Chocolate and Peanut Butter Goo Goo Cake

 

When I was on holiday in Nashville in September – which is a brilliant place to visit, especially if you’re a fan of the Nashville TV series like I am – I came across something called a Goo Goo Cluster. These are candy bars – though they are actually round – made of chocolate, caramel, peanuts and marshmallow nougat. But what’s more, they are of great historical significance – the Goo Goo was invented in 1912 and was the first time more than one element had been combined in a candy bar.

 

They were created in Nashville and the city is proud of the association – there’s a dedicated Goo Goo shop in the town centre, and when I bought the celebration package at the Grand Ole Opry for my future mother-in-law, the bag contained a Goo Goo Cluster.

 

So when I saw the letter this month for Alphabakes (the blog challenge I co-host with Ros) was G, I thought Goo Goo Clusters would be fun to make. And then I saw a recipe for a Goo Goo Cluster Cake…

 

No comments please about January health kicks or pre-wedding diets as this is a very indulgent cake! So that’s why I made it for someone else…. I’ve mentioned before that I spend one day a month working on a project at an agency of very cool people. I spend the day in their offices and it almost always turns into a late night, so I feel the least I can do is take them some cake (and it seems to be greatly appreciated!).

 

I found a recipe for Goo Goo Clusters – or something resembling them, as it doesn’t really have nougat – here.

 

They were really easy to make – melt the chocolate with the condensed milk (I used Carnation), mix in the peanuts and marshmallows and pour into a pan (I lined a pan with greaseproof paper rather than buttering it) and set in the fridge.
 

 

I tried a little bit straight from the fridge and I have to say these are delicious!

 

Then I went to the Goo Goo website for this recipe for a Peanut Butter Goo Goo Chocolate PB Cake – though that name is a bit of a mouthful and I didn’t realise I actually needed to have made peanut butter Goo Goo Clusters, rather than chocolate – so instead I’m calling this a Chocolate and Peanut Butter Goo Goo Cake.

 

You can follow the recipe directly from the website; apparently this cake is available in the Nashville shop’s dessert bar. I want to go back there now!

 

I converted the measurements to grams but otherwise followed the recipe:

 

I melted the chocolate and butter, added the sugar and salt and heated until the sugar had dissolved.

 

Whisked in the eggs and then the cocoa powder.

 

 

Bake in a preheated oven for 25 minutes then cool. The cake did sink slightly but I wasn’t surprised as you may have noticed this is actually a flourless cake.

 

Meanwhile I made the peanut butter layer by beating together the peanut butter, sugar, milk, oil, egg yolks, vanilla, baking soda, baking powder and salt.
 

Whisk the egg whites in a separate bowl and then fold in.

 

Bake for 25 minutes.

 

For the chocolate filling and glaze, melt the chocolate and butter, then remove from the heat and add milk, honey and vanilla.

I decided this was a bit thin and added some icing sugar to it as well.

 

Pour about a third of the mixture onto the chocolate cake, and gently top with the peanut butter cake. Pour the rest of the glaze on the top and allow to run down the sides. Sprinkle with chopped Goo Goo Clusters.

 

This cake was delicious, really decadent, and very popular in the office!

I'm sending this to Alphabakes, the blog challenge I co-host with Ros of The More Than Occasional Baker, as the letter she has chosen this month is G.

 

Goonies-inspired Baby Ruth cupcakes

This is one of the best cupcakes ever, in my opinion – I created the recipe myself and was surprised at how good it was. One of my friends said it was better than most shop-bought cupcakes he’d had!

I call it a Baby Ruth cupcake because it recreates the flavours of the US candy bar Baby Ruth – nougat, caramel, peanut and chocolate. The idea came about for a slightly strange reason….

I regularly take part in a blog challenge called Food ‘n’ Flix, where the person hosting chooses a movie, and we all cook or bake something inspired by that movie. This month Heather at Girlichef has chosen a classic, and one of my favourite films as a child – The Goonies.

 

I don’t know whether the generation younger than me has had as much exposure to the film as I did, but I hope that even kids today are watching it and enjoying it. Aside from a few politically incorrect characters that probably wouldn’t be made fun of in films today, the key themes of the film resonate today as much as they ever did: friendship, hanging on to childhood and growing up, and of course pirates, treasure and adventure!

Unbelievably, the film is 30 years old this year – the main actors, including Sean Aston and Corey Feldman, have gone on to some great things (Samwise Gamgee in Lord of the Rings for instace) and while some aspects of the film look dated, on the whole it doesn’t.

