Is it icecream? Is it cake? ...No - IT'S A CAKEPOP!

There's something childlike and charming about making things that look like other things. Ask Heston Blumenthal, who specialises in it. Not that I'm comparing myself to the Great Man - but I did have a lot of fun making these icecreams (which aren't).

The cones are real mini cones, but the icecream is actually a thick layer of pink-tinted chocolate with a lush interior of crumbed orange and almond cake mixed with lemon cream cheese icing.

Huge thanks to Angie Dudley, a.k.a. Bakerella whose awesome book Cake Pops this idea came from.

No childhood fantasy would be complete without its dark side, the ultimate childhood disappointment of a dropped icecream.
I remember the devastation of dropping an icecream on the pavement when I was about four, just as I had walked out of the milkbar. It was the worst moment in my life that far. So making these 'permanently dropped' icecreams was quite cathartic for me.

So these are the start of the icecreams - surprising as that is.
The balls are made from an orange and almond cake (for recipe see here) , crumbed and mixed with a little lemon cream cheese icing.
I must admit I had a bit of trouble crumbling the cake mixture because it was too moist, so it sort of squished rather than crumbled. I guess I shouldn't have added icing to it then, because I knew that would make it even moister, but you know, I did. And ended up with, well, sludge. Nice tasting sludge.

Needless to say, it was a hard job rolling it into balls. A fridge was involved for several hours before rolling, and a freezer was required for several hours thereafter.

Next job was the pink coating. This marvellous substance is Wilton's Candy Melts, a mixture similar in taste to white chocolate but tinted in different colours. It comes in packages from cake decorating stores (in Hobart, try Habitat or Spotlight for a start). For this project I got pastel pink and some dark chocolate melts which were mint flavoured.

They melt well in the microwave if heated gently, on 50% heat, in small bursts of a minute or so.

When the pink melts are smoothly melted, stick a dipping fork, knife, or skewer into a cake ball and lift it gently into the melted mix.

You need to push it right into the mixture and use a knife or spatula to push the mixture right up the sides to cover the whole ball.

Then gently tap the fork on the side of the ball to make any excess mixture drip off and get a smooth texture.

As soon as the ball is dipped, drop it into a waiting cone. If there is any cake ball visible where you've pulled out the fork, use a little more melted mixture to patch the hole. The mixture will dry quickly and stick the ball to the cone.

I also sprinkled a few sprinkles around the edges of the pink topping at this stage, avoiding the centre because that will be covered up later.

So after a few dips and sprinkles you'll end up with some quite realistic little cones.

Usually with cake pops the aim is to get the coating as smooth as possible, but with these, I don't think it matters because any swirls and drips just look like the icecream is melting, and, if anything, makes it more realistic!

If you are going to take macabre delight in creating some dropped icecreams, now is the time. As soon as you dip the balls and put them on the cones, sprinkle liberally with sprinkles and then upend them at an angle on some baking paper.

It looks even more effective if the coating on these ones is liberal so that it spreads out a bit, just like icecream does when it hits the pavement. I have an exact memory of that particular image :-(

By now, the pink coating is probably dry so it's time for the chocolate topping. Because as we all know, an icecream without chocolate topping isn't really an icecream at all.

Melt some dark chocolate melts (I used mint flavoured ones) - you don't need much - and get your sprinkles ready. I also laid out some red and orange mini M&Ms, for the 'cherry' on the top.

Using a teaspoon, drop some chocolate mixture onto the top of the cone.

Shake the cone slightly from side to side, to get the chocolate to spread a bit unevenly, or use the spoon to smooth it down a little, You're aiming for the look of chocolate syrup having been squirted on the top from some big canister at the back of Wendy's Supa Sundaes.

Then top it with a mini M&M.

Then take a pinch of the sprinkles and drop them over the cone.

Return the cone back to its position to dry and repeat with the other cones.

