Wilton Tasty-Fill Heart Pan: Engagement Cake with Hidden Heart

Have you ever bought something and put it to the back of the cupboard, and kept telling youself that you will use it, at some point.....? I've had the tasty-fill pan (who comes up with these names?) from Wilton for a couple of years but never gotten around to using it, partly because the instruction leaflet didn't make a huge amount of sense to me.

The recipe leaflet leaves a lot to be desired, suggesting that you use a boxed cake mix, and frozen Cool Whip or similar for the filling - which is something we don't have in the UK. I also wasn't sure I fully understood the instructions for how to assemble the cake. Luckily there are now plenty of bloggers who have used this tin and explain the process, so I finally decided to take the plunge, and am very glad I did. It's not difficult at all, and the result is very impressive. I made this for a work colleague's engagement and birthday and I had people coming up to me all day asking how I had made the cake and saying how good it was.

Inside the box you get two cake tins which look like this. It's important to get them the right way around; the easiest way to tell is that each tin has the Wilton logo imprinted on it; you want to make sure the logo is on the bottom (that is, facing down and not the right way up to read the name) on each tin.  You also want to make sure that the centre circle is a deep indent rather than sticking up as you will see in the second picture. This is the right way up:

And this is the wrong way. Got it?

I used the recipe for Nigella's Old Fashioned Chocolate Cake which you will find if you follow the link. I ended up having to make a double quantity of the recipe as the cake tins are very deep - in fact this is the tallest cake I've ever made.

It's also worth mentioning that I think chocolate cake works best here. You really don't want to see where the two layers of cake join, and if you make a vanilla sponge, the edges of the cake will most likely be more browned so there will be a line going through the middle of the cake. Chocolate cake means that you won't see the join.

You need to grease both tins really well and get right into the grooves or the heart shape won't work. I used PME cake release spray. Fill both tins evenly with the mixture and then bake in the oven.

Allow the cakes to cool in the tin then turn out onto a baking rack. Hopefully they will come out clean; any bits of cake that break off or are stuck in the tin mean there is a high chance of the heart shape not working. Mine turned out fine as you can see. Make sure you remember which half of the cake is the top and which is the bottom.

To fill the cakes, first place the bottom half on a cake board and secure with a little buttercream. I didn't want to take any chances as this was the first time I had made this cake, so I made a simple pink buttercream.

Spread the buttercream in the circular gaps around the cake, pressing in and levelling off the top. Do that on both halves of the cake.

Carefully invert the top cake and place on the bottom layer. You can see what I meant earlier about the join - if you had a vanilla sponge which browned more at the edges, as they often do, you would have a distinctive line. I also levelled off the top of this cake so it was flat.

I covered the cake in a cream cheese frosting which I added a little pink food colouring to, and sprinkled some heart-shaped sprinkles, also from Wilton, over the top.

But surely what you want to know is what does the cake look like inside? I didn't cut into the cake and took it into work so when I presented it to my colleague and explained there was a surprise inside, or at least there was supposed to be if it had turned out OK, we all waited with bated breath...

 Ta da! I don't know how this works exactly - the rings on the cake tins don't look in the slightest as if they would match up to make a heart shape, but they do. When you cut the cake, every single slice has a heart shape - which is why I used pink buttercream - in the middle. It's so much easier than it looks and would be the perfect cake for an engagement, wedding, Valentine's day or simply the one you love.

It may be slightly tenuous but I am sending my engagement cake (well, my colleague's engagement cake) to Alphabakes, the blog challenge I co-host with Ros of The More Than Occasional Baker, as the letter this month is E.

I'm also sending this to Food 'n' Flix, the blog challenge that picks a movie each month and asks bloggers to make a dish inspired by the film. This time Evelyne at Cheap Ethnic Eatz has chosen Bridesmaids.

 

I saw the film about a year ago and wasn't sure I would particularly enjoy it as I'd heard it described as "the female equivalent of The Hangover" - and I don't really like the Hangover trilogy. I did find Bridesmaids quite funny but it was a bit slapstick in places for my taste - but it was a very successful film. It centres around Annie, a single woman in her 30s with a failed baking business, who is asked to be chief bridesmaid for her friend Lillian. The other bridesmaids are like chalk and cheese and get into quite a few scrapes before the wedding - including getting food poisoning from a Brazilian restaurant. I did think about making a Brazilian dish to tie in with the film but the connection with a food poisoning scene just somehow didn't do it for me. Instead, I decided to focus on the love story in the film - of course it all ends happily for Annie, who falls in love and even starts baking again.

When I realised that a colleague at work had recently become engaged - and so would be having a wedding, complete with bridesmaids - I decided that this cake would work for this month's challenge!

 

 

I'm also sharing this with Calendar Cakes, hosted by Rachel at Dollybakes, as her theme this month is bank holiday bakes and cakes to share with friends.

