Some slice with some crunches

July 13, 2025 

   

On a mini weekend away in Castlemaine during July, I had the perfect piece of slice at Stak's Cafe. It was a bit biscuity but more chewy caramel, with big chocolate buttons melted into the top and lots of roasted peanuts. It made me want to bake something similarly chaotic and sweet and salty, so I pulled out a recipe for 'quadruple crunch bars' from Hungry & Frozen. It smashes together potato chips (ever heard of 'em?), rice bubbles, butterscotch lollies and chocolate into a biscuit slice base.

I have to admit up front that I let down this recipe before it let down me. I melted the butter instead of creaming it with the sugar because I'm lazy about using electric beaters, this is a slice, and I wasn't convinced that it was needed. Then I used a medium-large bowl that was way too small for all the dough and the gentle folding needed here. From there I think the recipe needs to take some responsibility: there was way too much mixture for a 25cm square baking tray, perhaps even too much for the 25 cm x 30 cm tray I tried after that. There was so much chocolate (complimentary) that it wasn't to be drizzled about playfully, but instead thickly spread across the entire slice.

Honestly, this was not quite the crunch-a-thon I was hoping for (although the height of the slice certainly did have it crashing into the roof of my mouth). I was surprised how much the potato chips, rice bubbles and butterscotch melded into the biscuit dough. The slice did get a bit crunchier after storage in the fridge. I think these were originally intended to be cookies and I'm tempted to backtrack to that version... rolling the biscuit dough into loose balls and shoving chunks of the crunchy ingredients (choc chips included) into it. This was a sweet, fun slice and yet I hold out hope that there is an even more brilliant recipe lurking within it. 

Some slice with some crunches

(slightly adapted from this recipe on Hungry & Frozen)

250g butter

300g brown sugar

2 teaspoons vanilla

1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

300g plain flour

2 tablespoons milk

150g plain salted, ruffled potato chips

60g rice bubbles

140g bag Werther's Originals butterscotch lollies

200g chocolate

Preheat an oven to 190°C. Line a walled baking tray with paper (at least 25 cm x 30 cm).

Melt the butter and place it in a very large bowl. Stir in the brown sugar, then the vanilla, then the bicarb soda and baking powder. Sift and stir in the flour and then the milk, mixing until well combined. 

Crush the potato chips and add 3/4 of them to the bowl, along with the rice bubbles. No need to stir them just yet!

Unwrap and roughly chop the Werther's butterscotch lollies and add them to the bowl. Now it's time to carefully fold the crunchy things through the dough, mixing until just combined.

Transfer the mixture to the baking tray and use the back of a spoon to spread it out as evenly as you can. Cut slices into the dough where you plan to portion it later. Bake the slice for 25-30 minutes, until golden on top. Allow the slice to cool.

Melt the chocolate using your preferred method and spread it over the slice - the original recipe suggested decorative drizzling but I had plenty for a full layer across the slice. Sprinkle over the remaining chips so that they're caught in the chocolate as it sets. Cut and serve the slice after the chocolate has set.

Golden syrup potato dumplings

June 21, 2025

   

While the potato chip Florentines were fast and fun, this idea rattled around in my head for a while before I was ready to get a saucepan out. I don't have a history with golden syrup dumplings though I feel as if I should. They're surely a cousin to the self-saucing puddings I know, with the golden syrup hinting at a British-Aussie lineage, easy to imagine either of my grandmothers making even though I don't think they did! (There's a little more about golden syrup dumplings on Green Gourmet Giraffe.)

I was thinking about how gnocchi are dumplings, and initially imagined that I might simply cook gnocchi in a golden syrup sauce as a potato-themed tribute to golden syrup dumplings. Then I thought about the savoury potato dumplings we love atop this mushroom casserole and figured I could go a step further, making my own potato scone dough instead of buying vegan gnocchi. This called for a couple of test batches. The first round was pretty good, but a bit rubbery due to my use of gluten-free flour. The second wheat-flour batch was noticeably better, and I went ahead and doubled it on potluck day, preparing them at home, then microwaving them at our host's house after dinner.

As a golden syrup dumpling novice, I struggled to judge when they were ready. I was very worried that the ones I took to the potluck had completely disintegrated into the sauce and I'd just be ladling out lumpy caramel soup for dessert. Thankfully I was mistaken, there were spoonable dumplings still to be found, and everyone (non-coeliac) took them on with enthusiasm and a scoop of vanilla icecream. The mashed potato renders their texture a little less cakey and more fudgy than a traditional dumpling but it's a standard texture scale for brownies that I'm happy to transfer to another dessert.

Golden syrup potato dumplings

(a meld of this savoury potato dumpling recipe and this golden syrup dumpling recipe)

dumpling dough

1 medium potato, to make 1/2 cup mashed potato

1 1/2 tablespoons margarine

3/4 cup plain flour (can use gluten-free but the texture is more rubbery)

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 tablespoon brown sugar 

1/4 cup water or milk

caramel sauce

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/4 cup golden syrup

2 tablespoons margarine

1 1/2 cups water

Fill a saucepan with water and set it over medium-high heat. Peel and roughly chop the potato, and gently drop the pieces into the saucepan. Bring it all to the boil, then reduce the heat to a simmer and cook the potatoes until tender, about 15 minutes. Drain the potatoes but keep them in the saucepan. Mash the potatoes until there are no lumps, and stir in the margarine. Stir in the flour, baking powder and sugar, then the water/milk to make a dough.

Fill a larger saucepan with all of the sauce ingredients, stirring them together. Set the mixture over medium-high heat and bring it to the boil. Drop generous spoonfuls of the dough into the sauce. Reduce the heat to low and place a lid on the saucepan, cooking the dumplings until they pass the skewer test, about 15-20 minutes. Serve two dumplings each to four people, accompanied by a scoop of icecream.

Potato chip Florentines

June 21, 2025

   

After the great success of my tomato potluck desserts, I enjoyed musing over the possibility of potato potluck desserts for several weeks. This idea came late and fast: substitute plain potato chips in for the usual flaked almonds in my favourite Florentine recipe. So simple to do, and still so tasty! The potato chips toasted to perfection under the syrupy binding mixture, and the dash of salt was welcome. If anything I would have liked more potato flavour here. There's definitely room to play around with different potato chip brands and thicknesses, as well as the quantity added to the recipe. What a fun, tasty process of refinement that would be.

