Cappuccino squares

The final instalment of barbecue cakes, at last!

These cappuccino squares are one of the friendly pony’s favourites, largely down to the super-sweet white chocolate icing.

The coffee cake is just strong enough to balance out the sweetness, and with the dusting of cocoa on top I think these look really pretty.

Cappuccino squares:

• 175g butter
• 175g caster sugar
• 3 eggs
• 175g self raising flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1tbsp instant coffee granules, dissolved in 1-2 tsp cold water

Cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs one at a time, then gradually add the dissolved coffee until the mix is a nice coffee-brown colour (tasting at this point is optional if you’re funny about the raw eggs, but I like to check to make sure I’ve got it coffee-y enough). Sift in the flour and baking powder and fold until just combined. Spread the mix into a 8×8″ square tin, lined with greaseproof paper. Bake at 180 for 20-25 minutes, until a skewer comes out clean.

For the icing:

• 150g white chocolate
• 50g butter
• 175g icing sugar
• Cocoa powder to dust

Melt the white chocolate and butter together over a saucepan of simmering water. Remove from the heat when melted, and beat in the icing sugar until it all comes together and there are no lumps. Remove the cake from the tin and peel off the greaseproof paper. Line the tin with paper again, making sure it hangs over the edge, then put the cake back in. This will make it a million times easier to get the cake back out! Spread the icing over the top of the cake, then dust the cocoa powder lightly over the top. Leave until ready to serve, then cut into 16 squares.

Chocolate cherry brownies

Barbecue cakes part 3!

These brownies are basically the same as these amazing ones I posted last month, but with the milk chocolate chunks swapped for Green & Blacks dark chocolate and cherry.

Despite being the same recipe, the friendly pony was convinced these ones were even better. He thought they were more fudgy, which is a bit odd as I actually cooked them for longer, but I think that could just be down to my temperamental oven.

I prefered these ones too, but because brownies are so rich anyway they don’t really need the sweetness of milk chocolate, and the dark chocolate and cherries give them a bit more of an edge.

Anyway, I won’t re-post the recipe but these are definitely worth a try!

Mini white chocolate and strawberry tarts

This is part 1 of my round up of cakes I made for our neighbourhood barbecue.

These little tarts are inspired by a Waitrose recipe for a large white chocolate and strawberry tart, which I’ve been making for years and has never let me down.

I decided to use a different pastry recipe, just to try something different, so I went with one that BBC Good Food also paired with white chocolate and strawberries (although I switched the hazelnuts for pecans as I had some spare pecans in the cupboard).

The end result was great, a really thin, crisp pastry, with a soft creamy white chocolate filling and delicious strawberries on top. I think they looked really pretty, and everyone seemed to like them, although the pony said they weren’t quite sweet enough for his tastes.

The quantities for the pastry below are actually double what you need, but I used half to make the banoffee pie tarts which I will post about soon. You could either double the filling or freeze half the pastry to make it the right amount!

Mini white chocolate and strawberry tarts:

For the pastry:

• 180g plain flour
• 60g icing sugar
• 1tbsp chopped pecans
• 90g butter
• 1 egg

Blend together the flour, sugar, pecans and butter in a food processor until it looks like breadcrumbs. Add in the egg and keep mixing until it comes together in a ball. The recipe says you can roll it out straight away, but I refrigerated it for an hour and still had to use quite a bit of extra flour to roll it out. Roll it fairly thinly, then cut out rounds large enough to fill cupcake tin holes (I don’t actually own any cutters so I used the lid of a Nutella jar, which did the trick!) Freeze for 20 minutes to stop the pastry shrinking, then blind bake for 10 minutes at 180 degrees, then for a further 3-5 minutes uncovered, until golden brown.

For the filling:

• 250g marscapone
• 100g white chocolate
• 75ml double cream
• 250g chopped strawberries

Heat the white chocolate with a quarter of the marscapone of a pan of simmering water. Remove from the heat then beat in the remaining marscapone, then stir in the cream. Decant into a jug, then pour into the pastry cases. I found this to be enough mix to fill 15 cases. Chill in the fridge until ready to serve, then top with the chopped strawberries. Delicious summery goodness!

Bank holiday barbecue cakes

Yesterday was the first of what will hopefully be many Fernleigh Gardens barbecues. Along with our next door neighbour, Jo, the friendly pony and I decided what our neighbourhood needed was a big barbecue, where everyone could get to know each other and eat lots of food.

Obviously, as soon as this was decided, I started thinking about what cakes to make. I wanted things that were bite-sized and easy to eat, and in the end these are the five that I settled on.

Chocolate cherry brownies:

Lemon bars:

White chocolate and strawberry tarts:

Cappuccino squares:

Banoffee pie tarts:

In total I think there were about 75 pieces of cake, and there are only 4 left in my fridge now, so I think they went down pretty well! Someone even assumed that making cakes was my job, which I think is a very nice compliment!

I’ll post recipes for each of these over the next week or so, they’re all quick and easy and perfect for a sunny barbecue!