Chocolate Biscuit Cake Recipe

I’ve noticed that a lot of the views of my blog come from people searching for chocolate biscuit cake recipes and ideas. I’m going to share the recipe that is tried and trusted by my mother and I. It has been served at many an occasion!

This cake is quite easy to make but is always a winner. Good quality chocolate is the key. I use Callebaut Belgian chocolate. You can make as a loaf, or a round or square cake tin. This recipe will do a small loaf. For a 6 inch round cake, use 1.5 times the recipe, and for an 8 inch round cake, double the recipe.

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Best Chocolate Biscuit Cake

Ingredients

• 250g biscuits, all digestive or a mixture of a few types
• 150g milk chocolate
• 150g dark chocolate
• 100g butter
• 150g golden syrup
• 75g marshmallows/raisins/malteasers or whatever

Method

1. Break half the biscuits into small pieces. Make the other half into fine crumbs using a blender or put them in a sandwich bag and bash with a rolling pin.
2. Melt the chocolate, butter and golden syrup together.
3. Mix the melted mixture with all the bicsuits and your chosen extra ingredient. Pour into a loaf tin and top with 150g melted chocolate.

For a special occasion, you can decorate the cake with Cadbury’s Chocolate Fingers and Malteasers. Attach the fingers and malteasers with chocolate ganache or buttercream. For an 8 inch cake you will need 3 packets of Chocolate Fingers (1 of each milk, dark and white) and one large bag of malteasers.

If you have a lot of mouths to feed and you really want the ‘Wow’ factor, you can do a double tiered cake.

Spring Challenges

Two cards for challenges.  Both have images from Sassy Cheryl and are coloured with Promarkers.

The first is for Sassy Cheryl’s challenge Soft Pastels:

 

The second is for the Passion for Promarkers Challenge, Whatever the Weather:

 

Thanks for looking!

Craft Swap

I regularly take part in a gift swap online, and had the idea to have a craft swap. Being my idea, it was up to me to organise it! Posting day was last week and it was great to see all the crafts rolling in during the week.
There was a huge variety in handmade items swapped but I’ll just show you what I made and received.
I decided to make sone jewellery, which I hadnt done in a long time. I made a black & pearl necklace with matching earrings:

I also sent some cards, but I forgot to take pictures.

I had no idea what to expect, but I was delighted with what I received. Along with a handmade card, I got two beautiful framed scrapbook layouts. One was for me, the baker, and the other for me, the mother. Love them both; am hoping to make something similar myself.

I *think* the swap was a success; hopefully it will become a regular thing.

Even St. Patrick had a mother….

Beannachtaí na Féile oraibh go léir!

Happy St. Patrick’s Day to all Irish around the world…and to all the rest of you who wish you were Irish!  At mass this morning, our priest gave us a lovely quote:

“Other countries have conquered the world with the sword;

we have conquered the world with our hearts”.  

I made this card at Jackie Mooney‘s last card-making workshop.  How cute is the little cailín?

 

 

With the weekend that is in it, here’s a green-themed Mother’s Day card with an image by Sassy Cheryl.  I am entering it into the challenge ‘Wearin’ of the Green‘.

As well as it being Mother’s Day, tomorrow is also my sister-in-law’s birthday.  I am entering this card into the Passion for Promarkers Challenge ‘Yellow and Pearls‘.  I loved adding all the pearls to this one.

Thanks for looking.  Hope you have a nice day!

Dee*

Gorjuss Mother’s Day Card

I finally gave in and bought a few rubber stamps.  Things are going well, but I’m still very wary of them!  Digi samping is much easier (when your printer is working, that is….grrrr!)

This is an easel card for Mother’s Day.  It has an stamped Gorjuss image which I coloured with Promarkers.

I am entering this card into the following challenges:

I love Promarkers #108 – Anything Goes

Totally Gorjuss #122 – Anything Goes with a Button

Caramel Cupcakes

If you’re looking for something a bit different, really rich and a proper treat, then you have to make these cupcakes.  Also it’s a nice loophole for anyone who has given up chocolate for lent!  The easiest way to make these is to use a tin of Carnation Caramel; this stuff is so delicious, you could just eat it out the tin with a spoon.  You can make your own caramel sauce if you like, but we’ll come back to that another day.

Makes 12 cupcakes

Cupcake Ingredients 

• 110g butter
• 240g light brown sugar or golden caster sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 tsp vanilla
• 120g self-raising flour
• 120g plain flour
• 1/4 tin Carnation Caramel or 75ml homemade caramel sauce
• 50ml milk or cream

Cupcake Method

1. Cream the butter and sugar together.
2. Add in the eggs, one at a time, and then the vanilla.
3. Combine the flours.  Add one third of the flours and the caramel sauce to the butter/eggs/sugar and beat well.
4. Add another third of the flour and the milk or cream and beat well.
5. Add the remaining flour and mix until just combined.
6. Spoon into muffin cases in a muffin tray (they should be approx 2/3 full).
7. Bake in an oven at 180degC / Gas 4 for 25 minutes until a skewer inserted in the centre comes out clean.