 

 

 

How To Make A Chocolate Cake for Only £1

The anti-poverty campaign Live Below The Line is challenging people to live on £1 a day for 5 days, to highlight the 1.2 billion people who are living in poverty around the world. For those of us who are not brave enough to take up that challenge, Choclette from We Should Cocoa has proposed trying to make a chocolate cake for £1. Sounds easy, right? After all, you can get a lot of supermarket cakes for just a quid - own brand madeira and angel cake for instance. So surely it's possible to make one at home for the same price?

It's actually harder than you might think. I priced up a pretty simple Nigella chocolate loaf cake, and even using the supermarket basics/low value range (luckily Sainsbury's basic eggs have the RSPCA Freedom Food stamp of approval) it came to £2.13 and that was without any icing.

Eggs and butter were two of the most expensive ingredients in the recipe so I decided to try going vegan. I've made quite a few vegan cakes for a friend and some of them taste amazing; I have a chocolate recipe I've used in the past which is very light and moist. I played around with the recipe for a few minutes to bring down the costings, and realised it was cheaper to use melted plain chocolate from the basics range than to use cocoa powder for instance.

This is the recipe that I finally ended up with:

285g plain flour - 10.5p

225g caster sugar - 33p

100g basics plain chocolate, melted - 30p
1 tsp baking powder - 4p
1 cup warm water - free (I decided not to include costings for heating the oven and so on)

80ml vegetable oil - 80ml - 9.5p
1 tsp distilled white vinegar - less than 1p

 

As that comes to 88p I decided I could afford to make a glaze:

40g basics plain chocolate, melted

2 tbsp boiling water

 

Preheat oven to 180C. Grease or line a cake tin (I didn't include whatever you want to use for this in the costings for ingredients).

Mix the flour, baking powder and sugar in a bowl then pour in the water and mix well. Mix in the melted chocolate, oil and vinegar.

Spoon into the loaf tin and cook for 30 minutes. Test with a skewer to make sure it is cooked through.

Allow to cool in the tin then on a baking rack. To make the glaze, mix the melted chocolate with the boiling water and pour over the top of the cake.

 

 

This doesn't sound like much, and doesn't look like the prettiest cake in the world, but it did actually taste very nice. I wrapped a few slices up in foil and took it on a picnic.

I'm sending this to We Should Cocoa for the £1 chocolate cake challenge.

 

I'm also sending this to Family Foodies, hosted by Bangers & Mash and Eat Your Veg, as their theme also ties in with the live below the line challenge and they are asking for recipes that are cheap and cheerful.

 I'm also sending this to Calendar Cakes, hosted by Rachel at Dollybakes. This month she is asking for bank holiday bakes that we made to share with friends or take on a picnic, which is just what I did with this.

Finally I'm sending this cake to Credit Crunch Munch, the frugal blog challenge hosted by Gingey Bites this month and started by Camilla at Fab Food 4 All and Helen at Fuss Free Flavours.

Spring Cake Pops - Tulips and Easter Eggs

Renshaw Baking invited me to take part in a challenge to create some spring themed cake pops and I gladly obliged. Do you like my bunch of tulips with a few Easter eggs hidden in there as well?

Renshaw kindly sent me a selection of products to use for this challenge, including several colours of Colour Melts, which is their equivalent of candy melts, and some sprinkles as well as some flower modelling paste. I thought about making a selection of animals like bunnies and chicks, or a set of Easter eggs, but liked the idea of making a bunch of flowers. I associate tulips particularly with spring, so I decided to make tulips out of cake and the petals from the flower paste. I created the design and technique myself.

 

To make cake pops, you need to start with a cake, which you can either make yourself or use a shop bought one. I used an Angel Cake from Sainsburys to save time, but also because I thought the three colours of the cake - white, yellow and pink - would work well with the cake pop design. Once you have your cake, crumble it into a large bowl.

Mix with enough buttercream until you have a dough consistency. Normally for cake pops I would then roll the dough into a ball but for tulips you want more of an oval or egg shape, pointed at one end.

Here are three of the Colour Melt tubs Renshaw sent - I received yellow, red, pink, white, blue and green. These are brilliant - so easy to use. Simply take the lid off the tub and, following the instructions on the side, put the tub in the microwave for 30 seconds, stir, and then microwave for another 20 seconds. When I use candy melts from another leading brand, as they come in a packet I need to pour the melted colours into a bowl, and eventually realised that I needed a fairly tall, narrow bowl so I use a mug. The tubs that these Renshaw Colour Melts come in is actually the perfect size - deep enough for you to dip your cake pops. And because you are using it in the tub, when the leftover Colour Melts have cooled, all you need to do is put the lid back on and you can use the rest another time.

I began with yellow, so here is my melted Colour Melt. I sometimes add a little oil to melted candy melts from other brands to make them a bit smoother and more runny but I didn't need to with these.

Dip the end of a cake pop stick into the melted Colour Melt and insert into the cake pop. Place in the fridge for half an hour.

In the meantime make the petals; flower and modelling paste can be rolled very thin and it then stiffens more than fondant which is essential here as you are going to dip the petals into the Colour Melts.

