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

Chocolate Cupcakes (Eggless) with Gingerbread Frosting - RECIPE

These cupcakes have a deep, dark, delicious flavour and a real wintery / Christmas feel.

They are very simple to make and require minimal time and effort. My gingerbread frosting is silky smooth - not overly sweet and lightly spiced with a strong biscuity flavour.

The chocolate cupcake part of this recipe is suitable for vegans or those with egg allergies and handy to have in your recipe book.

The dinky little chocolate bars are made in the mini tablet bar silicone mould which is available to buy from our website at www.siliconemoulds.com - currently for £2.25 plus p&p. Simply pipe in tempered chocolate and leave to set. As soon as they are hardened, the mini bars are ready to use.

I used a JEM 2D piping nozzle for the swirls on these cupcakes and 18" strong, savoy disposable piping bags - currently a bargain at 10 for £1.00 !

The chocolate cupcake recipe is enough to make 12.
The frosting recipe makes enough to do 18 > 24 cupcakes. Extra frosting can be frozen.

CHOCOLATE CUPCAKES (EGGLESS)

1 cup (250mls) of milk - normal or soya
1 tsp cider vinegar

3/4 cup of sugar

1/3 cup of vegetable oil

2tsp vanilla extract

3/4 cup of plain flour

2 tbsp cornflour

1/2 cup of cocoa powder

3/4 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1/2 tsp of baking powder
good pinch of salt

Pre-heat oven to 170deg C fan / 180deg C normal.

Line a 12 hole standard muffin mould or pan with paper cupcake cases.

Sieve dry ingredients and add wet. Mix with a balloon whisk until well combined and no lumps remain.

Transfer the mix (will be runny) into a jug and split evenly between the 12 cupcake liners.

Bake for approx 20mins until cocktail stick comes out clean.

Allow to cool on a wire rack.

Here is the secret to my gingerbread biscuit frosting....

This stuff is awesome ! In Europe, it tends to be called Speculoos. In the UK, the closest we get are Lotus biscuits - yummy little carmelised spiced biscuits often served alongside coffee.

The lovely people at Lotus now distribute this as a spread in the UK and it's widely available in many supermarkets such as Waitrose and Sainsbury's.

GINGERBREAD BISCUIT FROSTING

125g salted butter

200g Lotus spread (1/2 a jar)

2 tbsp of condensed milk

1 tsp of vanilla extract
3 cups sieved icing / powdered sugar

150ml double cream

2 tsp mixed spice.

First of all, warm the cream and add the mixed spice. Leave to cool and infuse.

Cream the butter and Lotus spread until pale and fluffy. Add the icing sugar and infused cream. Beat with a hand mixer until thick and silky smooth (took about 10mins)

Enjoy !

Sarah-Jane Nash - www.siliconemoulds.com  - December 2013

Butterfly Cupcakes in Edible Wrappers (Using Chocolate Transfers)

I've not done much baking recently and the blog has got rather out of date. The weather has been really humid and it's been too hot to want to bake out of choice even in the evenings. Saying that, I've still got some backlogged things that were photographed a few weeks ago yet to go on the blog !

This week, we've got a nice selection of chocolate transfer sheets come into stock and of course, I HAD to play with some. The range we have available will be extended in the next couple of months.

You can find them here. Chocolate transfer sheets are such good fun :-)

I decided to make some cupcake wrappers using chocolate transfer sheets.  Chocolate transfer sheets are basically an edible buttercream coating on a plastic backing sheet. Simply spread on your tempered chocolate (see blog post here about tempering)

I used a cupcake wrapper as a template, taped on to a transfer sheet and cut the transfer sheet to size, leaving a few mm extra as an overlap. If you don't have any, use google - stack of printable templates out there.

Have some cupcake wrappers made up ready - as if to accept a cake.Spread your chocolate over the cut out chocolate transfer sheet. As soon as the chocolate is starting to crystalise  - but still soft and flexible - (taking on a slightly matt finish), carefully lift the transfer piece and pop it inside a cupcake wrapper. The cupcake wrapper will hold it in position until it sets. Pop in the fridge for about 15 minutes to properly harden.

