Sunday 11 April 2010

Sweet treats- Chocolate refridgerator cake and mini carrot cake

I've always thought that tiffin was something very occasionally mentioned by older relatives when they meant a packed lunch, or alternatively a term to elicit sniggers in a Carry On film. It was only quite recently that I've learnt it's also used as a synonym for refridgerator cake. And it was as I gazed on a box of Gu tiffin in the supermarket that I thought I could actually make this myself.
I used this recipe from the BBC Food site, with a couple of minor variations. I swapped the dried apricots for glace cherries (as I prefer them) and used 100g of plain and 200g of milk chocolate (as there was an offer on in Tesco). I don't know anyone who weighs golden syrup so I put in around 4 generous tablespoons and tasted. This was sweet enough for me but you may want to add more if you are using dark chocolate. Once everything was pressed into my tin I left it in the fridge to set for a couple of hours. The recipe states this makes 12 squares, but once turned out I obviously cut mine much smaller as I had around 20 little squares. I think these were the perfect size though as anything bigger would probably have resulted in an immediate sugar coma.

So to balance out all the chocolate in the above I thought I'd better eat some vegetables, ideally in cake form too. A quick bit of searching threw up this excellent recipe on Jules' Butcher, Baker blog. My only variations were omitting the mixed spice (as I didn't have any) and using my own version of the cream cheese icing. This simply combines half a pack of cream cheese (around 125g) with a teaspoon of vanilla extract and enough icing sugar to sweeten (around 3 tablespoons).

The little carrot cupcakes were incredibly moist and fruity but not too sweet. And the topping added just a little bit of richness. I was very taken by how something that was chocolate-free could be so moreish.
Either of these cakes are ideal with a cup of tea while enjoying some spring sunshine.

5 comments:

Jules said...

Glad you enjoyed the carrot cakes. Believe it or not I don't have a particuarly sweet tooth so often cut down on the sugar in cakes. I do like the look of the refrigerator cake.

TheFastestIndian said...

Well thank you for the top recipe! I think the refridgerator cake is one that you might need to taste and adjust sweetness levels- with syrup, chocolate, biscuits and glace cherries, there's definitely a risk of sugar overload!

Shaheen said...

Both look wonderful, but I think I'll opt for the carrot cakes.

The Ample Cook said...

Corrrrrrrr, they both look so yummy. The carrot cake looks beautifully moist and the tiffin good and chunky - which is how it should be in my book.

A pot of tea, a sit down and both of these......bliss. :-)

TheFastestIndian said...

Awww, well thank you both! The carrot cake seems to be nudging into a slight lead as the favourite though- I am rather tempted to make it again this weekend!