Potato chip Florentines

(adapted from this recipe by Meera Sodha)

60g pistachios, finely chopped 

90g thick/ruffled plain salted potato chips, crushed

50g hazelnuts, chopped 

100g dried cranberries (or other sour berries) 

2 tablespoons plain flour (can be gluten-free)

1/2 teaspoon salt 

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon 

75g margarine 

50g brown sugar 

2 1/2 tablespoons golden syrup

200g dark chocolate

Heat an oven to 200°C. Line a large baking tray with paper.

Chop and crush all the ingredients that need it. Stir together all the nuts, chips and dried fruits in a large bowl. Stir through the flour, salt and cinnamon until combined.

Place the margarine, sugar and golden syrup in a saucepan and set it over medium heat. Cook the mixture, stirring, until everything has melted together and become smooth. (You can also heat in the microwave and stir together.) Take it off the heat and pour it over the nut mixture in the bowl. Stir it all together to combine, then pour the mixture out onto the baking tray. Form a large rectangle about 1 cm thick; mine was about 30 cm x 22 cm.

Bake the Florentine slab for 10-15 minutes, until golden brown - keep a close eye on it to avoid burning! Allow it to cool completely.

Melt the chocolate using your favourite method and pour it over the flattest side of the Florentine rectangle. Allow the chocolate to set completely at room temperature. Slice the Florentine slab into rectangles or diamonds to serve.  

Miso caramel apple pies

June 1, 2025

   

For Michael's birthday this year, his mum gave him a copy of The Australian Women's Weekly The Pie Maker Volume 2, a recipe book full of cute, single-serve pastries. I offered to make his pick of the recipes as a little home celebration on the weekend following his birthday. Apple pie has long been a favourite of Michael's so I wasn't surprised that he chose the miso caramel-garnished version in this book.

This was a fun little combination, very different to my go-to apple pie recipe. It started with frozen shortcrust pastry but I preferred to use puff, simply quartering the sheet and easing each square into a pie dish without trimming it. I'd never before noticed canned pie apple at the supermarket but we tracked it down and it was an easy filling, spiced up with ginger, cinnamon and miso. On top there's an elegant fan of apple slices; the recipe reckons that each pie can support half an apple but I thought a quarter was a better fit. The recipe's designed for a dedicated pie maker, but these ones were just as effectively baked in the oven.

Finally, there's miso-spiked top'n'fill caramel to drizzle over the top (and if you're sensible, a scoop of icecream on the side). It's a delicious little package, fit for a birthday.

   

As a post-script, here's Henry, the newest member of our household. He's as fond of human food as he is his own, and he stared longingly at these pies throughout their assembly.

Miso caramel apple pies

(slightly adapted from a recipe in
The Australian Women's Weekly The Pie Maker Volume 2)

1 sheet frozen puff pastry, thawed

1 tablespoon white miso

1/4 cup caster sugar

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon ground ginger

385g can pie apple slices

1 red apple

miso caramel

1/2 cup canned caramel top'n'fill

2 tablespoons white miso

Preheat an oven to 180°C. Line four single-serve pie dishes with paper; I just used squares of paper and didn't worry too much about gaps. Cut the pastry into four squares of equal area and gently fit them into the pie dishes. Add some paper/pie weights and pre-bake the pastry for up to 10 minutes, until the pastry corners are just going golden.

Mix together the miso, 2 tablespoons of the sugar, 1/4 teaspoon of the cinnamon, and the ginger in a medium bowl. Fold in the canned apple. When the pastry is ready, remove any pie weights and divide this mixture evenly into the four pie dishes.

Remove the core from the apple and slice it into thin wedges. Arrange the slices decoratively across the pies. Sprinkle over the remaining cinnamon and sugar. Bake until the pastry is golden brown but not burnt, about 10-15 minutes.

While the pies are baking, transfer the top'n'fill to a microwave-safe bowl and heat for about 40 seconds. Whisk in the miso until smooth.

Serve the pies warm, generously drizzled with the miso caramel, with a scoop of icecream on the side.

Vegan chocolate cupcakes with peanut butter buttercream

April 5, 2025

   

After a couple of underwhelming bakes with my decades-old metal cupcake tray, I put "silicon cupcake tray" on my op-shopping wishlist. I easily tracked one down for a couple of dollars within weeks and then, of course, I had to test it out. I browsed my old recipe bookmarks and picked out a Burned Butter post for chocolate-peanut butter cupcakes.

The tray had only six cups, so I halved the recipe... and still ended up with 10 cupcakes. (If I'd read the source recipe properly, I'd have known that the original was supposed to make 24. I've written out my 10-cupcake version below.) The cake itself is a lovely, simple pantry-friendly vegan chocolate. The only potential pitfall is getting the batter mixed properly - I sifted the dry ingredients directly into the wet ones and ended up with a few powdery lumps in the cakes. I pulled the cakes out at the 20 minute mark to keep them moist, but found that their bottoms dragged on every surface they touched, leaving cakey smears on the baking tray, the cooling rack and the lunchbox I stored them in. The latter four had more time to rest in the tray and fared better.

My veganised buttercream went off without a hitch, and I slathered on a modest amount with a knife - I have a minimal-frills attitude to cupcakes, and these were bang on my preference. The silicon pan showed much promise, and I scavenged a second six-cupper from another op-shop a month or so later.

Vegan chocolate cupcakes with peanut butter buttercream

(recipe adapted from Burned Butter,

where it's credited to Joy the Baker and Ina Garten) 

chocolate cake

1 1/8 cups plain flour

1 cup caster sugar

1/2 cup cocoa powder

1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/3 cup neutral vegetable oil

2 teaspoons vanilla

1 teaspoon white vinegar

1 cup water

peanut butter buttercream

1/2 cup smooth peanut butter

1/3 cup margarine

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

1/2 cup icing sugar

Preheat an oven to 180°C. Prepare a cupcake tray as you wish, with papers and/or oil.

In a medium bowl, sift together and flour, sugar, cocoa, bicarb soda and salt, then stir to combine.

In a small bowl, whisk together oil, vanilla, vinegar and water. Gradually pour the wet mixture into the dry mixture, stirring thoroughly to combine; the batter will be quite liquid. Gently pour the batter into the cupcake tray until two-thirds full. Bake for 20-25 minutes, until the cakes pass the skewer test. Allow them to cool before icing.

