Giant Birthday Snickers Cookie

It has been well documented on this blog that my husband loves cookies! I always want to bake him extravagant layer cakes when his birthday rolls around but he always requests the humble cookie instead! To sneakily do both I baked him up the cookie dough layer cake masterpiece back in 2012 but ever since I have just stuck to giant cookies…because if he wants a cookie, then I'll give him a cookie, but it will have to be a super size one! 

He loves snickers and I'd already made him a Toblerone one last year that never got blogged and a triple chocolate peanut butter one for Valentine's so I decided a snickers one would be a tasty birthday treat.  It is a lovely fail safe cookie recipe that I always use as my base and then you can just throw whatever mix ins you like in there.  If you were partial to caramel then I reckon some caramel swirled through or drizzled on top would be extra delicious but we're not really caramel fans over here so I opted just to keep it simple...

little chopped up snicker pieces thrown on top of some warm drizzled chocolate…

and finished off with a swirly wave of rich chocolate frosting and larger snickers bits!

The birthday boy loved it! so much so, that when some friends popped round unexpectedly later that evening and I asked him on the sly if he wanted to serve some of his birthday cookie to them he declined! apparently it was too good for sharing! 

Giant Birthday Snickers Cookie:

Serves 12-14

Adapted from Cooking Classy

2 3/4 cups plain flour

1 tbsp cornflour

1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

1/4 tsp salt

1 cup unsalted butter

1 1/4 cups light brown sugar

1/4 cup caster sugar

2 large eggs

1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

2 cups chopped snickers bars

1 cup milk chocolate chunks

1/4 cup milk chocolate, melted

2 snickers bars

Preheat oven to 180 degrees C.  Grease large cookie tray with butter.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, cornflour, bicarbonate of soda and salt.

In an electric mixer, beat the butter and both sugars together until pale and fluffy.  Stir in eggs one at a time, mixing after each addition.  Add vanilla.  With mixer on low speed, slowly add the dry ingredients and mix until combined.  Add chopped snickers and chocolate chunks and mix in with a spatula until incorporated.  

Break dough into four portions and drop into four corners of the tray.  Using your hands spread the dough out until it covers all of the tray and is relatively smooth on top.  Bake for 10-12 minutes until edges are lightly golden.  Remove from oven and allow to cool for 20 minutes.  

Melt 1/4 cup chocolate in a small bowl in the microwave in two 30 second intervals.  Once melted, allow to cool for a few minutes and transfer into a piping bag.   Drizzle over the cookie diagonally.  Chop one and a half snickers bars into slices, and chop the other half into tiny cubes.  Throw the cubes across the cookie on top of the drizzle.

Chocolate Fudge Frosting:

Adapted from The Novice Housewife

1/3 cup cocoa powder

1 cup icing sugar

60g unsalted butter

1 tbsp milk

1 tsp vanilla

Sift the cocoa powder and icing sugar together in a mixing bowl.  

Add the butter and beat on low to incorporate the ingredients and then turn up to high and beat for 4-5 minutes until fluffy.  Add the milk, half a tablespoon at a time until desired consistency is reached.  Stir in the vanilla at the end. 

Transfer to a piping bag and pipe frosting around the edge of the cookie.

Use the snickers slices you chopped up previously and place them flat down on top of the frosting, one after each swirl of frosting.

Eat and enjoy!

New Job Snickers Cupcakes!

 

I recently got a new job! I had been temping for a month as a receptionist for an oil company, and they asked me if I was interested in the job permanently - I told them I definitely was! but then had to explain my situation, because I wasn't showing back then! so I explained how I was pregnant and due Feb 4th! They had some other candidates to interview alongside me, and so the tense wait began! I'm clearly not the best prospect in the world as in 8 weeks time I'll be heading off on maternity leave! but through some definite answered prayers I was offered the job! At 6 months pregnant...I took that as quite an achievement! I decided some baking was in order to celebrate! and since I work in an office with 40 men and 2 women I tried to think of the manliest cupcakes I could bake! I decided snickers would be a good place to start and these cupcakes were born! 

A moist chocolate sponge with a snickers slither baked in the middle, filled with caramel, topped with a caramel frosting, broken up pieces of snickers and nuts and a drizzle of chocolate! To say they went down well is an understatement! I'm not sure there were any left past 10.30am! and I thought I was the only one with a big enough sweet tooth to eat cupcakes for breakfast! 

All day long my inbox pinged with emails coming through from all the different engineers thanking me for the cakes! Here is a selection of my favourite comments... 

