Recipe #29 of NEWrecipes52 ...

This week, I wanted to try something super quick and easy and it really doesn't get much easier than Mars Bar cake, which only requires 4 ingredients ...

Mars Bars (x6 standard 58g size)
Golden syrup (3 tbsp)
Butter (70g)
Cornflakes (200g)


There's no baking what-so-ever in this recipe. It's more just a chase of melting stuff together ...


Once the butter has melted into the golden syrup, you throw in the roughly chopped Mars Bars and watch them melt ...


Now I must confess to feeling a bit nervous at this point, because the melting chocolate bars didn't look all that appetising ...


Thankfully though, after a few more minutes of melting, the chocolate turned silky smooth and perfect for coating the cornflakes ...


Then it's just a case of stirring ...


lots and lots of stirring to make sure all the gooey goodness at the bottom of the pan wasn't missed ...


The coated flakes were then tipped into a prepared / lined baking tray (or in my case, one of my funky silicon baking molds) and pressed down firmly, using the back of a spoon ...


It's at this point that I veered away from the recipe (which, by the way, is from The Primrose Bakery recipe book again) and I put my cake into the fridge to firm up. The recipe book said to keep it at room temperature, but I MUCH prefer it chilled, straight from the fridge ...


and served with a cup of tea, whilst enjoying this welcome summer sunshine that's finally made an appearance here in my neck of Oxfordshire ...

Recipe #28 of NEWrecipes52 ...

Call me a cheat if you like, but I felt this recipe deserved a post all of it's own! It's versatile and can be used with many different desserts, but on this occasion, I used it to top off my cookies and cream cupcakes.

Now, the only other time I've tried added hot sugar syrup into egg whites, was when I tried to make macaroons, and they weren't exactly my finest creation. So I approached this recipe with some trepidation. Never-the-less, not one to concede defeat, I figured I give the method another go and make up a batch of marshmallow icing, using a receipe from the Primrose Bakery book once again ...


Sugar, golden syrup and a tiny amount of water were boiled together until the "soft ball" stage ...


Meanwhile, I whisked up the egg whites to the "soft peek" stage in my stand mixer ...


Then, ever so carefully and with the mixer on a really low speed, the hot sugar syrup was drizzled into the egg whites. The speed was increased and the mixture whisked until glossy and cooled ...


The result was a shiny white, gooey, marshmallowy creamy topping ...


Getting the mixture into the piping bag was VERY messy and I guess I could have just spooned it on top of my cupcakes ...


To top these off, I broke up [nearly a whole] packet of Oreo cookies ...


And popped a couple of broken chunks on top of each cupcake ...


Cute, huh? The marshmallow topping is sooooooo light and wonderfully creamy and surprisingly easy to make ... another HIT in the Wilson household for sure!

Recipe #27 of NEWrecipes52 ...

Back to my favourite thing to bake ... cupcakes! Again, I'm following a recipe in the Primrose Bakery book, this time it's these cookies and cream cuties ...


This was a fairly straight forward chocolate cupcake recipe to follow, though the preparation method was a bit different ...


I started out my creaming the butter and sugar as usual, then x2 egg yolks were added, followed by the melted chocolate, then alternate amounts of flour and milk, resulting in a fairly loose batter ...


Here's where things changed! Egg whites (x2) were whisked to the "stiff peeks" stage ...


Then gently folded into the batter ...


The mixture was then divided between 16 muffin cases, two thirds filled ...


Then baked in a pre-heated oven (180oC) for around 20 minutes. Now, normally at this stage I'd show you the end results ... but ... my next new recipe actually finishes off these little beauties perfectly, so you'll just need to read my next post ;-)

Recipe #26 of NEWrecipes52 ...

I've been on the look out for a recipe for millionaire's shortcake for some time now. DH loves the stuff! I, on the other hand, find it waaaaaay too sweet for my taste buds. But just because I'm not keen on it, doesn't mean to say I'm not going to try it.

The recipe is taken from the Primrose Bakery cookbook and they call them caramel slices rather than millionaire's shortcake, but it's basically the same thing ...


Here's the assembled ingredients, including x2 tins of condensed milk, an ingredient I've never cooked with before ...


The base of the shortcake is a biscuit like crumb, with added coconut for flavour and texture ...


The crumbs were put into a prepared (greased and lined) oven proof dish ...