When ready to use, remove the plastic backing film. The transfer will now be on the chocolate wrapper. Pop a freshly baked and totally cooled cupcake (without paper case on !) inside your chocolate wrapper, then frost as normal with buttercream.

These chocolate cakes shown are made using my FAVOURITE chocolate cake recipe and you can find it here

The chocolate butterflies were made by piping tempered chocolate over a hand drawn butterfly pattern. I did each wing separate. Once hardened, prop up one wing against the other and join by piping a couple of lines of chocolate between the two. 

Easy and quick decorations that taste great too :-)

Spent a lovely afternoon with my friend Victoria today doing some chocolate making whilst out kids had great fun playing and dressing up and then demolishing what we made.

Here is Emma dressed as a mermaid and Oliver as a ballerina popstar doctor !

The terrible twosome checking the fridge to see if the chocolate dinosaurs are ready yet.....

Did I say DINOSAURS ? Yes - we've got a whole new collection of silicone chocolate moulds about to launch in the next two weeks which have been designed by yours truly. Look out for my next blog entry for some sneak previews.

Have a great weekend

Sarah-Jane Nash, www.siliconemoulds.com   7th July 2012

Chocolate Tempering (and new mould designs !)

There is a knack to making chocolates and chocolate bars. That is, it you want to get the nice snap when you break it, and glossy finish with a smooth texture throughout.. 

Had I known a few simple things much earlier about tempering chocolate, I wouldn't have spent a fortune ruining the stuff !

Some of the many disasters include white mildewy type marks all over the surface (or in patches), crumbly interiors and dull finish.

If you look up chocolate tempering on the net, there are many web pages that tell you how to do this. They all use two classic methods. 

The one for best results includes pouring chocolate on to a piece of marble, scraping it back and forward to cool it and then back into a bowl before pouring into moulds.  I'll tell you now that this seemed like too messy and too much effort. I would also have needed to invest in a big lump of marble. There is so much "stuff" in my little kitchen at the moment that I have nowhere near enough storage space as it is. I therefore admit that this method was instantly put on the sideline....

The second method is called SEEDING. It seems to be the simplest and will give great results - as long as you get it right....

This is one of our new chocolate bar moulds. It's now a registered design and due to launch in about 4 weeks.

I've fallen in love with these chocolate bar moulds - which we have available in two different sizes. This one makes finished chocolate bars of 70g or thereabouts (depending on what fruit / nuts / sweets you decide to use for decoration - if any).

Here is the larger 3 cell chocolate bar mould which produces a chocolate bar with approximate weight of 100g (mine ranged from 95 to 120g depending if they had extra additions or not).

Simply wrap in cellophane and tie with ribbon - or make a pretty box / card sleeve - they make such a stunning  home made gift.

For moulding your chocolate and getting good results, there are a couple of things you need to buy.

First thing is good quality couverture chocolate. This has a higher cocoa butter content and can be re-tempered quite easily. I buy really nice Belgian chocolate sold under the names of Belcolade or Callebaut from www.chocolatefountainwarehouse.co.uk. It normally has about 1 year sell by date on it. The stuff I buy comes in callets.

Callets are like small drops rather than a big bar. The Belcolate callets are like giant chocolate buttons, whereas the Callebaut callets are teeny weeny ones in comparison.

For early practising, you will get astonishingly good results with supermarket basics dark chocolate - 100g bars from the likes of Sainsburys are about 42p. Don't bother trying to work with budget grade or commercial brand white chocolate. I've wasted a lot of money myself trying that..... It doesn't taste as nice - but it tempers quite nicely.

Secondly, you need a chocolate thermometer or laser thermometer. I've got a laser thermometer (cost about £15.00 with postage) and the temperature range is both high enough to use for candy making / sugar syrup for macarons and low enough for tempering chocolate. It's not at all fiddly, and the temperatures are really pretty accurate.

Lastly, get a glass bowl if you do not already own one. Using other bowls such as earthenware creates hotspots unlike the glass which transmits a much more even heat and can burn or overheat your chocolate.

