Chocolate Fridge Cakes

You will need

• 250g (9 oz) digestive biscuits
• 150g (5½ oz) plain chocolate
• 150g (5½ oz) milk chocolate
• 100g (3½ oz) unsalted butter
• 150g (5½ oz) golden syrup
• 100g (3½ oz) dried apricots, chopped
• 75g (2½ oz) raisins
• 60g (2 oz) chopped pecans, (optional)

Information

• Makes 12 pieces
• Suitable for freezing

Step 1

Use cling film to line a 20cm (8 in) shallow, square-shaped tin. Leave extra cling film hanging over the sides.

Step 2

Bash the biscuits into pieces using a rolling pin. Put them in a plastic bag first so they don't go everywhere.

Step 3

Melt chocolate, butter, and golden syrup in a heatproof bowl set over a pan of simmering water. Stir occasionally.

Step 4

Remove the bowl from the heat and stir in the broken biscuits, apricots, raisins and pecans (optional).

Step 5

Spoon the mix into the tin. Level the surface by pressing it down with a potato masher.

Step 6

Leave to cool, then put the chocolate mixture in the fridge for 1 to 2 hours to set.

Step 7

Turn out the cake and peel off the cling film. Cut the cake into 12 squares and enjoy!

This scumptious recipe for chocolate fridge cakes comes from Annabel Karmel

Hannah's Cake Pops

Featured chef Hannah Jones

What you will need

560g Cooked chocolate cake

375g Chocolate Butter cream

1.5kg Candy Melts

Lolly pop sticks

Styrofoam

1. Break up your chocolate sponge with your fingers in a bowl until you have a texture similar to bread crumbs.
2. Then add your soft butter cream to the bowl and stir until the mixture sticks together.
3. Have a tray with parchment paper on ready to put your cake balls on and weigh them to about 26g each and roll into balls.
4. Place on your baking tray and leave in the fridge for about 2 hours until they firm up.
5. Now you need to melt your candy melts follow the instructions on the packet for this.
6. Take your cake balls out of the fridge. Dip your lolly sticks in the candy melts about an inch in then push into the cake ball.
7. Then you need to dip the whole cake pop into the candy melts and pull out quite quickly.
8. Place the dipped cake pop in the Styrofoam and continue with the rest. This should make around 30 to 40 cake pops
9. Once you have dipped all your cake pops comes the fun part of decorating them. There are so many different things you can make them into just let your imagination run wild.

http://www.hannahsbuns.co.uk/

Banana Cake

SERVES: 8-10 (depending how big the slices are)
TIME: 1 hour

For the cake:
170g butter
170g maple sugar (golden caster sugar if you can't get maple sugar)
225g self-raising flour, sifted
2 large eggs / 3 medium eggs
3½ tbsp vanilla yoghurt
3 large ripe bananas, mashed with a fork

For the icing and decoration:
250g butter, very soft (room temperature)
500g icing sugar
2 tsp vanilla extract
3 ripe bananas
60g blanched hazelnuts

Pre-heat the oven to 180C and have ready an 8" cake tin (or you could use 2 x slim 8" sandwich tins). Then lightly grease and line the base of the tin with greaseproof paper. 

In a large bowl, cream the butter and sugar with an electric whisk if you have one, together until it's soft and fluffy. In a separate bowl whisk the eggs with a fork and then add slowly to the creamed mixture a little bit at a time. 

Mash the bananas in a separate bowl if you haven't already done so. The bananas do need to be ripe otherwise they won't mash properly. With a large metal spoon, add the bananas and yoghurt to the mixture and stir in well. Don't worry if the mixture starts to look like it's curdled - it's just the bananas and yoghurt mixing in. 

Finally, add the sifted flour and mix in well. Pour the cake mixture into your tin and bake for 40-45 minutes or until the skewer comes out clean.

Turn the cake out onto a wire rack and leave to cool. 

To make the icing, cream the butter alone with an electric whisk until it's really light and fluffy. Add the icing sugar a bit at a time - the icing sugar will cloud up but you can use a tea towel to partially cover the bowl which will help to reduce the dust cloud.

Once all the icing sugar is incorporated, add the vanilla extract and whisk together really well.

Put the icing to one side to prepare your hazelnut topping. In a dry frying pan over a medium heat, gently toast the hazelnuts until brown - be really careful they don't catch and burn. This should take about 4-5 minutes. Then in either a food processor or a plastic bag with a rolling pin, crush the hazelnuts until broken down - not too much otherwise it will turn to dust. 

Once the cake has cooled, slice it in half - I find a serrated bread knife works best. Use half the icing on the middle of the cake. Then slice up the bananas into strips and arrange on top of the icing. Then arrange the top half of the cake and spread over the remaining icing. Finally, use a fork to fluff up the icing a little for texture and sprinkle the toasted hazelnuts over the top

White Chocolate Easter Cake

• 250g butter , plus a little extra for greasing
• 140g white chocolate , broken into pieces
• 250ml milk
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 250g self-raising flour
• ¼ tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 300g caster sugar
• 2 large eggs , lightly beaten

• 300g tub Philadelphia cheese
• 85g butter , softened
• 100g icing sugar , sifted
• mini eggs , to decorate (or use 50g/2oz chopped hazelnuts

1. Heat oven to 160C/fan 140C/gas 3. Grease a deep 23cm cake tin and line the base with greaseproof paper. Place the butter, white chocolate, milk and vanilla extract in a small saucepan, then heat gently, stirring, until melted. Combine the flour, bicarb and sugar in a large bowl with a pinch of salt, then stir in the melted ingredients and eggs until smooth. Pour the batter into the tin, then bake for 1 hr, or until the cake is golden and a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. Cool in the tin. Once cool, the cake can be wrapped in cling film and foil, then frozen for up to 1 month.
2. To make the frosting, beat together the Philadelphia, butter and icing sugar until smooth. Spread over the cake, then decorate with mini eggs

Recipe sourced from BBC Good Food- this is a scrumptious Easter Recipe & easy to do with the kids.