Spread out evenly and packed down using the back of a spoon and baked in a pre-heated oven (180oC) for 10 minutes ...


Whilst the base was baking, I prepared the caramel, which combined golden syrup, butter and both tins of condensed milk ...


Now this is where things got a bit hazy ... the recipe said to melt the butter into the syrup / milk mixture and then cook for about 7-10minutes until the mixture thickened and darkened slightly. It didn't say whether the heat should be increased or the mixture stirred whilst cooking?!?!?!


Anyhoo, after about 10 minutes, the caramel still didn't seam to have thickened or darkened, but I poured it over the baked crumb base anyway and returned it the oven for a further 20 minutes of cooking. Here's how it looked after those 20 minutes ...


Eeeeeeekkkkk!!!! Not what I expected at all! Heck, how on earth could I salvage this?!?!? Well, actually, once the caramel had cooled (about 3hrs!!!), the bubbled top, actually came off quite easily and I was left with this evenly coloured caramel base ...


Next stage was the dark chocolate topping ...


The chocolate was melted in a bain marie, along with 2tbsp of corn oil ...


Super glossy ...


I let the chocolate firm up overnight, then dusted the whole slab with cocoa powder ...


Then divided the slab into 24 squares of gooey, caramel goodness ...


As I mentioned earlier, I'm not really a fan of caramel, but I think the bitter sweet dark chocolate adds the perfect balance to the super sweet caramel centre. Not bad, even if I say so myself ...

Recipe #25 of NEWrecipes52 ...

Last week I decided to take the week off from trying new recipes and so today I'll be posting about not 1, not 2, not even 3 but 4 new recipes!!! I'll keep the text brief and just show you my images. Are you ready for the first? I thought I'd try a classic ... blueberry muffins.

I followed a recipe from one of my favourite, and more traditional cook books ...


Fairly standard gathering of basic ingredients ...


Every muffin recipe I've ever read says you keep the wet ingredients (milk, melted butter, eggs, vanilla) ...


and dry ingredients (flour, sugar and fruit) separate until the last minute, and then you just roughly combine them together ...


Throw in the fruit and you're good to go ...


The recipe in the book had enough ingredients to make 16 muffins, but I halved all the ingredients and just made 8 ...


They didn't look very "muffiny" when they came of of the oven. The tops looked a bit smooth, more like a fairy cake than a muffin ...


But the colour was so intense ...


Flavour wise, these weren't my favourite cake. Plus, when trying to take the cases off, most of the muffin got stuck to the sides :-( ... they were OK, but not I'm not sure I'd try this recipe again.

Recipe #24 of NEWrecipes52 ...

I really had no idea what new recipe to try this week, until I went browsing through one of my many, woefully under-utilised cook books! When I first got married, my dad bought me 5 cook books, to cover off pretty much any and all home economic scenarios; from dinner party entertaining, courtesy of Thai side dishes (where my Asian chicken salad recipe came from), through to cooking on a budget (where today's recipe came from), you name the situation and I've probably got a recipe to suit!

So today's budget conscious new recipe is turkey escalope with creamy mustard sauce, served with mashed potatoes and mange tout peas.



I started out by frying the turkey escalope for 1-2 minutes on each side. Turkey is a very lean meat, so I was careful not to overcook it and dry it out. Once browned off, I let the meat "rest" and kept it warm in my top oven, on a really low heat ...


Most of the ingredients in this recipe are used in the making of the creamy mustard sauce. The recipe called for 120ml of dry white wine, but all I had in my fridge was a bottle of rose (a rather deliciou white zinfandel to be precise!), so my cream sauce had a very slight, subtle hint of pink to it ...


I gentle fried the spring onions and garlic, then added the wine and some fresh chopped sage, I brought it to the boil and then let it cook for around 4 minutes until it was reduced by about half ...


Then I added 75ml of double cream and 2 tbsp of whole grain mustard ...


The sauce only took a couple of minutes to thicken and once it was ready, I plated up the escalope along with a hearty dollop of mashed potato, some lightly steamed mange tout peas and finished off with a spoonful (or two) of the creamy mustard sauce ...


My favourite part of this meal was definitely the turkey escalope, it was wonderfully tender and moist! The creamy mustard sauce was peppery, but just a little too over powering for my liking. If I make it again, I think I'll add just 1 tbsp of mustard, rather than the recommended 2 tbsp.