To temper your chocolate by the seeding method, you first need to melt it. This can be done by zapping it in short 15 second bursts in the microwave or using a double boiler (glass bowl over simmering water). If using the double boiler method, be sure that the water does not touch the bottom of the bowl and DON'T get a single drip of water in the chocolate or it will seize and become useless.

For the microwave method, simply stir every 15 seconds and remove when a little more than half melted. The residual heat in the bowl will continue to melt the rest of the chocolate. With the double boiler method, I prefer to pour boiling water into a pan and sit the bowl over the top. Leave it and wait until the chocolate melts. It is important not to let the temperature of your chocolate exceed 120deg F - so check the temperature regularly.

Once melted, you can begin the seeding process to cool the chocolate evenly to 80 deg F and then warm slightly until you reach moulding temperature. To do this, you need to add a little solid chocolate into the melted chocolate. It is important to stir constantly. It is best to use a silicone spatula as you can get all the chocolate away from the sides of the bowl.

Stir this until it melts in and add more if required. Check the temperature regularly. For plain / milk chocolate, it's ready to pour or dip (enrobing) truffles at about 85deg F. For white chocolate, you want a lower temperature of 80 to 83deg F.

I used to get ok results without a thermometer SOMETIMES. Success would be hit and miss. Sometimes the finished chocolates would BE perfect, but more often than not they would quickly develop a bloom (whitish covering) or go crumbly inside. These of course were entirely edible - but they didn't look nice and the texture was very wrong.

If you want super results every time, the pouring temperature of chocolate is crucial.... as is a chocolate thermometer (or laser thermometer) .

Incase you had not already guessed. this chocolate robot mould is another new registered design we'll be launching soon. The metallic effect on the chocolate robots was achieved by brushing a tiny bit of lustre dust (used for sugarcraft) inside the mould as suggested by a Facebook Fan. I think it was Ellie (sorry - I can't find the old chat post now !)

Sarah-Jane Nash, April 2012

Fresh Cream Chocolate Truffles - Fab Christmas Gift

On the final run up to Christmas, there is nothing that will put you in a more festive mood than making some homemade gifts. I'd be over the moon given some of these as a present and that's one of the reasons I like making them so much for others.

The better the ingredients you use, the better they taste. That's why I've used Callebaut Belgian Chocolate

These are really really easy to make and seriously knock spots off shop bought.

350g of good quality chocolate (dark, milk or plain)

1 cup of double cream

2 tablespoons of butter

* small amount of your favourite alchohol - can be ommitted

Extra chocolate for dipping (if required)

your choice of coatings for rolling (such as crushed nuts, cocoa powder, icing sugar...)

Put the cream in a pan and bring to the boil. Immediately, remove from the heat and our straight on to the chocolate. Keep stirring the chocolate and cream until all melted and combined. Stir in the butter until combined. If adding alcohol - you can add up to about 50ml now and stir to combine.

Put the ganache (chocolate truffle mix) into a bowl and refrigerate.

Roll small balls (or if you want to make big chocolates - a heaped teaspoon) of the ganache mixture. I like to lightly butter my hands as it makes the balls easier to roll. I wash my hand every 6 balls or so.

I put these on to a baking tray with a silicone baking sheet on top. If you haven't got one of these, you can use greaseproof paper. I then chill the balls again for 15 > 20 mins in the fridge whilst I melt my chocolate.

I made two batches of these today. One lot of white ganache with peppermint extract and one lot of milk chocolate ganache with whisky.

Oliver came and sneaked a white chocolate minty one off the kitchen side... He came into the kitchen, got his stool and climbed up beside me. "Oooooh - Mummy makes sweeties !" he jabbered before nabbing a chocolate and beetling off at warp speed ...

I dipped the truffles in melted chocolate first and then set aside again to harden before dipping a second time for a thicker coat. The second coat is much smoother than the first and gives a lovely finish. The chocolate hardens quickly as the ganache has already been chilled.

With the ones rolled in cocoa, I dipped only once in chocolate and then rolled them in the cocoa using two forks for a really rustic finish. It makes them big, gutsy and luxurious. These are at least two bites !

