Easy Mixed Berry Fridge Tart

I am very fortunate to still have both my parents alive.  My Mom has Alzheimer's and my dad has suffered from Narcolepsy all his life.  They are both 77, refuse to move out of their home and into a retirement village.  Fortunately they seem to be doing ok for the time being, but are a huge source of stress and worry.  My Dad is AMAZING and I take my hat off to him with so much pride, love and respect.  He see's to their food, the day to day life, shopping, driving and looks after my mom with so much patience it brings tears to my eyes and a lump to my throat.  Every Wednesday evening they come to my house for supper, and I provide them with an extra 2 or 3 meals to have for dinner during the week.  I also try to make sure I have a nice pudding for them when they come, so am always looking for quick and easy desserts.  

Now as I mentioned I am a huge fan of "Master Google" and what I often do is look in the cupboard or fridge at the ingredients I have and then ask Master Google for puddings that have those ingredients in them.  I then read a bunch of recipes and .... yeah u got it, generally do my own thing anyway *Cheezy grin*  Sometimes it's a hit, and sometimes it's a miss.  

This is today's recipe:

EASY MIXED BERRY FRIDGE TART:

INGREDIENTS:

1 packet/ 200g of crushed tennis biscuits (or any plain sweetish biscuits) .
150 to 180 g butter - melted - I like a very buttery flavour and a tight base
1 tin sweetened condensed milk
125 ml (1/2 cup) boiling water
500 ml or 2 cups of any "berry" flavoured yoghurt (with fruit bits is extra nice).
2 x 80g packets jelly - again any "berry flavoured" ones will do

I must just add in here that you can make any flavour combination you like, so feel free to create.  

METHOD:

Melt butter in the microwave. Mix crushed biscuits and melted butter together. (Tip: I often buy a few of each packet and then pull out the food processor and crush them, storing them in ziplock bags till needed - hence the gram measurement of the biscuits). Put into a 20 x30 cm lined** dish and spread out the bottom crust.

**Lined with some non-stick paper. Bear in mind that most biscuit based puddings stick horribly to the bottom of your dish.  The more you press down, the more they stick, BUT I find that if you don't press down enough, they don't hold together and crumble.  So in order to ensure that you can get your pudding out when you dish it up, take the precaution of lining the bottom of your dish.  Trust me, it's worth the effort!

Place in the fridge to set while you get on with the rest of the mixing.

Mix the jelly powder and boiling water together till dissolved.  (Tip: Allow to cool slightly, because when you add the cold yoghurt to the jelly, it will cause little pieces of jelly to cool down really quick and you get little jelly flecks in your pudding, which personally I enjoy but some people don't.)

Add the condensed milk and yoghurt to the jelly.

Mix the jelly, condensed milk and yoghurt together with a spoon until combined. 

Remove the base from the fridge and pour your mixture over the base.

Replace in the fridge for at least 1 - 2 hours.

Eat and enjoy!

Sorry I don't have a picture of the "served" pieces, but my family got stuck in before I got a chance.  

Enjoy the rest of your week and have a happy weekend!

Love

S

Continuing with Cake Pops ... Peanut Butter Yumminess Cake Pops

So this weekend I had some of my best buds over and after they tasted my Peanut Butter Yumminess Squares, and the cake pops from my previous post, they asked ... "Couldn't you make the Peanut Butter Yumminess's into cake pops".  I thought about and and decided to give it a try.  

This Recipe is super quick and easy, no baking or cooking, ultra yummy and utterly more-ish ... so if  you are a bit of a peanut butter fanatic like all of us in my family .... you have been warned - your addiction is pending!

My Recipe for Peanut Butter Yumminesses is:

INGREDIENTS:

• 1/2 packet of tennis biscuits - crushed into fine crumbs
• 1/2 packet of digestive biscuits - crushed into fine crumbs

You could also just use your fave. biscuits crushed or any mixture thereof - just make sure they are filling free i.e. they create a dry crumb when crushed.