"Were you in the cupcake business before working here? That is some serious cupcake equipment you have left on the filing cabinet! and the cupcakes are darn good!" Paul the engineer

"Congratulations! Mary Berry would be proud of that tray." Chris the engineer

"Wowzers!!  Those cakes are shamazing!!! You should sell them."  Colin the engineer

"Gemma… the muffins are DE-licious. That’s what heaven must taste like." Sundeep the engineer, who I had a little chat with to educate him on the difference between a muffin and a cupcake, haha!

I have now created quite a stir in the office and there's lots of pressure for more baking to come their way!  They kept asking me when I was going to bring in snickers cupcakes again, and then someone asked me if I could bake other things besides snickers cupcakes...so I emailed them a link to the recipe index on here and now it's all the office talks about! I don't really think they understand the blogging thing so it's referred to as 'the list'...and it's doing the rounds! People are requesting bakes left, right and centre...first it was my blueberry and banana bread, then the chocolate malt layer cake and now someone has even asked me to make a Christmas cake for their mom...which is quite a task! 

I'm thinking when I eventually go on maternity leave, I could probably just make a living driving by my work once a week and doing a baking drop off! haha

Snickers Cupcakes with Caramel Frosting:

Makes 24 regular and 18 mini cupcakes

From Kiss My Whisk

Chocolate Chip Cupcakes:

1 box devil's food cake mix
1 small package Jello instant chocolate pudding mix
1 cup sour cream
1 cup vegetable oil
4 eggs, beaten
1/2 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
1-1/2 cups chocolate chips
18 mini Snickers bars (you'll need about 27 to 30 total)

Caramel Frosting:

2 cups brown sugar
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup milk
4 cups powdered sugar
9 to 12 mini Snickers

1/4 cup salted peanuts

1/4 cup melted milk chocolate, for drizzling

Line cupcake pan with cases and preheat oven to 180 degrees C/350 degrees F.

In a large bowl mix together all ingredients, except Snickers. Spoon or pour cupcake batter into cupcake pan. Stuff one mini Snickers in each cupcake case, using a spatula to make sure the Snickers is covered with cupcake batter.

Bake regular sized cupcakes for about 23 to 28 minutes and mini's for 12-15 minutes.  Test that the tops bounce back when pressed with a finger, since sticking a toothpick or knife into the middle of the cake will result in a gooey Snickers mess!

Cool in the cupcake pan for 10 minutes and then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely. 

Make the frosting by mixing brown sugar, butter and milk in a medium sized saucepan over medium heat until the butter melts. Once butter melts, increase heat to medium high and let boil for about 2 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in powdered sugar.

Leave frosting to sit in the bowl for about 5-10 minutes and it will thicken enough for you to pipe it.

 

Crumble 9 to 12 mini Snickers in blender or food processor.  Also, blitz salted peanuts so they resemble a fine crumb.

Pipe frosting onto cupcakes and top with the crumbled mixture of Snickers and nuts. 

Melt milk chocolate in microwave safe bowl in 30 second intervals, and then drizzle over the top.

Eat and enjoy!

Happy Halloween! Snickers & Oreo Rocky Road

It's Halloween!! and thank goodness for the blogosphere getting all festive because it certainly doesn't feel like Halloween around these parts! Our Halloween party we were meant to be going to got cancelled, we couldn't go to the pumpkin patch to pick our pumpkin due to insufficient funds! and although we have our Halloween candy ready I'm betting that we won't get a single trick or treater.  It's definitely at times like these I wish I lived in America - everything is more fun over there! 

but...I did get very excited when I discovered these Halloween Oreos in Tesco (our local supermarket) a few weeks ago.  It is the very first time I have ever seen them in the U.K, we're catching on slowly so it seems.  I'm crossing my fingers that they'll surprise me with Mint Oreos any day too but I'm not sure that will ever happen! I also got excited when I saw these orange Silver Spoon buttons, like candy melts.  So I snapped both of these up in the hopes of making a yummy Halloween treat.

However, despite all this thinking and planning weeks ago...Halloween definitely snuck up on me! and right now I am writing one of my first essays for my course (it is due on Wednesday) so last night I knew whatever I made needed to be quick so I settled on my favourite Snickers Rocky Road recipe.

Of course I decided the usual pink and white marshmallows wouldn't do, and in true Halloween spirit they would have to be orange.  In England you can't buy orange marshmallows so that meant one thing - I would need to whip some up! So you can see this quick treat turned out being rather time consuming in the end....anything to get out of writing an essay! 