You may ask where I got a stand that happens to accommodate mini icecream cones. It's actually a vintage 1970s 3D tic-tac-toe played with marbles, courtesy of my Dad. The holes are to hold the marbles but they happened to be the perfect dimension to hold mini cones. Serendipity.

So there you have it... faux icecream cake pops, brimming with orange cake, cream cheese icing and chocolate.

Enjoy!

Gluten- and dairy-free babies with dummies

Babies with dummies – for no reason other than I thought they were cute :-)

This design is courtesy of Paris Cutler of Planet Cake.

 I guess they would be good for a new birth or a baby shower but you’d have to check whether the mother to be was cool with sinking her teeth into a cakey baby... personally it wouldn’t bother me but some are more sensitive about cannibalism :-)

 

This weekend I wanted to experiment with some new recipes for friends and colleagues who are gluten- and dairy- free. 

I ended up with gluten-free/dairy-free two ways: an original Dr Cupcake recipe of a cherry ripe cupcake, made with the juice from stewed cherries, and a Jaffa cupcake, made with orange marmalade. 

Both have a topping of 70% dark chocolate to give them a nice even surface and make them extra yummy!  

Recipes below, first to the decorating: 

First you need to cut large circles from flesh-coloured fondant for the top of the cupcake.

To get a lovely ‘flesh’ tone, mix a small drop of ivory colouring and a small drop of red colouring into a tennis-ball-sized piece of fondant icing.

When you place the large circle on top of the cupcake, use a ‘smoother’ like this rectangular piece of hard plastic to gently smooth and burnish using a circular motion. You can make your own smoother by cutting a rectangle of plastic from the packaging of toys, kitchen equipment, foodstuffs, etc. 

Then you need some small blue circles for the base of the dummy.

 Place the blue circle slightly more than halfway down the ‘face’, securing with a drop of water.

Make two small indentations above the blue circle for the eyes. I used the end of a small paintbrush. 

Then roll two tiny balls of white fondant for eyeballs and press into the indentations, fixing with a tiny drop of water. Indent two smaller circles into the eyeballs and roll black fondant into balls and fix in place – these are the pupils.

Make an indentation on either side of the face, about 7mm from the edge of the cupcake, to indicate where the ears should go. Roll two pea-sized balls of flesh coloured fondant for the ears, fasten into place with a drop of water each, and use an indenting tool to hollow out one side of the ‘ear’. 

Twist some small cones of yellow, brown, red or black fondant for the lock of hair, and fix to the top of the face with a drop of water. Then roll and cut a strip of pastel pink or blue fondant about 5mm wide and 10mm long. Place a dot of water in the centre of the strip and fold both edges in to the middle so they just touch. Wrap another strip of the same width but only 5mm long around the join and fasten it underneath. Push the ‘bow’ inwards from the sides to make it stand up a bit, and leave this assembly to dry for a few minutes. Then indent a hole in the top of the bow and fix a cachou in it with a drop of water. Place the finished bow just beneath the lock of hair, and fix with a drop of water. 

Finally, fashion a dummy handle from a pink fondant ball. First roll a thick short cylinder, stand it on end and narrow out a ‘waist’. Then press the top (above the waist) between thumb and forefinger to flatten into a circular disc, and piece this with an indenting tool. Leave to harden for a few minutes and fix to the blue base with a drop of water. 

A word on the cake recipes used:

Cooking gluten and dairy free cakes can be a bit tricky, because most flours contain gluten, and most cake recipes contain flour and often milk as well. I am not an expert on gluten but I understand that it is linked, or bound, to the starch component of grain flours (wheat, rye, barley, maize).

If you don’t often cook for food intolerances and allergies it is worth knowing that there are some traps for young players. Who would have thought for instance, that icing sugar could contain gluten? And yet, if you buy ‘soft icing mixture’ instead of pure icing sugar, you’ll see that it lists ‘wheat starch’ as an additive. THIS IS GLUTEN!! 