• 1/4 cup light brown sugar
• 1 & 1/2 to 2 cups icing sugar

I say this because sometimes if the peanut butter is stiffer or dryer, you may not need as much icing sugar as it will make the mixture crumbly, and other times its looser and perhaps a bit more oily and the extra icing sugar absorbs this - so use according to the texture of the peanut butter you are using.

• 1 cup peanut butter - crunchy or smooth - your choice.  

If you want decadence deluxe you can always substitute some of or all of the peanut butter for chocolate spread, just adjust your crumbs and icing sugar for texture. You don't want it too loose or too stiff (although too stiff is better than too wet, remembering that it does stiffen up a bit in the fridge, but can become softer at room temperature). 

• 210 g melted butter (normal salted butter). 

You can substitute with marge but we all know bow much better butter tastes, so if possible use it :)

• 1/2 tsp vanilla

For Dipping:

• 325 g melted chocolate. 

I normally use Geldhof disks and melt them in the microwave for 1 min and then 15 - 30 second bursts thereafter until melted and smooth. If you are using a block of chocolate - remember to cut into smaller pieces to ensure a more even melting.  If you don't, you risk burning your chocolate.

METHOD POPS - THE COMPLICATED BUT PRETTY WAY:

1. Place all the ingredients (except the dipping chocolate) into a bowl and stir until all the ingredients are fully combined.
2. Use a scoop/ spoon to measure out the amount of mixture for the size of pop you want.
3. Place these scoops onto a baking tray lined with baking paper and refrigerate for an hour.
4. Take scoops out one by one and roll into balls.  I did this standing at the fridge with the door open as I found that they became very soft and unrollable after just a few minutes out of the fridge.
5. Again leave in the fridge for about an hour.  Take the sticks you are going to use and dip the tip into chocolate and press into the center of the ball.
6. Again leave in the fridge for about 30 mins to set.
7. Finally, working one at a time, dip the balls into the coolish melted chocolate and shake off the excess.  Leave in fridge to set overnight ... if you can resist :P 

This mixture is still a bit soft and wet (see the shiny bit top right) ... just add some more icing sugar or if you are going to have to add more than 1/2 cup, rather add less and include a few more crushed biscuits.  Here a 1/4 cup did the trick.

Ok, so I cheated on the dipping as you will see and didn't let the excess chocolate drip of sufficiently and have ended up with "puddles" at the bottom of some of the pops ... yay me for rushing!  Still yummy, but not as pretty as they could have been

METHOD SQUARES - THE EASY QUICK WAY:

1. Place all the ingredients (except the dipping chocolate) into a bowl and stir until all the ingredients are fully combined.
2. Spread the mixture into a lined baking tray.  I often tend to use plastic wrap for items that don't require baking, just refrigeration, as it makes them super easy to take out and makes your pan easier to clean. It also allows me to "shorten" the size of the tin to make "fatter" slices.
3. Press and spread the mixture down until till you get it as flat and even as possible.
4. Pour melted chocolate over the top, smooth out and put in the fridge for a few hours.
5. Flip the tray onto a board (the plastic wrap allows it to just fall out, so be a bit careful not to let it fall out hard and crack).
6. Either break into pieces, or use a hot knife to cut into squares.
7. Store in the fridge in an airtight container.

 I tend to use plastic wrap for items that go in the fridge often, as it makes them super easy to take out and makes your pan easier to clean. It also allows me to "shorten" the size of the tin to make "fatter" slices, as you will see from the picture above where I just shortened the right hand side a bit.

Very roughly cut up squares ... I only cut them because if I don't, every member in my family (myself included) will happily run off with the entire pan.  If you want pretty and precise slices, use a knife dipped in boiling water and then wiped off for each cut.

  Have a happy week!

