Sunday the 10th March was Mother's Day here in GB. I decided I needed cake to celebrate, but didn't want to spend ages in the kitchen. When I saw a recipe on TV recently by James Martin, I knew I had to give it a try.
I have a love/hate thing with no bake cakes. The idea fascinates me, and it seems the perfect solution to having cake in summer without having to faff around in a hot kitchen to get one. But most recipes seem heavy with either cream cheese or are just dressed up piles of ice cream and named 'cake' - not really interested.
This one seemed more my kind of thing. No having to make any kind of sponge cake just buy a ready made flan base from a shop! And adding whipped cream, raspberries, and strawbs. Simple!
Didn't want to make a huge cake, a teeny one would be fine for us.
Enter my fabulous teeny tiny cake springform cake tin ...
Anyway. I made the cake. The outside of the cake tin is used as the mould. It's so easy to do, and is made in moments.
(I did try making spun sugar to decorate but not only did it fail, but I burnt my finger to. It's a stupid idea and I shall never attempt it again!)
The best and most surprising result is that The Girl told me she'd like this to be her birthday cake! Can't even start to say how happy I am about that. A no bake birthday cake in (what should be) summer! She's asked that I fancy it up a bit more, so I will make it again at some point and try out her idea, but she seems very taken on having this for her birthday.
It needs to be put together last minute, but you can do bits of it in advance and then bung it altogether when needed. For something so ridiculously easy, it looks like it's taken ages to make!
Another bonus to the small cake tins is if you have children, and they insist on throwing parties for their toys.
Seems quite strange to be talking about summer and cakes for it, when we are hidden under a layer of snow again. This morning we walked to school in what can only be described as blizzard conditions.
View of the front garden from the living room.
[quick strawberry gateau recipe]
tiny cake tin from [The Range]