Beat together the peanut butter, margarine and vanilla. Sift over the icing sugar and beat until well combined and fluffy. Spread the buttercream over the cooled cupcakes.

Florentine slice

January 4-5, 2025 

   

Michael did some baking for work that left us with half a box of cornflakes. Once some spare time opened up on our summer break I was ready to do some baking of my own, and recalled that my mum had one or two cornflake-based recipes from the Beautiful Biscuits cookbook on regular rotation. When I opened up my op-shopped copy I learned that, in fact, cornflakes are one of the feature ingredients that the book is indexed by and there were six options to browse. I chose the Florentine slice - having had great success with a modernised, vegan version in the past couple of years I was ready to briefly revert to an older style.

As I often do, I made substitutions to suit what was already in my pantry - dried currants instead of sultanas, and salted roasted peanuts when unsalted were specified. I scaled the recipe to neatly use up the cornflakes on hand but have written up the original quantities below. I think I spread my reduced quantity over approximately the same-sized baking tray and as a consequence my slice was rather thin - the original intention is probably a slice 1.5-2 cm thick while mine was half that.  

Then there's the chocolate - even allowing for my quantity adjustment, I think there should be more of it and I've noted that below. The recipe has this slice constructed upside-down, with the melted chocolate being spread thinly across the papered tray and then the cornflake mixture pressed on top of it and baked! I suppose it might yield a smooth chocolate side, but the spreading seemed fraught and I was very unsure about baking the chocolate. I had good results baking the slice right-way-up, chocolate spread after baking, and that's the method I describe below.

Baking Florentines to just the right texture can be a challenge but this recipe worked well, with condensed milk acting as an easy binder and the cornflakes caramelising gorgeously under its glaze. I didn't much like glace cherries as a kid but I've unexpectedly developed a nostalgic fondness for them and I'm glad I used them here.

   

Florentine slice

(slightly adapted from a recipe in
The Australian Women's Weekly The Big Book of Beautiful Biscuits)

3/4 cup sultanas or currants

2 cups (160g) crushed cornflakes

1/2 cup roasted peanuts

1/4 cup chopped glace cherries

2/3 cup sweetened condensed milk

185g dark chocolate, melted (consider increasing this)

Line a 19cm x 29cm walled baking tray with baking paper. Preheat an oven to 180°C.

In a medium bowl, mix together all the ingredients except for the chocolate. Press the mixture into the baking tray, using the back of a spoon to even it out and smooth it over as best you can. Bake for about 15 minutes, until the cornflakes have started to brown and smell great.

Melt the chocolate using your preferred method, then spread it evenly over the top of the slice. Allow the slice to cool and the chocolate to set before slicing and serving. 

Chocolate tahini caramels

December 31, 2024

   

We saw in the new year with friends close by. The hosts were vegetarian and excellent cooks so we knew we'd be well fed and, as I often do, I thought I could best contribute by bringing something sweet. The guest list included dairy-free and gluten-free eaters and my mind swiftly turned to a chocolate tahini caramel recipe I'd bookmarked just a few weeks earlier.

The active preparation time looked pretty quick and I was so relaxed about it all that I took an afternoon nap and just barely allowed enough time for these sweets to set! The tahini caramel looks soft and smooth when poured into the loaf pan but it needs freezing to solidify and once that's achieved, it doesn't necessarily slice into neat little squares. I didn't mind odd little caramel shapes and trusted that my friends wouldn't, either. It's worth keeping the caramels in the freezer right until the last moment before coating them in chocolate, because they will melt - quick work is needed and then it's back into the freezer for a final set.

This is the one drawback of this treat - it's not stable at room temperature. These bites need to be carefully stored, ideally not touching each other, in the fridge or freezer until it's time to serve them. If you can manage that, there's much enjoyment to be had: a fudgy centre with a sweet, nutty flavour; a thin, silky layer of chocolate; and a bonus burst of texture from the sesame seeds on top. 

   

Chocolate tahini caramels

(slightly adapted from a recipe on Minimalist Baker)

2 tablespoons margarine

1/3 cup sweet syrup (e.g. maple, golden; I used brown sugar syrup)

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/2 teaspoon salt

2/3 cup tahini

1 cup dark chocolate chips

sesame seeds, for garnishing

Line a loaf pan with baking paper. Place the margarine, syrup, vanilla and salt in a small saucepan and set it over medium heat. Whisk the mixture as you bring it to the boil. Turn off the heat and whisk in the tahini. Pour the mixture into the loaf pan and freeze for 1-2 hours, until solid.

When the caramel is solid, line a tray that will fit into your freezer with baking paper. Melt the chocolate using your preferred method. Retrieve the caramel from the freezer and slice it into bite-sized squares (as you can see from the photos above, my bite-sized chunks weren't always square). Use a teaspoon and a fork to swiftly drop one caramel at a time into the melted chocolate, coat it on all sides, and transfer it to the tray. Repeat with all the caramel bites. Sprinkle sesame seeds over the caramels and lightly press them into the top of the chocolate. Pop the chocolates back into the freezer for 30-45 minutes.

After serving, store any uneaten caramels in the fridge or freezer.

Marama

December 13, 2024

   

After a thoroughly enjoyed dinner at Henry Sugar, we cycled a little way north on Rathdowne St to another wine bar, Marama, for dessert. We once had a great (though unblogged) dinner of shared plates at Marama with a friend in 2023, so we entered optimistically. While Henry Sugar was sedate and welcoming, Marama had attracted a rowdy Friday evening crowd and we almost preferred to be offered a window bench on the farthest edge of it.

There were two desserts on the menu, so we were exempt from decision-making. The first was sticky date pudding ($19), with miso butterscotch and custard. While the miso didn't make a strong impression the classic elements were present and correct: a dense square of caramelly cake and a rich, silky sauce.

   

Second was something a little more creative and summery, centred on grapefruit ($20). A segment of lightly burnt grapefruit sat atop a scoop of white chocolate mousse, itself nestled within chunky-yet-tender black sesame crumbs, all with a side of grapefruit granita. These contrasts of texture, colour, temperature and flavour excite me most: the earthy, creamy, and icy; the sweet, rich and brightly tangy.

Marama did well to serve both the dessert traditionalists and the novelty-seekers with their two options! And they did their best to serve both the revellers and the more reserved patrons. Hopefully we'll find the right moment to return in 2025 and document more of their menu.

