Friday, 13 September 2013

Chocolate Medallions with Dried Fruit and Nuts (Ideal For Christmas Gifts !)


Making these pretty chocolate medallions could not be simpler. It almost feels wrong that something so easy can possibly taste or look so good. 

There is absolutely nothing to it apart from some tempered chocolate and a selection of dried fruits and nuts.


I simply piped some tempered chocolate on to our Revolutionary Double Sided Macaron Mats and dropped a few nuts and some dried fruit on top.


These medallions literally are the simplest thing to make - but make a beautiful gift !



Quick and Easy Carrot Cakes - Recipe and Video Tutorial from SiliconeMoulds.com


I'm not going to kid you on. This is a recipe I have made many many times before. I've even blogged it before (back in 2010). Sometimes I make these little carrot cakes as muffins and other times I make it as one big cake and just cook for a bit longer.

It's moist, tasty and delicious. Not overly sweet - until you smother them with lashings of cool cream cheese frosting. Then you know you've died and gone to heaven....

Generally I try not to repeat recipes on the blog ....... but fact is that we bake favorite recipes on a regular basis. Not everything has to be "new" and I've no shame in reposting this recipe.

However, I DO have something new to share, and that is the new little carrot silicone bakeware mould I've designed. 


You may be asking yourself why on earth I'd want to make a mould that makes it fast and easy to make sugarpaste and chocolate carrots - but these really do look wonderful on top of carrot cakes. 
Hopefully you will also like my Youtube Tutorial showing how to use these. These moulds are a brand new product release and can be found HERE on our website at www.siliconemoulds.com , currently priced at £3.25



Recipe

10oz / 280g plain flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 egg
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
100ml of fresh orange juice (preferably with "bits")
2 tablespoons honey
5oz / 140g of caster sugar
6oz / 165g carrot finely grated
6oz / 165g carrot coarse grated
100ml vegetable or sunflower oil
3oz / 85grams sultanas or raisins

For the cream cheese icing - I usually just take a good 3 to 4 tablespoons of cream cheese and add as much icing sugar as required to get the right consistency. Start with a little and gradually beat more in with a woden spoon

Put wet ingredients in one bowl and sift dry ingredients into another. Add the two together and stir until just combined.

Butter a 12 hole standard silicone muffin tray if not lining with paper cases. This will generally make 10 big muffins in lined muffin tins or 12 slightly smaller ones if in unlined silicone muffin trays. Where icing with cream cheese frosting, I do like to use muffin cases inside the trays. I don't bother if I'm not icing

Preheat the oven to 180deg C - Fan oven and bake for approx 25 mins