If you prefer a smoother finish and do not want to dip in chocolate, You cna simply roll into balls and then coat in cocoa, icing sugar or crushed nuts for a really nice finish  and amazing perfect spherical truffles.

Dipping in melted chocolate gives a lovely texture and a "crack" when you bite into

Of course - you could always use many of our silicone chocolate moulds.... Coat the inside of the chocolate mold with chocolate and leave to harden. Then, fill with the ganache before it is refrigerated and firm. Top with a little more melted chocolate to create the base and seal.

Sarah-Jane Nash, http://www.siliconemoulds.com/ - December 2010

Customers Creations ....

These little celtic cross cakes were made using this mould by Inese. Pretty - aren't they ?

Inese also made these stunning cookies and moulded them will our mini cakelet / petit fours mould.

Also from Inese are these little filled pastries - made using our mini crystal / gemstone silicone baking mould tray.

The photos in this post are all used with the kind permission of their creators and credit has been given (unless specifically requested otherwise). Links to websites are also there if they have been provided.

Photo by Zurin - from http://www.cherryonacake.blogspot.com/ - chocolate mud cake using our Say It With Cake words moulds.

I am a cake decorator and these are the first things I made using these moulds - piccy attached. I have plans for other things to make from these , and will update you as I create them. These are lime and coconut cake with lime buttercream , covered in 2 different colours of sugarpaste. Jill The Cake Maker - http://www.cakemaker.org.uk/

Jill has used our 6 cell 1/2 round (semi sphere) silicone baking mould. These are very seasonal and I'm sure any kid would be delighed with one of these pumpkin / lantern cakes !

My daughter asked me if I could make round wedding cakes.

I bought 4 of your molds last year and did a couple of practice runs. They made great Christmas baubles!

I eventually decided Madeira cake worked best. I made 36 for the reception cake and a cake tower for the evening party.

I just had to let you know how good they were and show you the pictures.

Regards, Mary Tornabene

Aren't they absolutely amazing ? Mary used the 6 semi sphere silicone bakeware mould.

Talented Edhouard has been busy with his creative take on lemon meringue pie using our 6 semi sphere silicone bakeware mould too !

please find enclosed my last realisation with the Semi Sphere / Half Round Silicone Soap Mould:

1/2 sugar crust pastry (not sure about the english term)

1/2 meringue

Lemons (green & yellow) - orange blossom cream

Lemons whipped cream

You can of course use the pictures for the website !!

Edhouard

 A towering tiered stand of layered cakelets made by Sara Bear of Bear Neccessities Cake Company for Andrew's 30th birthday party last year.

A pretty chocolate rose party cake - also from Sara Bear !

sesame seed cookies made using 16 oval silicone mould - ideal for lovely little tasty treats - including mini friands. from Cosmic Goddess - http://www.cosmicgoddesblog.blogspot.com/

Unbaked, raw food creations beautifully and lovingly made by Cosmic Goddess of http://www.cosmicgoddessblog.blogspot.com/ - I could eat the lot just looking at the photos ! Strawberry tart is using the large black heart silicone cake mould.

Here is a picture of the final birthday cake for my daughter's party. Hardly of a professional standard but I was immensely proud that I could make this - so apologies for the urge to share it with you!I have never considered myself a cake baker as such but this has totally inspired me and I'm thoroughly enjoying it.

Thank you for the service,recipe s& advice! Hopefully contact you again in future for further purchases now the baking bug has bitten!

Love from Glasgow, Hanlie.

Hanlie used our large butterfly silicone mould.

Hope you enjoy - we certainly enjoyed the cakes !!!!  Hayley

Hayley used our mini victoria sponge mould for these little beauties ...

Jill of http://www.jillispaiges.blogspot.com/ has made some really lovely fondant filled chocolates - and some awesome boxes to match. You'll find various ones if you trawl her blog !

Jill used our 15 flower chocolate silicone bakeware mould for the above chocolates.