Love

S

Cake Pops .. trials and tribulations

Ok, so I decided to try my hands at Cake pop's again.  I managed to get the Craftsy "The Wilton Method: Creative Cake Pops - by Valery Pradhan" on sale.  I don't know about you, but I am always on a budget as I don't do cake decorating full time (my dream for the future is to open a small business doing speciality and custom cakes and cupcakes).  The Craftsy platform has been a fantastic way for me to learn new tips and techniques at a price I can afford, in my own home - so I don't have to travel or miss work to do a class.  They have wonderful courses available, and often have sales.  Being from South Africa with a very bad $ - Rand exchange rate (normally $1 costing me over R10), at least with their sales, I can afford to learn.  I am self-taught mainly and would like to give a HUGE thank you to all of those people out there that post recipes, tutorials and video's on how to do things online.  If it wasn't for you, my life wouldn't be as enjoyable. There really are some incredible teachers in South Africa, but again the travel, timing and price often come into play in a big way, so thank you bloggers, teachers and all those that share. 

I spend a huge amount of time online, searching for recipe's, tutorial and the like.  Pinterest has been a great help as well as obviously Youtube and facebook. I think I have thousands of tutorials and recipe's saved or printed out and just don't get the time to try them all out.

So back to the cake pops.  While these deceptively simple looking little mouthfuls of yumminess seem so simple and logical to make, they can provide a huge challenge.  I have tried many of the combinations online, but always seem to have problems.  Some suggest mixing crumbled cake with vanilla (or choice of flavour) essence, till it becomes firm and sticks together.  Others suggest using ganache, buttercream, milk and all other kinds of ideas.  I have tried buttercream and essence, but not with what I would call a huge success, and I WILL master them - hence the class... 

So the class advised using 2 x 8" (20cm) cakes with 1/4 - 1/3 cup buttercream icing.  Obviously me being me, I didn't have that and wasn't going to bake just for that, but I had a 4 cm high 30cm x 24cm rectangle vanilla cake that has been in the freezer for a while and it was time to either use it or get rid of it - I was running out of space again - and I decided to use it.  I made some scrummy cream cheese icing and crumbed the cake.  As I didn't know the exact amount of icing to use - because as usual I was rocking it MY way and didn't have the proper cake size - I just kept adding 1 tablespoon of icing until it was a consistency that when I squished it and rolled it into a ball, it held it's shape and didn't crumble or fall apart. I used an icecream scoop to measure the size of mixture to roll and made balls with the mixture. I've learned from experience you should use the same size or weight to ensure a uniform end result.

I then put them on a baking tray with baking paper and put them in the fridge for 2 hours.  When I was ready, I melted some white chocolate in the microwave. (I use Geldhof Belgian white chocolate because the factory shop is not too far away and it tastes fantastic).  I messed around with colours until I got a kind of vintage dusky pink colour that I liked.

I then took my balls out of the fridge, took plastic sucker sticks, dipped them into the chocolate and then pushed them into the cake pop, smoothed around the join (when you push the chocolate covered stick into the cold pop, excess chocolate pools a the top leaving a little lip) with my finger and put them back in the fridge for a bit.

I then reheated my chocolate a bit (I don't have any fancy chocolate warmers unfortunately) and started dipping.  When I had done about 5 or so, I realised that most of the first ones were cracking!!! WTBleep!  

So back to asking my trusty "Master Google" as I call it and read a few posts to find out why cake pops crack. I always read a couple to make sure, and if there seems to be consensus, I'll take the advice.  So from my very clever online experts out there, it seems that when you cool (freeze or put in the fridge) the cake pops, they obviously contract as they cool, and then as they warm up they expand again slightly and this causes the cracking. The other thing that seemed to come up a lot was to watch the temperature of your chocolate, if it is warm and your cake pops cold, it the chocolate cracks as it cools too quickly.  

The suggestions seemed to advise: 
a) Make sure your chocolate is cool, and if necessary add a few drops of oil (sunflower or another tasteless oil) to help keep it liquid for longer; 

b) Only work with two or 3 cake pops at a time and as soon as you are done, put them back into the fridge (rather refrigerate and don't freeze unless you are only going to work with them at a later stage, and then defrost before dipping by letting them defrost overnight in the fridge); 

c) Check for air bubbles in the chocolate and pop them yourself to ensure even coating.

