Double Vanilla Fudge - Fabulously Easy Recipe !

 This is a new REGISTERED DESIGN silicone bakeware mould (available from mid March) which we have designed, specially for making bars of fudge, toffee, and Scottish tablet. Each cell will make a bar weighing approx 100g. Pre-sectioned markings makes these bars pretty to package and easy to portion.

Simply pour in your hot fudge /  toffee / candy. Allow to set and then pop out with ease.

By basic fudge recipe is very versatile and quick to make. Do however take extreme care. Hot sugar is ridiculously hot and can cause serious burns.

2 cups (250mls) of caster sugar

125g salted butter

3/4 cup of evaporated milk

2 tsp vanilla extract

12 marshmallows / 100g (Sainsbury's pink and whites)

150g white chocolate

Put all the ingredients apart from the chocolate into a large heavy based pan.

Bring to a rolling boil on a medium heat, stirring continuously. Boil for exactly 5 minutes. Remove from the heat and stir in the chocolate. Pour into your moulds. Leave to cool and then transfer to a fridge for a few hours.

This recipe is very versatile. You can additionally add a cup of dry ingredients such as broken oreos, smarties.... Try swapping out the white chocolate for dark, omit the vanilla and add some dried cherries and a tablespoon of kirch when it reached boiling point. Bailey works well as does Malibu. Various flavouring extracts and fruit and nut combos. It's simply as versatile as you are.

This recipe makes 8 x 100g bars using this style of mould. However, if you additionally choose to add a cup of dry ingredients such as candies, biscuits, dried fruit or nuts - then expect to get 10 (possibly 11) bars from your batch.

The packaging shown above was very simple to make. I used THE BOXER which is a tool from Crafter's Companion and available to buy on our website for £9.99 along with a selection of stock cards. The Boxer can be used on it's own - but is also compatible with THE ULTIMATE PRO. Just be careful to make sure the card does not slip when using The Boxer on it's own - when used in conjunction with Ultimate Pro, it backs up to a hard straight edge....

Take one sheet of A4 stock card. An A4 sheet is generally 8" / 200mm wide.

Cut a strip of card 200mm long x 90mm wide.

Here, I'm using THE BOXER in conjunction with ULTIMATE PRO. The Boxer can be used to make boxes of many shapes and sizes, but today we're just doing a really easy project to make simple card sleeves for fudge and toffee bars.

Use the scoring tool to score a line across your card strip at 6.5cm

Fold the first crease and then score the next line 2cm down from the first crease.

Repeat with another crease at 6.5cm and a following crease at 2cm. You will be left with some excess card. That's ok - we're going to put some double sided tape on that flap to complete our box sleeve.

Wrap your fudge bar in some cellophane. If you don't have any, clingfilm / saran wrap will do...

As you can see, the sleeve just needs a little strip of double sided tape. Perhaps if you have some nice labels with your name on, you may prefer to use those. Finish off with some pretty ribbon. You can make three of these pretty sleeves from one sheet of A4 card in just a couple of minutes.

Make your gift extra-special - after all, presentation is everything !

Sarah-Jane Nash - www.siliconemoulds.com - 15th January 2013

Banana & Chocolate Tear & Share Bread - for Eve !

You may remembar a couple of weeks ago I made an AntiPasto Tear and Share Bread....

I also had an idea of recreating the same as a sweet version with bananas and chocolate which Eve liked the sound of.

I made this for the girls shorlty after, but have never got round to posting the photos...

It's a basic bread dough... tweaked :

500g strong white bread flour

1.1/2 teaspoons salt

4 tablespoons of honey (I used orange blossom runny honey)

Sachet of breadmaker yeast

300ml of milk (instead of the normal water)

30ml approx of olive oil.

Make up as normal bread dough and knead until smooth and silky. Leave to prove until doubled in size.

Knock it back and then roll out into a large rectangle.

After that, it's a case of putting in chocolate chunks and bananas and rolling it up.

This is the second or third row of chocolate and banana being rolled in ! You'll definately get banana and chocolate right the way through this one :-)

Finished bread rolled up like a log is above.

Now I chop it up into rolls about 2" or so deep. These are then spaced out into a 10" diameter silicone bakeware mould. The bread sections will grow into each other and take up the excess space. This is a super handy pan to have and very versatile.. I use this one for loads of things.... bread, cakes, a cooking container on top of the baking tray in the halogen oven / cooker. 

