BAKING CAN BE A GREAT FAMILY ACTIVITY, ESPECIALLY IF IT’S A SECRET BIRTHDAY PROJECT YOU’RE WORKING ON TOGETHER BAKING
If you’re after an easy way to spend more time with your kids, look no further than your own kitchen. No fancy equipment or expensive memberships are required and you don’t need a military-style operation to get them to leave the house all at once. All you need is just a few simple ingredients, a mixing bowl and a spoon. These are memories that will last – most of us will remember the first time we were asked if we wanted to ‘lick the spoon’, coated in sugary goodness, or even being covered head to toe in flour with a parent in the kitchen. So if there is an upcoming birthday on the horizon, use it as an excuse for a bit of parent-child bonding; you won’t regret it and most importantly your child won’t forget it. Not only will you have a great time creating and making a mess of the kitchen, but this inspirational and show-stopping recipe will have a roomful of guests seething with envy that the cake is not intended for them!
These crispy Mars Bar fridge cakes can be moulded into friendly robots to delight any young child, both to help create and as a birthday party centrepiece. Make several batches and assemble an army!
Makes 2 robots, serves 12-15
INGREDIENTS
❤ 100g unsalted butter, diced, plus more for greasing the tin
❤ 200g crispy puffed rice cereal
❤ 4 Mars Bars (total weight 240g), roughly chopped
❤ 350g 55% cocoa solids chocolate, chopped
❤ 1 tbsp golden syrup
To decorate
❤ 100g white chocolate, melted
❤ 100g 55% cocoa solids chocolate, melted
❤ An assortment of silver and coloured chocolate beans and silver dragees in several sizes
METHOD
1 Butter a 23cm, square, loose-bottomed cake tin and line the base with baking parchment. Tip the rice cereal into a large mixing bowl.
2 Melt the Mars Bars, chocolate, butter and syrup in a bowl over gently simmering water, making sure the bowl does not touch the water and stirring from time to time. Once the mixture has melted, tip it into the rice cereal and stir well until combined. Pour into the prepared tin, and press down with the back of a spoon or a palette knife to make it compact. Place in the fridge to set for at least a couple of hours, or preferably overnight.
3 When ready to make the robots, tip out the square on to a chopping board. You must cut out the heads and bodies first, then the legs and arms. The feet and necks can then be cut out from what’s left. Once you have cut out your robots, assemble the bodies with cocktail sticks.
4 Place the two different types of melted chocolate into two piping bags and decorate the robots as you wish, sticking on sweets and dragees as you do so.
