Banoffee Tool Box Birthday Cake

We had a family barbecue for my father-in-law’s birthday in August and I wanted to make a cake that would stand out. I tried to think of things I associated with him – my father-in-law is really handy, at everything from fixing fences to building a child’s ride on car from scratch so I had the idea of a tool box cake.

 

Looking at Google Images I realised there were some incredibly detailed, realistic tool box cakes and figured I wouldn’t have the time or skill to do anything like that. Rather than make something else altogether, I decided to make a simple rectangular red toolbox, with a separate lid, and make some tools separately to pull the whole thing together.

 

 

My father-in-law really likes banoffee pie so I decided that would be a good flavour for the cake and found a recipe in Fiona Cairns’ Birthday Cake book. The recipe in her book is designed to make cakes in the shape of a pair of dice – for someone who likes a game of chance perhaps – but it was easily adapted to a loaf tin shape. You can find the recipe online at Cooked.

 

I decided to make the lid separately and as I didn’t want it to be too heavy, I thought rice krispie cakes would be perfect. I’ve seen cakes where all sorts of parts were sculpted from rice krispies – like an animal or person where the limbs were made from rice krispies. I wasn’t sure what consistency to make my rice krispie cake so took the easy way out and (kind of) cheated by using Kelloggs Rice Krispie squares. I sandwiched 6 – a mixture of chocolate flavour and plain – together with melted chocolate, in a block the length of my loaf tin, and put them in the fridge to set.

 

For the cake, I followed the recipe, mixing butter, sugar, mashed banana, eggs, vanilla, milk, flour, baking powder, salt, nutmeg and cinnamon. The mixture baked nicely in my loaf tin – it did create a bit of a dome which had to be sliced off to level the cake. I also cut some corners – because I had a lot of other food to prepare for the barbecue as well – with the frosting. Fiona Cairns gives a recipe for toffee buttercream which sounds really nice, but as I had a tin of Carnation Caramel I decided to make some regular buttercream and add that.

 

 

 

After filling the cake I covered the whole thing plus the rice krispie cake block in red fondant, and made a handle out of fondant for the lid and some black panels for the front of the box. I wasn’t that confident at making tools even if I drew a template and followed it, so I bought some cookie cutters from Amazon and cut out a saw, pair of pliers, hammer and spanner, then did the same again in coloured fondant to make the handles. I think they worked really well, what do you think? These are the ones I used:

 

 

Finally I placed the tools on or around the tool box, secured the lid with a couple of cocktail sticks in an open position and the cake was ready to be presented. The cake itself was moist and delicious – I do recommend checking out Fiona Cairns’ recipe!

 

Low fat Banoffee Cheesecake

I made this banoffee cheesecake for a Slimming World food tasting, as I don't like bananas so it seemed a good opportunity to try out the recipe (as other people would be eating it!). I should have covered the top completely in sliced banana, I realise now, but I think it still looks OK like this.

The recipe came from the Slimming World website; it serves 8 and has 6 syns per serving on all plans.

You need:
10 reduced fat digestive biscuits, crushed
5 level tbsp low fat spread
2 x 12g sachets gelatine
250g quark
3 x 175g pots Mullerlight toffee yogurt
3-4 tbsp sweetener
1 tsp vanilla essence
2 egg whites
2 bananas, sliced

Preheat oven to 190C. Line a 20cm spring form cake tin with greaseproof paper.

Crush the biscuits in a food processor or a plastic food bag using a wooden spoon. Melt the low fat spread in a small pan and add the crushed biscuits and stir well to coat. Press into the base of the tin and flatten the surface. Bake in the preheated oven for 15 mins then leave to cool completely.

Dissolve the gelatine in 5 tbsp boiling water. In a separate bowl, whisk the egg whites until stiff.

Then whisk in the quark, yogurt, sweetener and vanilla and finally the gelatine liquid.

 Spoon over the biscuit base, smooth the top and chill for 5 hours or overnight until set.