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Marama

793 Rathdowne St, Carlton North

9077 3303

dessert menu

https://www.maramawine.com.au/

Accessibility: There is a small step at the narrow door and a flat interior. Furniture is densely arranged with a clear pathway through the middle, a mixture of regular height tables with backed chairs and cushioned benches, and high tables with backed stools. We ordered at our table and paid at a high bar. We didn't visit the toilets.

Spiced chocolate cake

September 3-4, 2024

   

I prefer collaboration over competition every time. There's a baking event within my work environment each year, and my local team choose to work on a project together rather than individually submitting entries. It's symptomatic of why I like working here so much! This year fourteen of us prepared cake with various shades of icing and sliced them into squares to form a pixelated image. I was lucky to be assigned 'almost black' - easily achieved with a dark chocolate ganache and a touch of black food colouring.

I volunteered to make something vegan, and turned to the classic Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World to try a new cake. I was tempted by the peanut butter cake and the chai-spiced cake but ultimately went for the Mexican Hot Chocolate cake, which looked like a crowd-pleaser. It aims for a slightly grainy texture and complex flavour with coconut milk, flax seeds, almond meal, cinnamon, cayenne, vanilla and almond essence all in the mix. The recipe is designed to make a dozen cupcakes sprinkled with sugar, cinnamon and cocoa but a square cake with a ganache topping better suited my purpose.

This cake achieves that excellent complexity but - I chuckled to myself as I ate a small leftover piece last night - more than anything it evokes the softness of a Coles chocolate mud cake. It's the flavour of cinnamon and cayenne that set this cake apart.

   

Spiced chocolate cake

(slightly adapted from a recipe in Isa Chandra Moskowitz & Terry Hope Romero's

Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World)

cake batter

1 cup coconut milk

1 tablespoon ground flax seeds

3/4 cup plain flour

2 tablespoons cornflour

1/4 cup almond meal

1/2 cup cocoa 

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

3/4 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

generous pinch of cayenne pepper

1 cup caster sugar

1/3 cup vegetable oil

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 teaspoon almond essence

chocolate ganache

4 tablespoons coconut milk

75g dark chocolate chips

3 tablespoons golden or maple syrup

Preheat an oven to 180°C. Line a 22cm square cake tin with paper, or line a muffin tray with cupcake papers.

In a large bowl, whisk together the coconut milk and flax seeds. Allow them to sit for 10 minutes so that the seeds thicken the milk.

In a medium bowl, sift together the flour, cornflour, almond meal, cocoa, baking powder, bicarb soda, salt, cinnamon and cayenne.

When the coconut milk-seed mixture is ready, whisk in the sugar, oil, vanilla and almond essence. Gradually add the flour mixture and mix well. Pour the cake batter into the baking tin(s) and bake for 20-25 minutes, until the cake passes the skewer test. Allow the cake to cool before applying the ganache.

When the cake has cooled, make the ganache. Place the coconut milk in a small saucepan and heat until almost boiling. Turn off the heat and add the chocolate, stirring until the chocolate is entirely melted. Whisk in the syrup. The ganache might look quite runny; if that's the case you can let it sit a while to thicken slightly. Gently pour the ganache over the cake(s) and allow it to set a while (although it will still be soft) before serving.

Fluffy Torpedo II

July 24, 2024

   

Last week I was lucky to have dinner with two friends visiting from Perth. We shared just the right number of dishes at Rin Sura (including long-time favourite chive frittata and new favourite spiced burrata with roti) and backed it up with a trip across the street to Fluffy Torpedo for icecream.

After liking the mildly unusual flavours I chose on my first visit, I was ready to level up with my next two scoops ($9.10). Roasted polenta and lemon had all the right flavours but perhaps a suboptimal texture; I sensed the sandiness of pantry polenta rather than the velvety mouthfeel it develops when cooked. Unfortunately my palate had lost much of its sensitivity by the time I accessed the buttered baguette-flavoured scoop underneath. I got a couple little hints of that toasty crust flavour and none of the butter; I was otherwise just working my way through a pleasant but plain icecream base.

So, not the most inspiring follow-up! I'll be seeking out some stronger source ingredients on my next round.

____________

You can read about our first visit to Fluffy Torpedo here.

____________

Fluffy Torpedo 

213 Sydney Rd, Brunswick 

7044 7745 

menu 

https://www.fluffytorpedo.diamonds/ 

Accessibility: Fluffy Torpedo has a flat entry and wide queuing strip. There are backless bench seats inside and backed metal chairs outside. We ordered, paid and picked up our orders at a low counter. We didn't visit the toilets.

Fluffy Torpedo

March 30, 2024

   

We've been curious about but never made it to Fitzroy's Fluffy Torpedo, an icecream shop with sour strap lollies embedded in the flooring and an array of unusual flavours including Vegemite & white chocolate and Mountain Dew & Oreo. This year we've eagerly awaited the opening of a second Fluffy Torpedo closer to home in Brunswick.... so eager that when they posted their intention to open, I was there within the first hour!

The wild array of flavours did not disappoint (click through the menu at the bottom of the post) and vegan options are listed clearly up top. We had to have two scoops each to really give them a go ($9.10 each; 1 scoop is $7.20). Michael ordered a cone with the vegan coconut cream lime marmalade, and the dairy-based salted licorice, while I stacked a cup with the vegan sour green apple juice iceberg lettuce sorbet and the dairy-based salted lemon curd salted crispy crackers. 

   

Every scoop was as fun as it was creative. I could clearly taste the lettuce in my first mouthful of the sorbet, though my taste buds rapidly desensitised and just enjoyed it as a refreshing, fruity sorbet. The lemon curd-cracker combination had the creaminess, tang and contrasting textures that I love in a cheesecake. It's got me excited to try some of the more daring flavours on a future visit, like the buttered baguette. Others, like the marshmallow grape Aeroplane jelly pink salt and the musk sticks Eclipse mints, are probably never going to be my bag.

On that note, the interior design of Fluffy Torpedo is a little baffling to me. There's plenty of space but I don't think they've best used it yet in terms of queuing guidance or comfortable seating. I found the bright colours and variety of curios arranged around the shop to be haphazard and even a bit overwhelming. Time will tell whether they're a draw for others or if they're adjusted to ease the flow of customers. As it is, the fascinating flavours of Fluffy Torpedo are plenty to enthuse me for a revisit.