I followed Smitten Kitchens rather excellent tutorial about how to make marshmallows and I just threw in some orange food colour right before I poured them in to the pan.

I chopped up my Snickers, got a cup full of rice krispies, 2 mini bags of Oreos and a handful of orange buttons.  I chopped up the marshmallows and then I was ready to start melting some chocolate and mixing the whole lot together.

I melted another handful of the orange buttons and drizzled them over the top before refrigerating for around an hour.

and there you have it, the perfect no bake treat to bring some Halloween spirit to your neighbourhood! Give it a try! If you buy store bought marshmallows this whole treat can be whipped up in less than 10 minutes and then it's just a painful hour in the fridge while you wait for it to set! 

Snickers & Oreo Rocky Road:

Makes 16 bars

50g mini Halloween Oreos

25g orange chocolate buttons

230g Snickers (4 standard size bars)

150g marshmallows

35g Rice Krispies

450g Your preferred choice of eating chocolate (I used Dairy Milk)

2 tsp vegetable oil

For decoration:

60g orange chocolate buttons

Break the Oreos and chocolate buttons in half.  Chop Snickers bars into bite sized pieces.  Chop up marshmallows.  Measure out Rice Krispies and set everything aside.

Melt the eating chocolate and oil together in a glass bowl set above a pan of boiling water.  

Once it is completely melted, set aside to cool for 10 minutes.  Turn flame down to low and heat the pan of water gently.

Add all the other ingredients into the bowl of chocolate and mix together.

Transfer into a pre greased baking pan.

Put the 60g orange chocolate buttons into a bowl and return to the pan of water that should still be being heated, but not boiling.  Melt buttons and transfer to a piping bag.  Drizzle over the Rocky Road,

Refrigerate for one hour or until firm, cut and serve and enjoy.

American chocolate:a disgrace to the world

Today I got attacked by potcakes as I cycled home from work. Potcakes are the name given to mixed breed dogs down here in the Caribbean, they are usually kept outside and are trained up to be watch dogs over peoples homes. However the neighbourhood I work in, the potcakes roam the streets and the Kids that live there have trained them to chase after cars, bikes and people. So tonight a group of kids set their gang of pot cakes on me, they chased me biting at my heels and getting some good scratches in too. I ended up out cycling them in the end, but as I turned the corner two more potcakes emerged from a different house and started sprinting towards me so I stopped where I was, burst into tears and ended up getting my husband to come and pick me up!

So how do you recover from a potcake attack? by making some delicious Snickers Rocky Road! This is one of my favorite treats to make, but unfortunately it wasn't as good as it is when I make it back in the U.K and the reason for that is because of the chocolate I used! The title of this blog post is a direct quote courtesy of my husband...there is no chocolate here that even comes close to the tastiness of chocolate back home, it's definitely one of the things I miss the most! I guess on the upside it's helped me kick my daily chocolate fix, back in the U.K I had to eat chocolate every day but here I don't even get tempted because the chocolate just doesn't taste good! What's strange is even chocolate bars that we have back in the U.K like snickers and twix taste bad here! But luckily it's less than 4 weeks until my sister comes to visit and I know she's going to cram her suitcase with English chocolate for me...hooray! Don't get me wrong...I don't wish to offend any Americans, in fact if you follow my blog then you should know I am America obsessed and just love that country...in my opinion most things are bigger and better in the U.S! Most of my fave desserts and restaurants originate in the U.S but that's what surprises me most about the poor effort for chocolate they put forward! If indeed there are some amazingly delicious chocolates I have missed out on then feel free to tell me about them and I will gladly try and track some down to prove myself wrong!

So back to the rocky road, luckily the white chocolate drizzle on top saved the day because it was a bar I had brought over with me from England.  I melted it down and when I was finished with what I needed I didn't just lick the bowl it was in, I devoured it! Chocolate has never tasted so good!

If you want to make Snickers Rocky Road here is the recipe, it is super simple:

400g Milk chocolate for eating (Dairy Milk if in the U.K is what I usually use)

2 tsp Vegetable Oil

1 cup Rice Krispies

150g Chopped Marshmallows

4 x Snickers (chopped up)

1. Melt the chocolate over the hob or in the microwave

2. Add the vegetable oil

3. Chop up marshmallows and Snickers into bite size pieces

4. Add those and Rice Krispies into the bowl of melted chocolate

5. Pour into dish and refrigerate for 1 hour

6. Cut into pieces...and devour!

If you fancy turning this Rocky Road Delight into cupcakes you can see how I did it here: a chocolate cupcake with a peanut and caramel filling, topped with pink marshmallow frosting and topped off with a mini piece of Snickers Rocky Road (or not so mini in my case!)

