Blogging about food is a great thing for me, it’s been the perfect repository for all the things I want to write about that I often don’t get a chance to in my working life. It makes me more conscious about the food I feed my family, it’s taught me about photography too. It is not however, good for the old waist line. Yesterday on Twitter I fawned drooled obsessed complimented a fellow blogger Slice of Barnes about a cake she’d made. It ticked all the boxes for me – salted caramel peanuts on a sponge made with peanut butter and a filling made with dulce de leche and chocolate. She suggested that given my news yesterday I should bake it and eat it all. I thought about that remark ALL DAY.
By evening I was emptying the cupboards to see if I could make it, she’d even very kindly sent me the link to the recipe as it’s not on her blog yet. Alas I couldn’t, the cupboards were just not yielding to my cake based needs. So necessity being the mother of all invention and all that good stuff I made these instead.
- Preheat the oven to 180c / 160c Fan / Gas 4 and line a rectangular baking tray with grease proof paper
- To make the praline chop the hazelnuts in half and mix them with the icing sugar, a little grinding of salt and half a tsp of water. The nuts will be coated in a sugary mixture
- Put them on a baking tray, or piece of foil, and roast them for about 10 minutes or until the sugar has melted to form a shiny caramel
- Try not to eat them all – you will. Slice of Barnes warned me of this and handily recommended doubling the nut quantity. Will I ever fit into my old jeans ever again?
- You’re making what is essentially a massive Melting Moment biscuit here. Blend the butter with the sugar and add the vanilla.
- Fold in the flour and mix until you have a dough – it will be a bit crumbly but that’s fine, add a couple of drops of water to bind it if need be.
- Press the mixture onto baking tray, prick it a little with a fork and bake for around 12-15 minutes or until it’s golden
- Move from tray onto a wire rack and leave until completely cool
- Melt the chocolate either in the microwave carefully so it doesn’t burn or over a pan of boiling water
- Cover with the biscuit with the dulce de leche and scatter with the praline
- Drizzle with the melted chocolate and allow to set
- I went a bit OTT with the drizzling as you can see. Channelling my inner Jackson Pollock is how I like to view it
- Cut into squares
- Kid yourself you’ll go on the spinning bike tomorrow
I know it’s not dignified, but I’m dribbling all over the keyboard. Liek the sound of Barnes’ cake too…
Ha ha ha, dribble away RJ, you work from home! Check out Barnes’s blog, it’s very good, she bakes cakes and then gets them rated! Scary, her tasters are very honest too. She then makes a handy graph (and I believe she drinks a lot of gin too)
Ahem, I am here you know Table! I would also like to point out that the gin is for medicinal purposes only. It thins the blood.
Oops busted! I thought I was having a nice wee chat with my Junkie friend then. Sorry. I know the gin’s medicinal. How is that violent shaking of the hands coming on?
I’ve already been a-visiting at the Slice of Barnes blog – am much in favour of the cakes. And don’t worry about the gin, Barnes – you should know that you’re among friends here…
I feel like we’re having a group hug. Yes, Recipe Junkie and I are already well acquainted, I am pleased to say. Table, the only good thing about my shakes is that I am now a castanet virtuoso. Glass half full (of gin).
Group hug with gin and castanets! Now that’s a night out!
I suspect that these would beat the cake in a peanut butter-based fight. They look absolutely gorgeous. And you made it all up from scratch as well. My impressiveness knows no bounds Table.
I’m not so sure Barnes, that cake and me have got unfinished business! These were a damn happy diversion though I won’t lie!
Oh these sound amazing. What more could you want in a treat? Sort of a good thing you didn’t have everything you needed!
True, true, serendipity.. They were lovely (please note past tense)
mouthwatering!!! They look really good these praline.