   

____________

The Fitzroy outlet has received a positive reviews on ElsewhereBriefly and mamma knows north.

____________

Fluffy Torpedo

213 Sydney Rd, Brunswick

7044 7745

menu

https://www.fluffytorpedo.diamonds/

Accessibility: Fluffy Torpedo has a flat entry and wide queuing strip. There are backless bench seats inside and backed metal chairs outside. We ordered, paid and picked up our orders at a low counter. We didn't visit the toilets.

Mietta

December 10, 2023

   

I've been following Rosemary Andrews on instagram for a year or two - she's a pastry chef with fine dining experience who made up mixed dessert boxes for online order and pickup in Collingwood. Michael was secretly planning to order a box for my birthday but Andrews abruptly discontinued the offer a couple of weeks earlier! All was not lost - she was working in the background to open a shopfront in Malvern. We made the uncharacteristic move of driving across town to queue up for the second day of opening and secured some special, celebratory cakes from Mietta.

   

Mietta is a small but luxurious-looking space, all white trimmed with gold, and seems designed exclusively for takeaway. When our turn came we rapidly picked four slices, then shared them at our leisure over two days at home.

One of the most eye-catching cakes is probably the raspberry cotton sponge ($16, pictured top) - it's light and creamy and absolutely stacked with tangy fresh raspberry halves. The less showy cheesecake ($11, pictured above) packs just as much flavour - roasted corn, white chocolate and muscovado come together to form a complex, deep caramel.

   

The lemon tart ($11) was perfectly proportioned to me, with a bold filling, nutty crust and restrained and well-torched meringue flourish.

   

A negroni chocolate tart ($10) came with a finicky little tub of sauce that was ultimately its best feature - the espresso-spiked chocolate added brightness and flair to a somewhat dense dessert.

In our opening-weekend rush, I didn't notice any evidence that Mietta can accommodate dietary restrictions. But as someone without them, I couldn't find a flaw in these desserts - every slice was special and balanced and meticulously presented, an ideal birthday treat. 

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Mietta by Rosemary

23 Glenferrie Rd, Malvern

https://www.miettabyrosemary.com.au/

Accessibility: There is a small lip on the door. The interior is small with a flat floor, no seating, and a low display counter for ordering and paying.

Oaty ginger crunch

November 10-11, 2023

   

One of Michael's running friends, Bayly, sent him home with a couple pieces of slice wrapped in foil and he kindly split them with me back at home. I'd never tasted anything quite like it! The base was dense and oaty, a bit like an ANZAC biscuit, while the twice-as-tall topping was sweet, fudgy and ginger flavoured. I think there were a few chopped pistachios sprinkled over it. This slice was ultra-buttery in the best possible way.

Bayly had explained to Michael that the slice is called Ginger Crunch, and it's well known across New Zealand. She gladly shared the version from Cloudy Kitchen she uses, and urged us to double the topping quantity. I obeyed when I gave it a go a few weeks later, timed specifically with a visit from my mum and her sister Carol.

The poor part of my timing was that I chose to make it late into an unusually hot night in Melbourne - I tried my best to stay patient but felt pretty flustered by the end. The topping is intended to be made in the last 5-10 minutes of the base baking but I took too long and the base over-browned (but didn't burn!) around the edges. Those edge pieces were pretty hard to bite into.

With all that extra topping, the quantity of slice was very large and I had to upsize on my baking dish. I should have upsized my baking paper (and possibly even double-lined the tray), because it was very difficult to detach from the pan. I stored the slice in the fridge but it was much easier to cut, and at its most perfect fudgy-buttery texture to eat, after a couple of hours at room temperature.

I sprinkled crystallised ginger over only half of the slice, because I wasn't sure how intensely gingery it would be. This was a good decision because Carol doesn't like 'bits', but I liked the textural contrast. A browse of Ginger Crunch online suggests that the rolled oats in the base aren't traditional either, but they're another welcome textural element for me.

With lots of butter and a dose of gluten, this recipe won't be for everyone, but I'll definitely make it again when there's occasion for it.

Oaty ginger crunch

(slightly adapted from a recipe at Cloudy Kitchen)

base

300g plain flour

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

2 1/2 teaspoons ground ginger

300g brown sugar

135g rolled oats

225g butter

90g golden syrup

1 teaspoon vanilla

topping

270g butter

250g golden syrup

4 tablespoons ground ginger

650g icing sugar

2 teaspoons vanilla

crystallised ginger, chopped

Preheat an oven to 180°C. Line a 20cm x 30cm high-walled baking tray with baking paper, making sure there's plenty of overhang.

In a large bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, salt and ginger. Stir in the brown sugar and rolled oats until well combined. In a medium saucepan over medium heat, melt together the butter and golden syrup. Take it off the heat, stir in the vanilla, and then pour it all into the bowl of flour. Mix until well combined. Tip the mixture into the baking tray and spread it out until it's even. Bake for 25-30 minutes, until golden around the edges (I pushed mine a bit too far).

When there's 5-10 minutes to go on the base baking, start preparing the topping. Take the medium saucepan (no need to clean it) and set it back over medium heat. Melt together the butter and golden syrup. Whisk in the ginger. Sift in the icing sugar in batches and whisk it thoroughly to get rid of any lumps. Turn off the heat and stir in the vanilla. When the base is ready, pour over the topping and smooth it out. Sprinkle over the crystallised ginger and leave the slice at room temperature to set. 

You can store the slice in the fridge, but take it out for a couple of hours to soften before serving. It's challenging to cut when fridge cold!

More miso caramel cake

May 25-27, 2023

   

Readers who know Michael personally or follow his other social media accounts will know how much he loves playing mixed social netball. This year he decided to celebrate his birthday by gathering his netball-playing friends for a game on a local court. I tallied scores during the game and baked a couple of cakes for afterwards. They're both miso caramel cake: one is the regular recipe decorated with licorice to resemble a netball, and the second is an adaptation that's both vegan and gluten-free. 

I stretched the preparation out over three days, so it didn't feel like an excessive amount of effort in any session. Here's how it played out:

Thursday: make a vegan, gluten-free version of the miso caramel sauce using Loco Dairy Free Thickened Creamy instead of dairy cream and Nuttelex Buttery instead of butter. I carefully checked that my usual white miso was vegan and gluten-free, too. The original recipe makes double what's needed, so I didn't alter the quantity.

