Heart-Shaped Cake Balls

I described in a previous post how I made my own Rolo chocolates from a mould provided by the Dot Com Gift Shop. They also sent me a heart-shaped mould and some heart-shaped petit four cases to review.

I decided not to make chocolates this time however and instead make cake pops. Usually these are on sticks but they taste so delicious I don't see why you couldn't just make them as bite-sized nibbles and enjoy them that way. I had made a chocolate cake that was part of the same project, which you will be able to read about shortly, and had to trim the cake a bit. So I had some leftover cake trimmings which I crumbled up into a bowl.

I mixed it with some chocolate buttercream to make a dough.

Simply press the mixture into the moulds and place in the fridge for a little while to firm up.

As the mould is silicon it is completely flexible, making it very easy to turn the shapes out. You could also dip them in melted chocolate to coat them.

The Dot Com Gift Shop also sent me these mini heart-shaped petit four cases, which are just the right size to use with the mould.

Simply place the cake shapes or your chocolates into the cases to serve.

Disclaimer: I was sent these products free of charge by the Dot Com Gift Shop. I was not asked to write a positive review and all opinions are my own.

Homemade Rolo Chocolates

The Dot Com Gift Shop sent me these two chocolate moulds to review. If you haven't been to their website before, I urge you to check it out. The Dot Com Gift shop has a range of items for the home and garden ranging from cake stands and chocolate moulds to lunch boxes to candles and cushions. I've bought several things from the site before both for myself and as gifts, and last summer was invited to preview their Christmas range.

It took me a little while to get around to using the moulds as I had a particular project in mind, which you will hear more about later. I found the moulds so easy to use and I love the way they are packaged (above) - I think these would make a really nice gift.

I decided to use the round moulds to make homemade Rolos. I melted some chocolate and poured a little into each mould so it just covered the bottom, and used the back of a spoon to spread it around the sides. Don't make the layer on the bottom too thin as you want it to hold, but you need to leave yourself plenty of space inside the mould for the filling. Place the mould in the fridge for the chocolate to set.

I used a tin of Carnation Caramel for the filling; it is thick and not too runny and perfect for making these. You need about half a teaspoon or even a little less in each mould.

Melt some more chocolate and allow it to cool so it is still runny but not too hot. Pour into the chocolate moulds until they are filled and place again in the fridge to set.

When set, turn out of the mould. The mould is silicon so you can easily bend it to push the chocolates out.

When you bite into one, the caramel inside is still runny. These are perfect and remind me a lot of Rolo chocolates. They would make a lovely gift; I used them on top of a cake!

Filled chocolate shapes - handbags and shoes

My birthday party at the end of April had a shoe theme, and I asked the guests to come in their favourite, most fabulous shoes (though in the end not many complied!) and I made a shoe-themed cake. I also wanted to make use of a Wilton candy melts mould I had only used once before and thought it would easily double as a chocolate mould. The shapes include a boot, some lips, a lipstick, a handbag, a pair of sunglasses and other girly accessories.

This was pretty quick to make: I simply melted some chocolate, poured it into the mould and left to set, which didn't take very long at all.

Then I had a better idea. I melted some more chocolate, poured a thin layer into each mould and spread it around with a brush and put it in the fridge to set. Then I added a spoonful of Betty Crocker's chocolate fudge frosting - I could have made something myself but time was quite limited - and poured more melted chocolate over the top. Once that was set, I had some cute chocolate shapes with a soft chocolate filling!

Glitz & Glamour Hummingbird Cake

Cake clubs are springing up all over the place and last year Baking Addict (a.k.a. Ros) and I heard about one run by Cakes4Fun, a company that runs cake decorating classes in Putney, west London. For £10 we could gain a place in the evening session where we had to bring a cake on the theme of "glitz and glamour", and would be able to meet like-minded bakers, swap ideas and recipes and more importantly try all of their cakes!