Caramel Buttercream Ingredients 

• 250g softened butter
• 500g icing sugar
• 1/4 tin Carnation Caramel
• 1/2 tsp vanilla
• 3-4 tblsp milk

Caramel Buttercream Method

1. Put all the ingredients except the milk into an electric mixer and beat well.  This may take a few minutes, so be patient!
2. Add 1 tablespoon of milk at a time until you get the consistency needed for spreading/piping.

 

Assembling the cupcakes

1. Using a cupcake plunger, apple corer or a spoon, make a small hole in the top of each cupcake and fill with some caramel.
2. Pipe or spread the caramel buttercream on top of the cupcakes.
3. Drizzle with some caramel and/or chocolate.
4. Stick on the kettle and enjoy a deliciously rich caramel cupcake with a cuppa.

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I’m showing this to Cheryl for Show Me Thursday.  Sorry I can’t send you one in the post Cheryl!

 

Mami Doodles last challenge

I was very sad to hear of the closing of the Mami Doodles digi stamp shop.  Lovely images that are a joy to colour.  This is my entry for the last Mami Doodles Challenge; Use 3 patterned papers.  It’s a birthday card for my neice who will be 6 this Saturday.  The image is Bea the Butterfly.

Spotty pastels

A few people have asked me to make Mother’s Day cards and this is my first one.  The image is from Mo Manning and it was coloured with Promarkers in pastel shades.  The colours I used for the clothes and teddy were: Lilac, Lavender, Vanilla, Satin, Pale Pink and Baby Pink.  I added some spotty ribbon, baby pink buttons and clear stickles.  I doodled around the edge of the card with a black fineliner.

I am entering this card into the following two challenges:

Sassy Cheryl’s Challenge #104 – Are you seeing spots?

Passion for Promarkers Colour Challenge – Pastels

Digital Pencil Too Challenge #124 - Anything Goes with a Mo image

 

Giant Elmo Cupcake

 

 

As you can see above, this is a Giant Cupcake of Elmo for a little boy called Luke who was 2 at the weekend.  He was delighted with his Elmo cake. I’m going to give brief instructions on how to make this cake.

This is what you need:

• Giant Cupcake mould
• Cake mix (I used 2xpackets of Odlums cake mix here)
• Buttercream or a tub of Betty Crocker Frosting
• Food colouring: red, yellow and black (Note: Black food colouring is hard to find; I got mine in Cake Couture in Drogheda, but you can get black writing icing in most supermarkets)
• Dessicated Coconut (about 1/4 bag)
• Ready Roll Icing (about 1/2 box)
• Icing Sugar
• Piping bag or sandwich bag with corner snipped off.
• Cocktail sticks

 

Bake your Giant Cupcake according to the packet instructions. Colour some buttercream red or orange and spread it on the top half of the cupcake.

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Make some black icing with icing sugar, black gel or paste colouring and a few drops of water (or use ready-made black writing icing).  Pipe on a mouth shape.

Mix the dessicated coconut with liquid red food colouring and sprinkle on top.  Don’t worry about getting it on the mouth, you can go over that again at the end.

Using the ready roll icing, make two balls for the eyes and attach them to the cake using cocktail sticks.  Colour another piece of icing orange (red & yellow colourings mixed) and roll it into a fat sausage shape for the nose.

Using the black icing again, pipe pupils on the eyes and go over the mouth again.  And there you have it, an easy Elmo cake which is sure to be a big hit with kids & adults alike!

 

Click here to see my blog post on my first Giant Cupcake and here for another one.

 

With your leftover coconut and icing, you can make normal-sized elmo cupcakes.  Previous to this Giant one, I had made some Elmo cupcakes using a different method.  I piped red buttercream using a star-shaped nozzle, used white chocolate buttons for the eyes and orange peanut M&Ms for the noses.  They are more time-cosuming but give a nice effect.

 

I’m thinking now I would like to do a Cookie Monster Giant Cupcake for Baby N’s 1st Birthday in May, with smaller cupcakes of Elmo, Cookie Monster and Oscar the Grouch.  I can feel a theme coming on…….I’ll have to try resist buying the Sesame Street Cricut Cartridge!

 

Thanks for looking, and I hope you found this helpful.  Please leave a comment!

Dee

 

Black & White card

This black & white card has an image from Sassy Cheryl, coloured with Promarkers (Cool Grey 1,3,4&5) and finished with glossy accents on the raindrops and puddles and stickles glitter (crystal) on the hat.

I am entering this card in the following challenges:

Sassy Cheryl – No Embossing

Passion for Promarkers – Black & White