Friday: bake two cakes! The first precisely as described in the original recipe, and the second using more Nuttelex Buttery as butter, Orgran No Egg instead of eggs, and a gluten-free flour mix I'll describe below.

Saturday: slather those cakes in buttercream. The first, again, as described in the original recipe, and the second using Nuttelex Buttery for butter. After refrigerating the cakes for an hour, I pulled out the regular one and decorated it with sliced strips of vegan but not gluten-free Fyna licorice.

   

To be more precise, I actually made the vegan, gluten-free bit first each day so that the kitchen and utensils were clean and least likely to get contaminated. The gluten-free flour mix, which I've included below, comes from our friend Mickey. She knows her vegan gluten-free baking and we'd sampled her own excellent birthday cake a few months earlier, so I was keen to try it for myself instead of just relying on my usual Orgran mix. I like that there's almond meal involved to head off the potential chalkiness, but not so much that the mixture seems grainy.

You can see the two cake slices side by side, above. I baked them both for 50 minutes, based on my notes from last time, and this was just right for the gluten-free cake but perhaps a touch too long for the regular cake. The gluten-free cake didn't rise as high as the regular one, and the buttercream was proportionally much thicker. I found the Nuttelex a bit greasy and overwhelming in this quantity, so I might reduce the buttercream by a quarter if I baked this again. I didn't beat the cold regular butter enough, and little light yellow flecks of it were visible in the buttercream - that's a mistake I typically make once every few years, the reminder I need not to take shortcuts.

The regular cake was snaffled up within 10 minutes of cutting, and the second cake found some extra appreciative gluten-free and vegan eaters amongst Michael's non-netballing friends at the pub later. They were a small success within a big celebration.

   

Gluten-free cake flour mix

(a recipe shared by Mickey)

310g brown rice flour

300g white rice flour

105g almond meal

175g potato starch

8g xanthan gum

Quince & browned butter tart

July 26-30, 2022

   

Our friend Danni gave us a single large quince. I knew I could simply poach it and eat it for breakfast, or make a cake or salad we'd made before, but I had the energy to try something new. If I don't use my Stephanie Alexander book for this, I thought, it's probably time to acknowledge that I'll never use the Stephanie Alexander book and get rid of it.

Sure enough, Stephanie Alexander had plenty of ideas for quince and at least two of them were credited to Maggie Beer. The book has a nested approach such that I settled on the quince and browned butter tart, then had to refer back to recipes for shortcrust pastry, poached quinces, and sugar syrup to sort out my full ingredient list. As I incorporated each new recipe into the fold, I adapted a bit further, borrowing from my previous experience poaching quinces, substituting apple cider vinegar for the usual lemon juice, and making my pastry by food processor instead of by hand. The original recipe earns credit for having me brown the butter - without anything added, it already smelled deliciously of caramel.

I've made dozens of shortcrust pastries and this one wasn't my best - it was undercooked on the base and shrank away from the edge of the dish, even though I tried to crimp it on, such that it was extra-thick where the base sloped up to the side. The crust was still flaky and toasty at its edges, deep enough to accommodate the filling, and sturdy enough to hold its shape - Michael even said he preferred this texture before I'd mentioned a word about my errors.

As a whole, the pie still worked. The quince was tender and floral-scented, surrounded by a small quantity of just-set custard, and the crust provided buttery but unsweetened support. There remained just enough poached quince for one breakfast, and we shared the poaching syrup as a drink with soda water.

   

Quince & browned butter tart

(adapted from Stephanie Alexander's The Cook's Companion,

borrowing a little from Cook (almost) Anything)

poached quinces

~500mL water

65g caster sugar

2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar (or juice of half a lemon)

1 large (450g) quince

1 cinnamon stick

shortcrust pastry

240g plain flour

pinch of salt

180g butter

1/4 cup water

filling

125g butter

2 eggs

1/2 cup sugar

1 heaped tablespoon plain flour

In a saucepan, stir together the water, sugar and vinegar. Work as quickly as you can to minimise browning: peel the quince, remove its core, chop its flesh into pieces, and drop the pieces into the saucepan. Top up the water if the quince pieces aren't fully submerged and add the cinnamon stick. Set the saucepan over medium-high heat and bring it all to the boil, then reduce the heat and simmer the quinces until they're tender. Allow them to cool to room temperature. 

For the pastry, place the flour and salt in a food processor. Dice the butter and drop it into the processor too. Blend the mixture until it resembles coarse sand. With the motor running, add the water a tablespoon at a time, until the mixture starts binding together. Turn the dough out onto plastic wrap and bring it together into a ball. Wrap up the pastry and refrigerate it for at least 30 minutes.

Preheat an oven to 200°C. Roll out the pastry and ease it into a pie dish, trimming the edges. Line the pastry with paper, add pie weights, and blind bake the pastry for 20 minutes. (I would perhaps try 15 minutes with paper and weights, plus 10 minutes without paper and weights next time.) Remove the crust from the oven and reduce the oven heat to 180°C; allow the pastry base to cool.

Melt the butter for the filling and cook it until it turns a deep gold; turn off the heat and set aside. Drain the quinces from their syrup and reserve the syrup for another use (we drank ours with soda water). Arrange the quince pieces across the pastry base. Beat together the eggs and sugar, then stir in the flour and the butter. Gently pour the mixture over the quinces. Bake the tart until set, 30-40 minutes. Serve warm or cold.

Bienenstich

July 17, 2022

   

Last weekend I put time into winter comfort cooking, baking an inessential bienenstich before moving on to a tray of pastitsio. There's a vegan bienenstich recipe on the blog already, but this time I revisited the full butter, milk and egg-laden version that I hand-copied into my recipe binder as a teenager. I couldn't remember the original source, but my mum showed me her identical handwritten copy by text message and confirmed that we're both using her mum's version.

I'm surprised that the recipe doesn't include yeast as the rising agent, both because it's common in bienenstich and because my grandmother used it well in other German-style cakes. Baking powder makes it all the quicker to mix up. It's a cake so simple that it doesn't even include vanilla, sandwiched with a thick custard cream, and topped with almonds set into toffee. It's that toasty topping that really makes the flavour memorable, and makes the cake messy to slice too! 