This worked quite well until I realised that the ones that cracked or had a bubble in the chocolate coating that I hadn't popped were leaking a bit. I mean CUMMON!!

So back to Master Google and it seems like it is a very common problem, and the only remedy is to ensure that you cover them properly the first time, which keeps all the moisture inside.  A few sites mentioned that the mixture shouldn't be overly moist, but just holding together.  I will try this next time. I can't very well take out the icing I had put in, and they were all ready to go.  So I just kept on going, doing a few at a time and making sure that I kept them refrigerated in between. 

I even went as far as to re-dip the ones that had cracked. This actually worked better than I thought.  You will never get a perfectly smooth pop after cracking but at least it's all sealed and and doesn't have an ugly crack showing - and stopped leaking! I was mostly satisfied with the end result. So onto decorating them.

There a millions of pops out there of different shapes and sizes.  I'm just doing plain old upside-down ones this time.  The first ones I added some "gum glue/ sugar glue" to in a kind of swirl pattern and then whilst still wet, sprinkled sugar over the wet glue.  I did the same sort of thing for the stars, but used sprinkles instead of sugar.  The bird cage style I piped some royal icing on and then dusted some pre-made pink flowers with the same sort of mix I had used to colour the chocolate.  

Here's the end result .. I'm pretty satisfied with them. 

These were decorated by my 12-year-old daughter Sandy.  I often have to "fight her off" when I'm decorating cause she loves to be creative - especially when you can eat it afterwards!!!

Have a lovely weekend everyone!

Love

S

Roll on 2014

And so along comes 2014.  I had a bad start to the year with some hectic health problems so cake decorating and pretty much everything else was put aside for the first half of the year ... but here's what I did manage to get up to.

This cake was for last weekend ... Alice in Wonderland

Well here's a thank you to the SACDG Pretoria workshop and dem day.  They had a dem on doing 3D cakes and together with a Craftsy class on 3D cakes, I managed to make this for my hubbys Traffic Department Reunion.

Monocromatic cake for my bud's 40th

Simple Giant Cupcake

My first attempt at piped flowers

Tarzan cake ... what a mission!

The turtles were for the little boy and mom and dad were represented by Minnie and Micky

My Xbox cake. I was so chuffed the way the figurine turned out 

Little Rocket cake

Another Ariel cake ...

My version of the pigs cake.

So that brings us pretty much up to date.

2013 ... more learning curves, cakes and cupcakes

So in 2013 I'd been doing cake decorating for about 2 years and these are the highlights of the year.

This was a 21st cake for a lady who likes the movies and hollywood with pictures of her pets that she is mad about ... she even had her dog's name tattoo'd on

An 80th Birthday cake ... obviously

This was a 90th birthday for a War Vet.

A jungle cake for a little boy.

A Lightning McQueen cake topper

A sweet 16 Masked ball cake

 

Minions ... little minions

Monster High Cake

Owl first birthday cake

Petal cake (sorry about the side view)

White Chocolate and Strawberry cake

Strawbery Cake

40th Birthday for a single guy

Cartoon Cake topper for the lady who runs the marketing department at Toyota Ralley

Yellow Roses birthday cake

Ariel Mermaid cake

A 21st cake for a "Banana's in pajama's"party for a guy who loves gymming and flying

Playing around with cookies for Christmas

Cupcake toppers

Cute little girl cake topper

Farmville birthday cake

Haha ... an interesting one.  What do you do when you can't find any flowers (in August) for table decorations that suit your colour scheme ... why you make them of course :P

Ford Car Cake

Gumpaste fuschia cake for my mom's birthday. I spent hours doing the fuschias and taking pics and put a little photo tutorial together for them. If you want to see it, have a look on my facebook page www.facebook.com/angeliccakesbysarah

More Gingerbread houses .. I had requests this year for them :))

Hive cake for a little boy.

Well that kinda sums 2013 up ... roll on 2014