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Mini Black Forest & Tropical Sandwich Cakes

I may have mentioned this before but I do love a good picnic. What more can you want from your summer than to lie in the sun, eating and listening to music? I therefore decided I wanted to make July picnic month on this here KB.eats! I recently purchased (and by I, I mean Mother) a coupla new mini cake trays, one rectangular and one for sandwich cakes, so I thought mini cakes would be a great place to start for the picnic recipes! Oh yeah this is a 2 in 1 recipe post! That’s right, two recipes in one post, OUTRAGEOUS!
Now I can hear the uproar building in the distance already as there is cream on the cakes and we all know cream isn’t really that picnic friendly. Fear not, cream is not essential for either of the cakes, it just makes for a nice indulgent treat if you are perhaps having the picnic at home or having a garden party of sorts.
I just realised I haven’t told you guys a joke in a while…
Do you know any sodium jokes?

Na

HAHA get it get it?
So in case anyone was interested I have recently moved home from the big smoke, hence the change in kitchen in my photos! Reading isn’t terrible but it certainly has got nothing on London! There definitely isn’t the abundance of food related activities for me to participate in back here. No street food. No pop up restaurants. SIGH. Looks like I will be commuting into London on a weekly basis, not for work, but for food.

I think my brain is still a bit mushy from Glastonbury. I am really struggling to put my thoughts into words. This may end up being a more pictures than words post, which you will probably be pleased about anyways! Oh yeah I went to Glastonbury last weekend! I say weekend but it was more like a short 5 day holiday! It was fanbloodytastic! I am going to dedicate a whole post to it shortly, I just need to get some pictures of one of me pals! I may not have got any good pictures of my pals but I did manage to get a few good photos of the food I ate to share with y’all 🙂

One of the great things about being home is I have allllll of my props and kitchen gadgets at my disposal now! I have a blow torch that is just shouting out at me to be used. I am thinking Baked Alaska may be a good thing to make first or Creme Brûlée. I am not sure if I trust myself with a blow torch to be honest.
Right that’s it , it is like drawing blood from a stone trying to coherently get any words down here so lets call it a day and enjoy some pictures of cake in peace. WAIT I do have something I need to tell you. I have been lucky enough to have recipes from KB.eats feature in TWO great websites, Huffington Post & Buzzfeed! My Goats Cheese, Caramelised Onion & Roasted Pepper Muffins  were in an article on Huffington Posts “41 Sneaky Ways to Eat more Vegetables”. And my Raspberry & Chocolate Oat Biscuits were featured in Buzzfeed’s “31 Delicious Summer Berry Desserts”! I can’t quite believe that my recipes and pictures were chosen considering the vast plethora of food blogs out there! So chuffed! Now back to cake 🙂

Recipes

By the way if you are looking for the mini cake trays, I got them from Lakeland. You don’t have to use these trays of course. You can always make a standard tray bake and slice accordingly or make cupcakes and top with fruit. If you do go for making a tray bake, be sure to increase the cooking time as they will take slightly longer.

Mini Black Forest Cakes

Serves: 20
Prep Time: 10 mins 
Cooking Time: 20 mins
Skill Level: Possibly the easiest cakes everrrr

Equipment
Mixing bowls x2 (one small + one large)
12 hole mini rectangle loaf tin (greased)

Chopping board
Knife
optional:
piping bag

Ingredients
4 tbsp cocoa powder (good quality!)
4 tbsp hot water
275g self raising flour
225g butter (softened)
120g caster sugar
4 eggs
2 tsp baking powder 
1 tbsp milk
425g tin of cherries (chopped in half)
optional
250ml double cream (whipped)
12 fresh cherries (with stalks on)

Method

  1. Pre-heat oven to 200c/180c fan/Gas 6
  2. Mix together cocoa powder and hot water. Leave to cool. 
  3. Mix together flour, butter, sugar, eggs, baking powder, milk and cooled cocoa mix. Beat for 2 mins. 
  4. Stir in chopped cherries
  5. Half fill each rectangle in the greased tray.
  6. Bake for 20mins or until knife comes out clean when inserted. 
  7. Leave to cool in tray for 10mins before removing and transferring to cooling rack.
  8. IF ADDING CREAM ON TOP: Once completely cooled, using a piping bag, pipe a blob of cream in the centre of each cake and plop a cherry on top!

 

Mini Tropical Sandwich Cakes

Serves: 20
Prep Time: 10 mins 
Cooking Time: 20 mins
Skill Level: Possibly the easiest cakes everrrr

Equipment
Mixing bowls 
12 hole mini sandwich tin (greased)

Chopping board
Knife
optional:
piping bagIngredients
225g self raising flour
225g butter (softened)
120g caster sugar
eggs
2 tsp baking powder 
1 tsp vanilla essence 
1 mango (diced real small)
2 passion fruits (remove seeds from shell)
optional
500ml double cream (whipped)

Method

  1. Pre-heat oven to 200c/180c fan/Gas 6 
  2. Mix together flour, butter, sugar, eggs, baking powder and vanilla essence. Beat for 2 mins. 
  3. Half fill each hole in the greased tray.
  4. Bake for 20mins or until knife comes out clean when inserted. 
  5. Leave to cool in tray for 10mins before removing and transferring to cooling rack. Leave to cool completely. 
  6. Cut each cake in half.
  7. IF USING CREAM: Using a piping bag, pipe whipped cream on to bottom half of sandwich.
  8. Top cream (if using) with chopped mango and a small amount of passion fruit. Add the top half of the cake.
Here’s a tune from one of my favourite acts at Glastonbury; Crystal Fighters. I danced so hard to them! This is an acoustic version of their song “Follow”.
 
 
KB x

 

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