Page 22 - Oxted Local February 2024

22 February 2025
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Oxted Local 
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FEBRUARY
RECIPES
CAKE POPS
Ingredients:
Cake
•
2 eggs
•
100g self raising flour
•
100g caster sugar
•
1 teaspoon vanilla
extract
•
100g butter or dairy
free alternative
Topping
•
50g unsalted butter
•
75g icing sugar
•
80g dark or milk
chocolate
•
80g white chocolate (I
used caramel chocolate)
•
Decorations of your
choice. I used sprinkles,
coconut, freeze dried
strawberry, walnuts and
smarties.
These are easy and fun to make
and they are such a cute valentines
gift. You can get heart shaped
cake decorations or use freeze
dried strawberry to go all in on the
Valentine’s day theme.
You will need a plain sponge cake (or
chocolate sponge cake) Around 300g.
Shop bought is fine, as is homemade.
If you want a recipe, here is a simple
one below.
1. Beat the ingredients together
and pour into cupcake cases,
place into a cupcake/muffin
baking tray.
2. Bake at 180 c for around 20
mins, until the top is starting
to turn golden and they are
springy to the touch.
3. Leave to cool.
So now you have your cake whether
shop bought, or homemade.
1. Crumble the sponge cake into
“breadcrumbs” and place in a
large bowl.
2. Make up the vanilla buttercream
by mixing the unsalted butter
and icing sugar together to a
smooth buttercream texture.
You might need to add a
little milk to get the right
consistency. (It freezes well if
you make more than you need)
3. Add one tablespoonful of the
buttercream into the cake
crumbs and mix in. You want a
consistency that will be sticky
enough to hold together and
easily roll into balls. Keep
adding buttercream until you
get the desired consistency.
Then roll into 8 balls and place
on a plate and into the fridge
to set.
4. Place the dark chocolate into a
heat proof bowl and heat over
a saucepan of simmering water
until the chocolate has melted,
then remove from the heat.
5. Place the toppings into separate
bowls (or you can just stick to
one decoration)
6. Place a sheet of baking paper
(or foil) onto a plate or baking
sheet. Something with a flat
surface (that will fit in the
fridge).
7. Take the first cake ball and roll
in the melted dark chocolate
(use a spoon or fork to make
sure it’s fully covered).
Sprinkle your topping over
the top and place on the
baking paper. Repeat with 3
more of the cake balls.
8. For the white chocolate (or
caramel chocolate in this
case) simply repeat the above
process using the caramel
chocolate for the remaining
4 balls.
9. Once they’re all ready
place into the fridge for the
chocolate to set.
I like to box them up and gift them
like a box of chocolates, but you
can put some sticks into them to
make them into proper cake pops
if you like.
**To put them on lollipop sticks
(you can buy on Amazon)
Firstly, make the balls smaller, so
you want 12 - 14 smaller cake pops
about 1 inch in diameter. Place
them to set in the fridge (as in step
3). Dip the stick into some melted
chocolate and put the stick about
halfway into the cake pop. Return
to the fridge for another half an
hour. Then follow steps 4- 9. Fill
half a coffee cup with couscous or
with uncooked rice. Place the cake
pops (on their sticks) into the rice/
couscous and you’ll find the sticks
stand upright. Put back into the
fridge until they are set.
Gift them or eat them yourself!
Happy valentines!
By Ella Easton @stillglutenfree