To serve, decorate with sliced bananas.

Banoffee Cupcakes in Edible Cake Cases

I'm not a fan of banana so I've never made banana bread or banana cupcakes other than these awesome Elvis cupcakes. But when Dr. Oetker sent me some of their newest products to try, including these banoffee sprinkles, I decided it was a great opportunity to make some banoffee cupcakes.

Banoffee Cupcakes - an original recipe by Caroline Makes

75g butter

100g caster sugar

1 egg

2 soft bananas, mashed

100g self-raising flour

3 tbsp milk

1 tsp vanilla flavouring or a few twists of Dr. Oetker Madagascan Vanilla from the grinder

for the filling:

397g tin Carnation Caramel (or similar dulce de leche)

for the frosting:

100g butter, softened

200g icing sugar

Dr. Oetker edible cupcake cases (optional)

Preheat oven to 175C.

Cream the butter and the sugar then beat in the egg and the mashed bananas.

Fold in the flour then the milk and either the vanilla flavouring or vanilla from the grinder. Dr. Oetker included this among the products they sent me to review. It costs £4.99 (though is currently on offer at Tesco for £3.74) which seems a lot compared to the liquid vanilla flavourings which you can get for about £1, but this is good quality Madagascan vanilla and thanks to the grinder, a little goes a long way - and it stays fresh as it isn't ground until you need it. The little jar also looks very smart so I think this is definitely something to treat yourself to.

I had been hoping to review the new edible cupcake cases from Dr. Oetker but they had run out at the time so I bought these myself in Asda. They are quite expensive - £2.49 for only 6, whereas the standard Dr. Oetker cases are £1.49 for 50. But I do highly recommend trying these - either if you are making a small batch (6 or 12) cupcakes, or to try a few as a treat and then you make the rest of the cupcakes in non-edible cases (as long as you remember which are which!).

The cupcakes come in pink and blue; they are quite large but fit comfortably in my muffin tin.

Spoon the cake mixture into the cases - I used 6 non-edible ones as well as these - until they are about two-thirds full, then bake in the preheated oven for about 20 minutes.

Banoffee is of course banana and toffee; the banana is in the cake so I wanted to put some toffee (or rather caramel) in the middle. You can make your own, but to save time (and because it's just the right consistency) I used a tin of Carnation Caramel.

Using a teaspoon, carefully scoop a little out of the middle of each cupcake, and place a spoonful of caramel in the cavity, then replace the cake you have removed. Repeat for each cupcake. Of course, you need to wait until the cupcakes are cool before you do this.

I made some caramel buttercream to go on top. Carefully cream the softened butter and the icing sugar until you have a stiff buttercream, then add 2 tbsp of the leftover Carnation caramel (you should have plenty left). Mix well then pipe onto the cupcakes or swirl on with a palette knife.

Here are the banoffee sprinkles Dr. Oetker sent me - a mixture of yellow and brown in a convenient shaker tube. These cost £1.99 at Tesco (but also currently on offer at 2 for £3) which is a little more expensive than their regular sprinkles as these are from the premium collection. They will last a while though - I only used about a third of the packet on a dozen cupcakes.

Here's a cupcake complete with caramel buttercream and banoffee sprinkles, in an edible case.

It's really fun and quite an amazing feeling to bite into the cupcake without removing a paper case, and to eat a big chunk of cake, frosting and wafer case! The cases held up really well - I was worried they would go soggy from the raw cake mixture but they work perfectly. The sprinkles are a lovely touch as well - you could use them on banoffee pie or ice cream as well as on cupcakes.

Thanks to Dr. Oetker for sending the products to review. All opinions and words are my own.

I'm sending these to Tea Time Treats, hosted by Karen at Lavender and Lovage and Janie at the Hedgecombers. The theme this month is picnics; you can take these on a picnic if you package them carefully in a small tupperware box and best of all, as you don't peel off the paper cases, there is no rubbish to leave behind! You could also make these if you were having a family staycation or picnic in the garden.