and reload with more mashmallow fluff.

Open up the piping bag and place into a glass or mug, folding the top of the bag over the rim. This makes it easy to hold the jar with one hand and spoon in the mallow with the other.

Pipe the mallow in to about 12mm below the rim and then add some nutella on top - leaving about a 6mm gap to cap it with chocolate. I did some with and some without the nutella as you can see below.

Finally, cap the cells with more melted chocolate.

NOTE - the ones with nutella on top of the mallow were much easier to cap. The chocolate happily sat on top of the nutella layer. If using marshmallow fluff , add a very THIN layer of chocolate and when set, cap off with more. If you add more than a smidge of chocolate directly on top of the fluff before hardening, it sinks and the mallow comes up - so it ends up insides on the outsides !

Pop into the fridge for 20 mins to harden before releasing. They pop out so easily.

A little more chocolate on the top and pop on the walnut. Handle these with gloves, or you'll leave fingerprints on the chocolate.

Have fun !

Sarah-Jane, www-siliconemoulds.com - April 2014