You can use a petal cutter if you have one, or just use a sharp knife. Cut out three petals per cake pop in an egg shape and set aside to harden.

When your cake pops are ready to dip, reheat the Colour Melt and dip the cake pop in at an angle, rotate so it is fully coated and then hold over the side of the pot for the excess to drip off. Then stand in either a cake pop stand or a piece of polystyrene to set.

To make the flower, take three of the flower paste petals and while the Colour Melt is still tacky, stick the petals on around the sides. It doesn't matter if they overlap slightly, in fact this looks quite good. Then bend the tops of the petals outwards slightly.

Leave to set and when the petals are firmly attached to the cake pop, dip the whole thing once more in the Colour Melt. Again, allow the excess to run off and place in the polystyrene or stand to dry.

Repeat with the remaining cake pops and petals in different colours.

I also decided to make a few Easter eggs to go in my bouquet. I dipped this cake pop in white Colour Melt and when it had dried, I dipped it again, up to the half way mark this time, in yellow. Finally I dipped the top in Renshaw's coloured sprinkles.

For this Easter egg I dipped the whole cake pop in white Colour Melt and then dipped it into a bowl of Renshaw sprinkles so it was fully covered.

Finally for this Easter egg, I dipped the cake pop in white and then melted some blue and using a teaspoon rotated the cake pop while drizzling the colour over the top.

Here is my finished vase of flowers- I also rolled out some leaves from the Renshaw flower paste and dipped those in the green Colour Melt.

A close-up, top-down view

Can you tell which one is real? Yes of course you can....!

The ultimate test though was when my boyfriend came home; I had made these while he was out for the evening. I said casually "do you like my bunch of flowers?" and he glanced over and said "oh yes, nice" - then did a double take and said "hang on, those are cake!". He was quite impressed and said they tasted very good as well as looking good!

 

Here you can see the inside of the cake pop

I'm sending these to Renshaw Baking's spring cake pop challenge.





I am also sending this to the Biscuit Barrel Challenge hosted by Laura at I'd Much Rather Bake Than... The entries don't have to be biscuits, but this month they do have to be fun!

I am also sending this to Love Cake, hosted by Jibber Jabber UK, as the theme is springing into Easter.

The theme for Calendar Cakes,. hosted by Rachel at Dollybakes, is also Easter.

Carrot Cake with Walnut and Pineapple and Fondant Rabbit decoration

It wouldn't be Easter without the Easter bunny! This is a carrot cake I actually made last year but hadn't gotten around to blogging about yet. It is decorated with a fondant rabbit and carrots, which I will explain how to make below.

You need:

2 cups soft brown sugar

1 cup vegetable oil

3 eggs

1 tsp vanilla flavouring

2.5 cups plain flour

2 tsp baking powder

2 tsp ground cinnamon

1 cup walnuts, chopped

1 pound of carrots, grated

1/2 cup pineapple, chopped

For the icing:

1 cup soft cheese

1/2 cup butter, sofened

2 cups icing sugar, sifted

I made a rabbit from fondant to decorate but you can also decorate with extra walnuts.

Preheat oven to 180C. Mix the sugar and flour in a large bowl.

Weighing the carrots - then grate them

Mix the eggs, oil and grated carrot and add the vanilla flavouring

Mix in to the dry ingredients and add the baking powder and cinnamon

Stir in the chopped walnuts

Then stir in the chopped pineapple

Spoon the mixture into a cake tin and cook in the preheated oven for 45-60 minutes, testing with a skewer.

When cooked, remove from the oven and leave to cool.

I decided to make a rabbit and some carrots out of fondant to decorate the cake. First I coloured some white fondant with orange gel colouring left over from Halloween (Wilton brand) and some Sugarflair gooseberry colour for the carrot tops. I shaped the carrots and tops by hand; I used a knife to cut pieces out of the tops to make the greenery look more realistic, and used a fork to make indentations on the carrots.

To make the rabbit I followed the same principles as when I made a fondant cow. I made a large white ball for the body and a smaller one for the head, then cylinders of different sizes for the arms, legs and ears, I used some pink fondant for the centre of the ears and the nose, and a tiny bit of black fondant for the eyes. I used some modelling tools to make the indentations on the feet and also to make the mouth.

To make the frosting, carefully mix the soft cheese, butter and icing sugar until you have a suitably thick paste; if it needs to be thicker so you can spread it but it doesn't run, add more icing sugar. I spread the frosting over the top and around the sides of the cake.

Finally I placed the rabbit and carrots on top. This would be a good cake to make at Easter but it goes down well at any time of year!

I'm sharing this with Extra Veg, hosted by Helen at Fuss Free Flavours and Michelle at Utterly Scrummy; a carrot cake is a very tasty way to get one of your five a day!

I'm also sending this to Love Cake, hosted by Jibber Jabber UK, as the theme is "springing into Easter".

The theme for Calendar Cakes, hosted by Rachel at Dollybakes, is also Easter.