This was before I had really got into baking or cake decorating in a big way and was struggling to think of something I could make - especially as pretty much the only rule was "no fondant!". In the end I turned to a cookery book that I had recently been given - the Hummingbird Bakery's Cookbook - and realised that I had never actually made their namesake cake. I was also pretty unsure what a hummingbird cake would turn out like, since it contains pineapple, nuts, and bananas (I hate bananas!) - I have to admit I prefer chocolate cakes or ones without banana at least and I thought that making it for the cake club was a good idea, because if I didn't like it, I wouldn't have to eat it!

Unfortunately I didn't take any photos while I was making the cake, as it was before I had started this blog (though there are pictures of the finished product further down).

I found the cakes very springy when they came out of the pan, but they also looked quite thick - I had split the mixture into three pans to make three layers as shown in the recipe, but maybe the diameter of my pans was smaller than suggested, as the cakes turned out pretty deep and when I layered them together, I had a very tall cake!

I also found the buttercream frosting far too runny and had to add a lot more icing sugar in order to be able to cover the cake without it all running off. Since then I've met a few people who have said they always have problems with the frosting recipes in the Hummingbird Bakery books so it isn't just me!

I also wondered how I could make it more glitzy and glamorous and around the same time had a rare shopping trip to Hobbycraft, where I came across a Wilton candy melt mould in the shape of girly items such as a handbag, lipstick and compact mirror, and also for the first time came across edible lustre spray. This was about 6 months ago or more, and since then I've seen Dr Oetker has brought out a spray which you can buy in Tesco, but at the time it seemed pretty unusual.

I began by melting the candy melts - which were pink - in the microwave, and filling the shapes in the mould.

They looked pretty cute when they were set!

But they just weren't glitzy enough... so I sprayed them gold!
I discovered two things at this point - firstly, the lustre spray didn't hold well to the shapes. I think it's because the surface of the candy melts was too shiny or slippery and it would have worked fine if I was spraying fondant or cake, but as you can see from the picture below, when I touched the candy melts the gold rubbed off. It was a little better after it had set but I don't think the lustre spray was particularly designed to be used in this way.

The second thing I discovered was that I don't particularly like the taste of candy melts! This was the first time I had used them and I think I was expecting it to taste like, well, candy! Instead it tastes like icing sugar and as if you are eating a giant lump of icing. I think it would be fine if it was covering something like a cake pop but I don't particularly recommend eating candy melts by themselves. However, I've noticed more recently that there are flavoured candy melts available - I think I saw peanut butter - which might be nicer than the standard flavour, which I think is vanilla.

Here are the candy shapes placed rather haphazardly on top of the cake.... and then I sprayed the whole thing gold! I don't think I really knew what I was doing at this point - and I want to underline again that this was before I got into cake decorating in a big way! It looks quite random and having an entire cake sprayed gold is not something I would do again!

It's pretty bling!

I thought my cake looked very poor in comparison to the other members of the Cake Club, though none of them were as novice as I was. Funnily enough I was the only person who had not made a chocolate cake, so mine was quite welcome after the chocolate overload.... and while it may look a bit OTT, I can promise you that the Hummingbird cake tasted great! It was really light and moist and is definitely something I would make again. I just wouldn't spray it gold this time!

Here are some of the other cakes that people brought along to the Cake Club. If one of these is yours please let me know!

This cake below with the amazing chocolate collar and gold-sprayed maltesers (see, I wasn't the only one with the lustre spray!) was made by Ros from TheMoreThanOccasionalBaker.

We tried a piece of everyone's cake but after a while could only manage a few bites of each one, as there was a lot of cake! Here's the haul that I got to take home :-)

I think that cake clubs are a great idea and I'd love to go along to one again, but I was a little surprised that Cakes 4 Fun charged £10 per person - I know they have overheads as they run a shop and classes, but we didn't actually learn or gain anything from the class other than talking to the other participants about their cakes. As far as I know, other cake clubs are more informal meet-ups that don't charge a fee. Unfortunately the other reason I'm banning myself from joining the Clandestine Cake Club at the moment is that I am supposed to be on a diet and really do not need any more excuses to eat cake!
As this is a Hummingbird cake I am entering it into this month's Alphabakes challenge that I am hosting as the magic letter is H. I baked this several months ago before I had started this blog, and kept meaning to add it as a new post, so now seems as good a time as any!