I then pop it back in the halogen oven for a second prove for another 15 > 20 mins. Halogen cooker is FANTASTIC for proving bread. Set the temperature half way between off and defrost setting for proving bread. It's great summer and winter to keep a constant proving heat.

Whack the heat up to 180 > 200deg C in fan oven or halogen oven and cook for approx 25 > 30minutes until done. On removing, drizzle all over with more runny honey and leave to cool for a bit before serving

I challenge you to ONLY eat one bit !

Sarah-Jane Nash - http://www.siliconemoulds.com/ / http://www.naturalheating.co.uk/ - July 2010

Sectional Soap Colour Wheel

Cor - it's been a while since I blogged - but everything has mounted up on me all at one time and I'm really trying to do too much. I'm sittin here yawning my head off and can barely keep my eyes open. It was nearly 4am before I finally went to bed this morning and then was up with a colicky Oliver two or three times before 7.30am.

Apologies therefore for keeping it short. I'm still trying to photograph and catalogue all the new moulds just in and need to get up to speed as soon as possible as we'll have so so much more coming in another few weeks. This ISN'T normal - it just so happens I went a bit bonkers on new stock. More so than I've ever done before !

Anyway - one of our new moulds is a sectional 10 portion mould as you can see below. I think it was Emma who convinced me that this would be a really good idea - specifically for bath fizzles / bombs and also for soap. She wasn't wrong either....

All our siliconebakeware moulds are suitable for use with soap, chocolate, ice or plaster of paris amongst many other things. Whilst this mould is mainly aimed at cake portions, I've been dying to try it out with soap and the results have been a huge success. We've got customers using our moulds with bitumen tar and concrete too. Also for moulding Orgonite.

Each cell takes 200grams of melt and pour soap base. Add a few drops of colour and some fragrance and that's just about all it takes. Sure - you could get really fancy.... but a simple colour wheel is VERY effective and would make a lovely display piece if you are selling at craft fairs. The one above is going to make a very nice present for a dear friend of mine. Every piece has a different fragrance and makes a good sized bath soap.

The best bit is that they are SO easy to release from silicone molds. Simply push and it'll come out. No swearing and sweating, huffing or puffing here ! Of course, you don't HAVE to make all 10 - if you want nice wedge shaped soaps with rounded edges - this is ideal. You can make just one soap at a time if you like !

Sarah-Jane Nash, keen baker and soap maker - http://www.siliconemoulds.com/ May 2010

Salted Cashew & Caramel Bars

These are lots of things - especially things you wouldn't expect. They are bursting with flavours and textures.

Crunchy, chewy, sweet, salty and nutty. One will NEVER be enough !

I made these last week.... and there are none left ! In my defense, I was very good and did only have one... but several people had rather more. You know who you are ..... :-P

This recipe originated from The Sweet Melissa Baking Book - but I've changed it somewhat to make it mine. It's a tray bake and very easy. Ideal for cake sales or charity events as not only is it seriously tasty - but you can prepare a batch and chop it into portions. It still looks lovely.

My original portions as per photo above were too big - I'd recommend halving them. One lasagne / tray bake silicone mould cut into 12 squares - but this would have been far better as 24 finger sized bars. It also yeilded 4 x mini loaf mould sized bars (each of which I cut into two squares to match the size of the other ones)

The only thing I can fault it on is that my base was too thick. Next time, I'd use 2 x lasagne / tray bake moulds and up the topping by 25%.

Recipe

Base :

250g salted butter
1/2 cup dark brown soft
1/2 cup caster sugar

2.1/2 cups plain flour

cream butter and sugars. Add in flour until a soft dough has just formed. Press into your tins / trays and prick all over with a fork. If using silicone trays - no need to oil or grease at all. If traditional tins, line with greaseproof paper and grease.

Cook at 180deg C for about 30mins if using 2 x silicone lasagne tins - or 40 mins if using one and 4 x mini loaf moulds as I did. The base should just be starting to colour when it's ready.

Topping

200g milk chocolate

1 cup golden syrup

6 princess (or other brand) marshmallows

6 tablespoons of double cream

2.1/2 of salted cashews - I used Sainsbury's budget range (all 1/2's)

Add all the items except the nuts to a saucepan on a low heat. Melt the ingreditents together, stirring all the time. 

 As soon as it gets to simmering point, take it off the heat and pour into the prepared trays on top of the hot base. Scatter the nuts on top.

Return to the oven for approx 5 mins.

Allow to cool in the tin or tray before turning out and chopping into bars. ( I made mine in the evening and popped in the fridge when cool to do the chopping up in the morning !)

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