 

Also, if you are a fondant icing user, have you rolled out your fondant with cornflour – and if so, have you checked that your cornflour is gluten-free? Some are, some aren’t – and remember that even if you buy a lovely gluten-free cornflour today to use for your gluten-free cookery,  if you have used a gluten-containing cornflour to roll out fondant in the past and you are using fondant mixed or rolled previously, it will be contaminated with gluten. So be very careful because you don’t want to poison your friends :-)

The first recipe is a Dr Cupcake original. I adapted it from a standard gluten-free, rice flour cake. The texture of the rice flour is very fine and makes for a fine, crumbly and rather dry cupcake. This does not keep well – I recommend refrigerating or freezing if you are not eating them the same day (don’t refrigerate when they are fondant iced though because it will make the icing go tacky – you must just eat them straight away).  

The second recipe is one that my mum gave me years ago, you can make this as a loaf cake as well – it does sink in the middle, but you can fill up the dip with fruit (if making a loaf cake) or chocolate (if cupcakes, see below). These have much better keeping qualities, they should be okay for about five days, longer if refrigerated. The marmalade is really good in this cake, even if you don’t usually like marmalade – it stops the cake from being too sweet but keeps it very moist, almost syrupy, and a bit tangy. Yum!

Red Cherry Cupcakes

*Gluten-free / *Dairy-free

Makes 10 cupcakes

2 eggs

1 cup castor sugar

1 ½ cups rice flour

1 ½ tsp gluten-free baking powder (check packet)

Pinch of salt

½ cup vegetable oil

½ cup cherry juice (from stewed, tinned or fresh cherries)

Red food colouring

50 g dark chocolate 70% cacao (check packet to ensure there are no milk products)

Preheat oven to 180C. Beat eggs and sugar together until thick and pale. Stir in the rice flour, baking powder and salt until combined, then add the vegetable oil and cherry juice. Adjust the colour by adding the food colouring until you have a dark pink mixture. Spoon into cupcake papers and bake. Check after 20 minutes – the cupcakes are ready when the top springs back lightly when touched.

Wait for the cupcakes to cool, then heat some water in a small saucepan. Place a clean dry heatproof bowl on top of the saucepan and chop or break the chocolate into small pieces, placing these in the bowl. Stir occasionally until the chocolate is melted. Using a teaspoon, drizzle chocolate over the top of each cupcake and spread evenly with a spatula. Finish with rolled fondant (if using rolled fondant, be careful to use a gluten-free cornflour or pure icing sugar with no wheat starch added to roll the fondant out). 

 

Orange and almond cupcakes

*Gluten-free / *Dairy-free

Makes 12 cupcakes

3 eggs

100g ground almonds

50g castor sugar

1 tsp gluten-free baking powder (check packet)

175g orange marmalade

100g dark chocolate 70% cacao (check packet to ensure there are no milk products)

Preheat oven to 180C. Beat the eggs with an electric beater so that they are very thick, creamy and form a ‘ribbon’ – this will take between 5 and 10 mins at full speed. Mix the dry ingredients together and fold them carefully into the egg mixture, being as careful as possible not to lose the air from the eggs. Then add the marmalade and fold in. As soon as the mixture is evenly combined, spoon into cupcake cases and bake for about 20 minutes. Check cakes with a skewer – if it comes out clean, the cakes are ready. These cakes will rise, then fall in the middle quite deeply – this is normal. 

When cakes are cool, heat some water in a small saucepan. Place a clean dry heatproof bowl on top of the saucepan and chop or break the chocolate into small pieces, placing these in the bowl. Stir occasionally until the chocolate is melted. Using a teaspoon, drizzle chocolate into the centre of each cupcake, filling the dip entirely so that the top of the cupcake is a level ‘lake’ of chocolate. Leave in fridge to harden.

Finish with rolled fondant (if using rolled fondant, be careful to use a gluten-free cornflour or pure icing sugar with no wheat starch added to roll the fondant out).

Enjoy!