Summer Inspired Ultimate Pimms Cake Pop / Truffles

Posted on November 3, 2011 by cakeboule

Pimms Cake Pops / Truffles

Because summer has now gone and in the UK we are destined for dreary weather pretty much all year round I crave the feeling of summer. Summer time traditionally brings it with it Pimms and weddings. The two combined set the scene for a marriage made in heaven. There is nothing more refreshing than an ice cold glass of pimms after watching nuptials out on a sunny lawn with sweet scent of freshly cut grass in the air. The chance to relax, chat with old friends and sip the summery nectar. Imagine the elegant silver platter being offered to guests piled high with white chocolate encased strawberry and vanilla cream cake pop / truffles with a hint of sunshine pimms, lushious strawberries and white chocolate – simply divine!

Even if you choose not to have a summer wedding these tiny balls of chocolate and strawberry pimms heaven would be a classy petit four where the sweetness would balance perfectly with champagne.

I want to take a step back into summer – so I am going to turn up the heating and will be baking these and then pulling on a posh frock and pouring a glass of bubbly before devouring them. Roll on the weekend.

The Taste Test – moist and packed full of summer flavours – like eating a strawberry milkshake with a hint of sunny pimms.

Ingredients:

1 x vanilla cake

1 x pimms buttercream

White chocolate cake covering or white belgian couverture cake covering drops ( if wanting to really impress)

Instructions for the Cake

1. Bake a basic vanilla cake / victoria sponge and leave to cool

Making Strawberry Pimms Buttercream

You could use a ready made strawberry sauce or make your own from scratch to add to the basic buttercream recipe.

Strawberry Sauce

250g Strawberries

1 tbsp vanilla sugar or sugar

Summery strawberries

1. Cut the strawberries into quarters and place in small saucepan

2. Add 1 tbsp of sugar – I used my own homemade vanilla sugar but normal sugar will work just fine

3. Cook on a medium heat , stirring the mixture for approx 5 mins so that the sugar has dissolved and the strawberries have softened

Cooking Strawberry Sauce

4. Remove the strawberries from the heat and mash the strawberries with a masher

5. Return to the heat for 2 – 3 minutes

6. Strain the strawberries through a fine sieve into a bowl so that you can capture of all of the strawberry goodness. You can keep the pulp if you wish to add real strawberry pieces to the cake pop/ truffle mixture later.

7. Leave to cool.

Making Strawberry Pimms Buttercream

1 quantity of basic buttercream

2-3 tbsp of strawberry sauce (to taste)

2-3 tbsp of of pimms (to taste)

Beat together well

1. Add this mixture to the cake crumbs to create cake pops / truffles – see how here

2. Dip in chocolate!

Pimms Cake Pops / Truffles

Ready to Roll your cake balls / truffles? See the guide here

Idea: you could do half the balls in white chocolate and th eother in milk choclate – perfect for those situations when you can not decide which to dip it in!

Getting ready to roll Cake Pops

Posted on August 2, 2011 by cakeboule

Rolled Cake Pops / Truffles

Ready to roll cake pops?

Is your cake baked, cooled and ready to go? Then lets begin…

Equipment

Mixer with chopping blade or hand mixer

Baking tray lined with baking paper

Cookie scoop or table spoon

Large bowl for mixing

1 x cake

1 x serving of butter cream or cream cheese frosting

1 x spoon for stirring mixture

Making Cake Crumbs

1. Put the cake once cooled into a mixer and reduce it to crumbs. Make sure it is fine in texture and there are no big lumps left.

Cake Crumbs Ready

2. Aim for fine breadcrumb consistency

Cake Pop Mixture

3. Add buttercream to the mixture (buttercream recipe) - don’t add all of it yet. Add half of your buttercream mixture and mix it together well with a spoon or even better your hands. Keep adding tablespoons of buttercream until you have enough to make a firm dough with your cake batter not too mushy as you don’t want it to be really sticky and gooey.

4.For better results put the mixture in the fridge to chill for a few hours or overnight to make sure the mixture is firm for rolling.

Measuring the cake truffle mixture

4. Use a small cookie scoop which holds approx 1 tbsp of mixture or if you do not have one use 1 tbsp of mixture and try to keep measuring the sme amount. Scoop one level amount and then release it onto a tray lined with baking parchment / paper.

5. Pick up the ball and roll it between your hands until it forms a smooth round ball of cake mix.

6. Once you have done this for as many of the cake pop / truffles as you want filled then – pop them in the freezer until you are ready to dip them. Instructions for this will be shown at a later date.

7. Place cake pops / truffles in the freezer to harden

8. When you want to use the cake pops / truffles transfer them from freezer to fridge . Leave them for at least 15 mins to start defrosting before dipping.

9. Don’t let the cake pops / truffles fully defrost as they become a little slippery and you risk getting pieces of mixture in the chocolate later

10. Post to follow on how to dip cake truffles…

: Dipped sticky tofee cake truffles

This is what they looked like dipped. Why not try an idea for caramel centred sticky toffee cake pops / balls recipe.

Ultimate Sticky Toffee Cake Pops / Truffles (caramel centre)

Posted on July 30, 2011 by cakeboule

Sticky toffee cake truffle heaven!

I have not blogged for so long as I have been tied up with marking and schoolwork (yawn!) then came the mad frenzy of summer holiday cleaning and decorating followed by you guessed it a spot of baking while my son is away on camp. This week I was asked to make cakes for my husbands work colleagues. It seems the husbands have been encouraging a bit of a bake off between wives. I resisted the competition as long as I could, grumbling as I went about how wrong it was for the men to be making their poor wives bake them cakes, sausage rolls etc – it’s not like we don’t all have enough to do!! But once I had chilled enough from work I set my sights high and made them sticky toffee cupcakes. Firstly to shut my husband up and secondly I had the express intention of baking enough sticky toffee cake to make some cake pops / truffles. Toffee and chocolate – oh how I love you.