My method below is an expansion on the minimalist instruction in the version I inherited, which doesn't mention a cake tin or what happens to the filling after it's beaten. I can't blame the instructions for my one error - I didn't buy copha, thinking that I'd use a little coconut oil instead, and then forgot to put that in too. My filling did just fine without.

This is a cake that I'll remake only rarely (I estimate that it's more than 15 years since I last baked it!) but I'm glad to still have access to it, to my memory of it, and to be getting it onto the blog at long last.

Bienenstich 

(slightly adapted from my grandmother's recipe)

cake

2 eggs

1 cup sugar

60g butter, melted

1 cup flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 cup milk

topping

60g butter

1/4 cup sugar

1 teaspoon flour

1 tablespoon milk

1/4 cup flaked almonds (I will double this next time)

filling

1/4 cup sugar

1 tablespoon custard powder

1 cup milk

1/4 cup copha (or coconut oil, or skip altogether)

160g butter

Preheat an oven to 180°C. Line a round springform cake tin with baking paper and lightly spray it with oil.

Beat the eggs well in a medium-large bowl. Thoroughly beat in the sugar, then the melted butter. Sift in the flour and baking powder, and fold until combined. Stir in the milk. Pour the batter into the cake tin and bake for 30 minutes.

When the cake's been in the oven for 10-15 minutes, set a small saucepan over medium heat to prepare the topping. Place the butter, sugar, flour and milk in the saucepan and stir to combine; add the almonds. Bring the mixture to the boil and cook for 10-15 minutes; I found that the mixture thickened and pulled away from the edges of the saucepan in a big blob. When the cake has finished its 30 minute bake, retrieve it from the oven and pour this topping evenly over it. Turn the oven up to 200°C and bake the cake until the topping is golden and crisp (I gave mine about 10 minutes). Allow the cake to cool.

For the filling, place the sugar and custard powder in a small-medium saucepan over medium heat. Gradually whisk in the milk and cook, stirring regularly, until the mixture has thickened to a custard. Turn off the heat, stir in the copha if using, and allow the custard to cool. Beat the butter in a small bowl and gradually add in the custard until everything is well mixed.

Carefully slice the cake horizontally into two layers and place the base layer on a serving plate. Spread over the custard cream filling and then gently place the almond-toffee cake layer on top. Slice and serve.

Pandy Bakeshop

17/06/2023: Pandy is now closed.

February 26, 2022

   

Michael was travelling through Northcote on Sunday morning and he stopped in at Pandy Bakeshop to see what treats they had on offer. Pandy is an all-vegan, gluten-free-friendly bakery that's been operating within Baketico for just under a year and this was our first taste of it. There are typically five different individually-portioned kinds of sweet plus a few cakes sold by the slice.

Incredibly, Michael delivered three treats home by bike with no more damage than a single jam smear. This came from what appears to be a signature Pandy dish, the gluten-free fairy bread lamington. This pink cube was neat, light and very sweet - the equal of any gluteny, eggy analogue. The raspberry blondie had the texture of a dense, moist cake and its streak of raspberry jam reminded me happily of the jam tarts and buns I ate in suburban and country bakeries as a kid. The Biscoff and white chocolate cookie was huge, soft and dense like the blondie, with a subtle gingerbread vibe.

I was deeply impressed by the execution of all these goods and I'll be making any excuse to stop by again and try more from Pandy.

   

____________

Pandy has also be blogged by Cruella DeVegan.

____________

Pandy Bakeshop

62 High St, Northcote

0478 226 463

https://www.pandybakeshop.com/

Coconut jam slice

February 12, 2022

   

After limiting my socialising a lot in January, I've been enjoying some face-to-face contact with friends in parks and homes this month. We had Ben and Natalie over for brunch, where Michael made a big pan of chipotle sausage hash, Natalie contributed a jug of fancy iced tea, and I had a tray of this coconut jam slice lined up in advance. (Ben also more than pulled his weight, measuring up a broken kitchen cupboard and planning a future repair!)

I think of coconut jam slice as an Aussie classic, although I don't hold a family recipe for it. I picture thick, golden-brown squares of biscuit with a seam of berry jam, and a pillowy top layer of desiccated coconut bound together in a meringue-like batter. This Smith & Deli version has clear similarities and differences. The biscuit base includes cocoa (going for a lamington vibe, perhaps?), and the topping is primarily thicker shredded coconut, lightly bound with an egg replacer and only toasting around the edges during baking.

This slice was popular with the group - the base holds up without any bending or crumbling, and I like the bold chewiness of the shredded coconut. But overall, this slice was just sweet, sweet, sweet to me, overpowering any potential contrasts from tangy fruit and creamy coconut. I would play around with different jam, less jam, and less added sugar in future bakes. The core recipe is simple to pull together, so it wouldn't be a chore to experiment and work towards a new family favourite.

Coconut jam slice

(from Smith & Deli-icious by Shannon Martinez & Mo Wyse) 

base

1 cup plain flour

1 tablespoon cocoa powder

3/4 cup desiccated coconut

1/2 cup margarine, melted

1 teaspoon vanilla

toppings

heaped tablespoon egg replacement powder

1/2 cup water

1/3 cup caster sugar

2 cups shredded coconut

pinch of salt

1 cup raspberry jam

Preheat an oven to 180°C. Line a small slice tray (mine was 27 cm x 18 cm) with baking paper.

In a medium bowl, stir together the flour, cocoa and coconut. Pour in the melted margarine, give it a little stir, add the vanilla, and stir until completely combined. Tip the mixture into the slice tray and use the back of a spoon or clean fingers to spread and press the mixture out into an even base. Bake for 15-20 minutes, then allow it to cool for at least 10 minutes.

While the base is cooling, use a clean medium bowl to whisk together the egg powder and water until frothy. Whisk in the sugar. Stir in the coconut and salt until well combined.

When the base has cooled slightly, spread the jam evenly across it. Spoon over the coconut mixture - it doesn't have to be tightly packed and even, but try not to have jam peeking through. Bake for 20-30 minutes, until the coconut is golden brown at the edges but not burned. Allow it all to cool completely before slicing and serving. 

Cornflake icecream bars

January 24, 2022

   

Here's a Meera Sodha dessert that I made, purely for the fun of it! It's a vegan icecream bar that celebrates breakfast cereal. There's the sugary, crunchy cornflake layers on top and bottom, most obviously, and the creamy filling is also infused with cornflakes. Between them there's a strip of tangy raspberries that save it all from cloying sweetness.