Cupcake Club and Snickers Rocky Road Cupcakes!

I was very excited about the upcoming cupcake club! The absence of Iron Cupcake had left a huge cupcake shaped void in my life...and so even though I was away the whole weekend house hunting in Wales I made sure I was going to make it to the first meet up (and hopefully not the last!) so it was a late night baking sesh for me!

My Snickers Rocky Road that I make is just one of my fail safe recipes, it is so amazingly easy to make and produces delicious results every time! so I knew it had to feature somehow! I settled on Snickers cupcake that I was going to fill with caramel and peanuts and then I was going to try a marshmallow frosting for the 'rocky road' part of it.

Here is the baking process.  I made these Devil's Food Cupcakes and adapted them slightly as part of a Snickers recipe.  They called for coffee granules but since I don't partake of any form of caffeine I left this out.  I read after on google that the coffee granules bring out the chocolate flavour so I should have probably added a bit more cooca powder to make up for omitting the granules but they still tasted pretty good to me.  I added a cup of chopped up peanuts mixed with some dulche de leche, and cut a hole in the top of each cupcake and filled them with this caramel mixture.

I then whipped up some marshmallow frosting.  It was my first time making this and I was a bit nervous it wouldn't work out! but it was super easy and it piped on like a dream, it really tasted just like marshmallow!

I then topped them with my Snickers Rocky Road which I had let set in little heart silicone cases to make the heart shape.  I got a bit carried away and these were really bigger than I had intended! I was planning on just cutting a little square out to top it with but they are so delicious that I figured no-one would mind having such a big topper!

So I set off for Cupcake Club and it was a great night of yummy cupcakes and good company.  Here is our little sampler plate we had.  Andrea made peanut butter cupcakes, and I don't usually like peanut butter but these were delicious and even had a reese's peanut butter cup in the bottom! Kelly, who hosted the event, made coconut hi-hats...the combo of coconut and marshmallow is always such a winner in my book and I loved the colour co-ordinating tops.  Mara made lemon and lime cupcakes with a mascarpone frosting which were delish, and a refreshing change from all the chocolate-y ness of the other cupcakes!

Kelly has written a more comprehensive write up here that you can check out.  

One of the best parts of the night was that Lisa from Yummy Boutique came along to answer all our cupcake related questions and tell us all about her business! It was fascinating being able to pick her brains and gave me a much better insight into what the life of a professional baker is actually like...I'm not sure I'm hardcore enough for it! She works right through the night before her Saturday market she does just to get everything baked and fresh! now that is dedication, you must go check out her stall on a Saturday outside Patridge's on the King's Road or order some of her cupcakes because they are delicious! She brought us these amazing fluffernutter cupcakes and the cake was so moist with a really creamy frosting!

Thanks to Kelly for arranging the meet-up, and to all the bakers for bringing such yummy treats!

And now onto the results of my 1st giveaway! Thanks to all those who entered and all my new followers :)

We have a winner!! Katiecakes, is now the owner of the brand new cupcake heaven book! congrats!

But...I was having so much fun with my giveaway I couldn't just stop at one winner! so I decided to have a runner up too...hooray! and they will win this book of yummy treats...

                                   

Congrats to Rhonda of Obsessed with Cupcakes for being runner up!

I'm joining in with these for Cupcake Tuesday, so head on over and see what everyone else has been whipping up this week!

Snickers Rocky Road Delight

My friend is moving to London so on friday night we had a farewell dinner for her. I said I'd provide the treats and since I'd spent the Thursday baking cupcakes I decided to go for something different. I made my snickers rocky road and decided to drizzle some of my much loved swiss white choc on the top which added some extra yumminess!

Snickers Rocky Road

I thought it was about time I added this on here..as it's one of my fave easiest treats to make and it is such a hit too, I made it once for some youth thing at church for By and then everyone wanted recipes and my visiting teachers wanted me to make it for them too. It's super easy too..you basically melt 400g eating chocolate with 2 tsp vegetable oil. Then mix a cup of rice krispies, 150g chopped marshmallows and 4 chopped snickers bars. Mix this with the melted choc and refrigerate for an hour and cut into pieces...yummy.