Inspiration

I based these cake pops / truffles on my memory of sweet, sticky chocolate bars that when you bit into to you reached the caramel heaven centre and it dribbled unceremoniously down your chin (or is that just me?). This was the inspiration for my newest gourmet cake pop / truffle and just for the hell of it why not use both a milk and white chocolate as I am fairy indecisive you know! But the main aim was to get the chin dribbling sauce in the centre of the cake pop with no special tools. Challenge on!

1. Bake a sticky toffee cake (try this good recipe)

2. Follow the insturctions for rolling cake pops / truffles here

3. Make a buttercream and either add a caramel (ready made) sauce to it – to your taste or you could have a go at making a caramel from scratch

To add a caramel centre

4. Before you add a filling – take off a pinch of cake batter from the ball before you roll it (this will be used later – flatten it to about 1.5 cm round – see picture below and put to one side) To add a caramel filling to the cake truffles. You can use a shop brought toffee / caramel sauce or you can make your own caramel from scratch. I did try the latter but this will need some perfecting!

5. I didn’t have any special tools or filling instruments that I know you can get for cakes. To get the filling into the truffle push a lollipop stick halfway into the ball and then move it in a circular motion to make the hole bigger. Pour a little bit of sauce in to fill the hole almost up to the top as you can see in the picture below.

Filling the cake truffle with toffee sauce

6. To seal the sauce in take your extra piece of the cake mixture that you set aside in step 6 (see this next to the lollipop stick). Stick the extra piece of mixture over the top of the hole. Roll the ball gently between your hands – this will seal the sauce in – if you find you get a little more oozing out – just add-on an other small piece. Voila – toffee centre cake pop / truffles!

: Sticky toffee cake truffles ready to go

7. Once you have done this for as many of the cake truffles as you want filled then – pop them in the freezer until you are ready to dip them. Instructions for this will be shown at a later date. I always freeze my cake balls and then transfer them from freezer to fridge when I want to use them. Leave them for at least 15 mins to start defrosting before dipping. I don;t let mine fully defrost as I find that they become a little slippery and you risk getting pieces of mixture in the chocolate.

: Dipped sticky tofee cake truffles

8. This is what they looked like dipped. Stay tuned for more instructions. Yummy – I even tried double dipping – which is half milk chocolate and half white chocolate perfect for those situations when you can not decide which to dip it in!

Ultimate Sticky Toffee Cake Pops / Truffles (caramel centre)

Posted on July 30, 2011 by cakeboule

Sticky toffee cake truffle heaven!

Inspiration

1. Bake a sticky toffee cake (try this good recipe)

2. Follow the insturctions for rolling cake pops / truffles here

3. Make a buttercream and either add a caramel (ready made) sauce to it – to your taste or you could have a go at making a caramel from scratch

To add a caramel centre

Filling the cake truffle with toffee sauce

6. To seal the sauce in take your extra piece of the cake mixture that you set aside in step 6 (see this next to the lollipop stick). Stick the extra piece of mixture over the top of the hole. Roll the ball gently between your hands - this will seal the sauce in – if you find you get a little more oozing out – just add-on an other small piece. Voila – toffee centre cake pop / truffles!

: Sticky toffee cake truffles ready to go

: Dipped sticky tofee cake truffles

Cake boules

Posted on June 1, 2011 by cakeboule

My Son and I have set ourselves a mission to have a baking competition this June half term holiday from School. So far we have created a test batch and they were not bad at all – quite a success for a first try! Now we are getting serious and have tried a few different flavours in order to see who will be crowned King or Queen of our newly named cake boules. Tiny bite size pieces of cake truffle dipped in chocolate and decorated. As we speak the boules are in the freezer waiting now for dipping and decorating in the final stage of this competition. We have also made some special wheat / gluten-free cake for those we know who can not eat normal cakes but still like a treat. We have decided to try some different flavour combinations and rather than fun pops we have decided we want to go more for a truffle, sophisticated look. Funnily enough we seem to be be very popular with peple wanting to be the chief testers – but those roles have been filled! Once we see the reaction we get, we will post more information about them. This weeks competition flavours are:

Birthday Boule - Madagascan vanilla soaked cake with fresh buttercream centre dipped in white chocolate with white sugar crystals.

Fudge Boule- Madagascan vanilla soaked cake with fresh buttercream centre filled with tiny squares of creamy fudge dipped in milk chocolate topped with fudge pieces .

Lemony Lush Boule - Lemon drizzle cake with fresh lemon buttercream dipped in white or milk chocolate and drizzled with chocolate and sprinkles (this was our test batch).

Toffee Heaven Boule- Rich dark chocolate cake with a chocolate fudge frosting mixed with speckles of toffee and smashed pieces of toffee dipped in milk chocolate topped with toffee shards.

Chocolate Crunch Boule - Rich dark chocolate cake with a chocolate fudge frosting mixed with tiny pieces of biscuit in the centre dipped in milk chocolate and coated with biscuit crumbs.

Vanoffee Boule - Madagascan vanilla soaked cake with fresh buttercream centre filled with speckles and chunks of toffee dipped in white chocolate and topped with toffee shards.

So we manged to get quite a few combinations for this competition (would not have happened in a normal week) – the kitchen has smelt like cake all week.