The recipe requires a blender but not an icecream maker. I really liked this combination of oat milk and cashews to form the icecream base. I could taste the cornflake infusion in the unfrozen mixture, but I think it's drowned out by the actual cornflakes in the finished dish and I'd be inclined to skip that process in future - it'll save time, mess and waste.

The coconut oil was surprisingly pleasant as a cornflake binder, but I think it's just inevitable that slicing and handling these icecream bars will be messy regardless. I wonder if it would just be easier to break this down into bowls of icecream scattered with Frosties and raspberries. I'm not sure that it would feel as fun, somehow.

This would also be a fun template for other cereal flavours - I'm imagining Coco Pops and strawberries, or (a vegan equivalent to) Froot Loops and blueberries!

Cornflake icecream bars

(slightly adapted from a recipe by Meera Sodha from The Guardian)

cornflake layers

175g cornflakes, crushed into crumbs

80g caster sugar

100g coconut oil, melted

250g raspberries (I used frozen), cut in half (I don't think this matters)

icecream

75g cornflakes

550mL oat milk

150g unsalted cashews

60g caster sugar

2 tablespoons maple or golden syrup

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 tablespoon vegetable oil

pinch of salt

Line a 20cm square cake tin with plastic wrap, leaving as much overhang as you can on the sides.

Make the cornflake layer by stirring together the cornflake crumbs and sugar in a large bowl. Pour in the coconut oil and thoroughly combine. Pour half of the cornflake mixture into the cake tin and use the back of large spoon to spread it out evenly and compress it as best you can. Arrange the raspberries across the base - Sodha manages to achieve large even halves in a grid across her tray, but mine were more haphazard. Place the cake tin in the freezer while you prepare the icecream.

For the icecream, stir together the cornflakes and oat milk in a bowl, to infuse the milk with the cereal flavour for around 20 minutes.

Place the cashews in a small saucepan and cover them with water. Bring them to the boil, and simmer the cashews for 20 minutes. Drain the cashews and place them in a blender.

Strain the cornflakes out of the oat milk such that the oat milk lands in the blender, and as much liquid as possible has been squeezed out of the cereal. Discard the soggy cereal. Add the sugar, syrup, vanilla, oil and salt to the blender and completely liquidise the mixture - expect it to take a few minutes. The mixture should be smooth and creamy.

Retrieve the cake tin from the freezer and carefully pour the cashew cream mixture over the raspberries; smooth over the top if it's uneven. Freeze for 2-4 hours, until the icecream is firm. Press the remaining cornflake crumbs into the top of the icecream and freeze for another 2 hours to set completely.

Slice the icecream cake into bars using a large, sharp knife that's been run under cold water. I found it easiest to flip the cake upside down onto a cutting board and cut it from base to top.

Miso caramel cake

December 4, 2021 

   

When Soon-Tzu Speechley tweeted about this cake last month, I googled around for the recipe and kept a tab open. I'd not heard of its creator, Sybil Kapoor, before but she's a well-established chef and food writer in the UK. It took a few weeks before I had the right moment to make her cake, but I'm very glad I did.

The main event here is white miso. It's stirred into a rich caramel sauce, and the sauce is beaten into a buttercream. That buttercream gets slathered all over a plain vanilla butter cake. The entire experience is very buttery!

A few cooking notes: I think the caramel sauce recipe makes almost exactly double the quantity needed for the buttercream, so halve it if you like. I'm actually looking forward to slathering the leftover caramel on icecream later on. Second, I baked all of the cake mixture in one tin because I don't have two matching ones. I gave it lots of extra time and it passed the skewer test when I took it out, but I could see it was still a bit wobbly in the centre and that section collapsed as it cooled (you can see how thick the buttercream is, to compensate, in the photo above). I'll bake the cake longer still next time. Third, I could have put a bit more buttercream between the layers, because there was plenty to cover the top and sides (I'm pretty inexperienced icing cake sides!).

If there is a teeny downside to this cake, it's that you don't get to experience a warm, soft, fresh-from-the-oven piece. Rather, the buttercream sets in the fridge and the cake becomes firm. This texture reminds me a bit of birthday cake, and is its own pleasure.

Miso caramel cake

(a recipe by Sybil Kapoor, available via House & Garden UK)

miso caramel sauce (approx double the quantity needed for the cake)

250 g caster sugar

4 tablespoons cold water

2 tablespoons golden syrup

150 mL double cream

70 g butter, diced

1 teaspoon lemon juice

4 tablespoons white miso 

sponge cake

225 g butter, at room temperature

225 g caster sugar

1/4 teaspoon vanilla

4 eggs

225g plain flour

1 scant tablespoon baking powder

miso caramel icing

1 cup miso caramel sauce

280 g butter, at room temperature

70 g icing sugar

Make the miso caramel first. Place the sugar, water and golden syrup into a medium saucepan and set them over low heat. Swirl the pan occasionally, until the sugar is melted. Increase the heat and and bring the mixture to the boil, continuing to boil until the mixture turns golden brown and ultimately dark brown. Take the saucepan off the heat and whisk in the cream, then the diced butter, and finally the lemon juice. Allow the caramel to mostly cool before beating in the miso paste. Set the caramel aside.

Next, bake the sponge cake. Preheat an oven to 160°C. Line one or two matching round cake tins with baking paper, and lightly spray them with oil. Beat the butter in a large bowl until fluffy, then beat in the sugar. Beat in the vanilla, and then the eggs, one at a time. Sift over the flour and baking powder and mix until well combined. Pour the cake batter into the cake tin(s), smooth over the top, and bake until risen, golden brown, and springing back when lightly pressed. Kapoor recommends 25 minutes for two cakes, and my one cake was still a bit underdone in the centre after 40 minutes (50 might have been better). Allow the cake to cool completely.

Finally, prepare the icing. Beat together the caramel sauce and butter. Sift in the icing sugar and beat the mixture until fluffy and very smooth. If you have one cake, slice it gently through the centre to create two layers; if you have two cakes then you have two layers ready to go. Place one cake layer on a serving plate and spread it with no more than a quarter of the icing. Top it with the second cake layer. Spread the top and sides of the cake with the remaining icing. Make it as smooth or swirly as you like, but aim to properly seal all of the cake away with icing. Refrigerate the cake for at least 1 hour before serving.