I watched the film again after this challenge was announced and while I had the Baby Ruth idea in my head from the start, there were loads of other food references and things that could inspire me. I even found a website listing everything Chunk eats in the movie which is an awful lot!
I made notes throughout the film of the food references before I went on holiday and unfortunately can't find the piece of paper anywhere, though a few scenes do stick in my mind, such as when the boys are in the Fratellis' restaurant looking for ice cream when they find a dead body in the freezer, and of course the moment when Chunk - taken hostage by the Fratellis - bonds with their physically and mentally disabled brother Sloth by offering him a Baby Ruth bar.

Baby Ruths are made by Nestle and are a bit like a Snickers from what I can tell, with nougat, peanuts, caramel and covered in chocolate. I thought that would work really well in a cupcake and I was right! I made a vanilla cupcake, removed a spoonful of sponge from the centre when it was cooked and added a spoonful of soft nougat, used a salted caramel buttercream from Sugar and Crumbs, scattered the top with chopped peanuts and drizzled Choc Shot (a kind of chocolate sauce) over the top. It tasted unbelievable! The sponge cake was really light and fluffy, the nougat in the centre was amazing and the topping was a wonderful combination of flavours. I made these for a bake sale at work and they disappeared very quickly.

Unfortunately as this was a while ago I can't remember what recipe I used for the vanilla cupcake base but that part is pretty straightforward and you probably have your own recipe or can find one easily.

Here are the vanilla cupcakes before and after baking

 

You can see how I made the nougat in this blog post; you can do it in advance.

 

 Spoon out a little of the centre of the cupcake, add the nougat and put the cake piece back in. It doesn't matter if it is a little messy as you will cover them with buttercream.

 

You can either make plain buttercream and stir in a spoonful or two of Carnation Caramel, or use the pre-flavoured mix I bought from Sugar and Crumbs. Their icing sugars use natural flavourings and come in an amazing range of flavours; the 250g bag was just enough.




Sprinkle with chopped peanuts and drizzle with chocolate sauce - I like Choc Shot but you could also use ice cream sauce. And serve - I can guarantee these won't last long!

I'm sending this to Heather at Girlichef  for Food 'n' Flix.

 

I am also sharing this with We Should Cocoa, as the ingredient chosen this month by Karen at Lavender and Lovage is vanilla, and there is chocolate on top of the cupcake. The challenge was started by Choclette at Tin and Thyme.

 

 

Chunky Peanut Brittle

My mum really likes peanuts and I decided to make her some edible gifts for Mother's Day recently, so thought that peanut brittle would be fun to try. It looked very easy to make and the recipe is indeed very simple, but as I discovered quite easy to get wrong!

 

I used this recipe thinking it was by Nigella Lawson, but realised afterwards it was posted in the community section of her website.

All you need is 100g peanuts and 100g caster sugar. Heat the sugar in a small pan over a low heat until it is caramel coloured. I learnt that it can turn very quickly and start to burn so you do need to keep an eye on it!

The recipe I used said to add the peanuts, then pour onto a baking tray lined with greaseproof paper. But as soon as I added the peanuts to the hot sugar in the pan, they clumped together and set almost straight away. Peanut brittle is supposed to be flat, thin and - well, brittle - and by the time I was able to get it onto my baking parchment it was already in big clumps. So what I would recommend trying is spreading out your peanuts on the baking tray lined with parchment and then pouring the sugar over the top.

Mine set very quickly - it didn't even need to go in the fridge - and I broke it up into pieces and put it in a little box. I thought it tasted quite nice even if it didn't look quite right!

Regular readers may have noticed that I like to make foods inspired by fiction, whether that's movies or books. This recipe fits in with a blog challenge called Novel Food, hosted by Simona at Pulchetta.com. I read a lovely book recently by Jenny Colgan called Rosie Hopkins' Sweetshop of Dreams, about a woman who moves to a small village to look after her elderly aunt, who runs the local sweetshop. She ends up learning a lot about her aunt, and herself - and sweets! Each chapter of the book begins with either a recipe or a passage from her aunt's notebook about a particular type of sweet and there is one chapter which begins with a passage on peanut brittle. So that was also partly what inspired me to make this recipe, and for that reason I'm sharing this post with Simona for her challenge.

I'm also sending this to Treat Petite, as their theme this month is mums and I made this for my mum! The challenge is hosted by Stuart at Cakeyboi and Kat aka The Baking Explorer.