Janet White made these pretty white, milk and plain layered pyramid chocolates with our 15 cell pyramid chocolate mould

Hana Trundova at a coffee shop in Norwich (name withheld) has been using our 40 cell extra deep mini muffin mould in their small commercial oven.

Another stunning cake creation from Zurin at http://www.cherryonacake.blogspot.com/ - this time carrot cake with a cream cheese icing. Made using our C A K E word mould.



Rustic Pistachio cake above is from Zucchero e Farina - see blog here



A chocolate and vanilla marble cake from Gordon ... made in one of our silicone bundt rings and baked in one of our halogen ovens ! 

Last but not least - a seaside castle cake made by Lorraine for her kids. Love the little people !

Many thanks everyone for allowing me to show off your photographs. If any other blog readers have photos of things you have made in our silicone moulds and are happy to let us show off your photos... please do let us know. It's fantastic seeing all of your creations !

Belgian Chocolate Bunny Rabbits !

Aren't these cute ? I made a pile of Belgian Chocolate white and milk bunny rabbits last night using one of our newest chocolate moulds. Here it is - 16 cell chocolate bunny rabbit silicone mould.

Try, try and try again... I've wasted a fortune on trying to mould chocolates. For some reason I've always had horrible results in the past. My chocolate has come out with those white mouldy looking marks. I've heated in a special chocolate melter, I've tried the microwave and a double boiler..... all with horrendously bad results !

However, now I think I've discovered the secret and got perfect results with all 14 chocolate bunnies that I made (I didn't fill the whole mould). Each chocolate bunny is approx 50 x 60 x 20mm and solid chocolate weight is 33grams each.

Lindt eat your heart out ! These will make gorgeous little chocolates for any age group - especially children. You should have heard Oliver squeal when he got one of these this morning !

I've always used normal "eating" chocolate in the past from the supermarket. I've tried the belgian chocolate from the baking isles and various brands from the isle with sweets. All my efforts were in vain and my resulting chocolates looked rubbish and many tasted just as bad.

The secret is in the chocolate itself. Buy COURVETURE chocolate which is specifically meant for tempering. It can also be used thinned down in chocolate fountains.

The brand I bought is called Callebaut. It comes in milk, plain and white and is Belgian chocolate. Tastes simply yummy ! Various sizes of bags are available. I bought 2.5kg bags from a local cake craft shop at approx £15 each. I think smaller 800g ones are also available.

I simply slowly melted it in a melting pot. When it was nearly all melted, I took it off the heat and kept stirring until the rest melted in. Then, poured into the cells of the mould. Once almost full, a rap on the kitchen side to dispell air bubbles and a light shake side to side evens the chocolate. It was basically self levelling and I did not even have to screed it off with a pallet knife.

Now I've got the hang of it with perfect results, I'm looking forward to making more using different moulds and putting soft centres in the middles.

We've got a collection of various new chocolate moulds arriving in November. I've got one of each to play with and photograph now - so you might be lucky enough to see some photos soon !

Sarah-Jane Nash - http://www.siliconemoulds.com/ - silicone bakeware mold specialist. September 2010

BLOG GIVEAWAY - SET OF 4 FLOWER SILICONE MOULDS

Inese has sent me some beautiful photos which basically show a step by step guide to making hand made chocolates using our silicone moulds. Our moulds are all suitable for the oven and freezer with a temperature range of + 230deg to - 40 deg CELCIUS. That's rather hot and seriously cold !!!!

These moulds are perfect for making little flower hand made chocolates, guest soaps or little candles. They make the ideal wedding favour, birthday, Christmas or thank you gift.

You can also use them for butter for pretty summer tea parties - or to make classy ice cubes. Use them for tiny little cakes too :-)

Each one of these 4 moulds - rose, sunflower, chrysanthemum and flower have 15 cells. They're very flexible and easy to unmould. 

I'll put Inese's photo guide to chocolates on the website for anyone who wishes to look.

To be in with a chance of winning, please post on my blog what you would make with the moulds. The tastiest or most inspiring idea will win. I'll keep it open for a week.....

Good Luck !

Sarah-Jane Nash - http://www.siliconemoulds.com/ - flexible silicone bakeware. April 2010