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Saved by Cake - Marian Keyes

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Page 1: Saved by Cake
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38CLASSICS

Makes 16

For the base225g plain �our80g caster sugar175g butter, cut into cubes

For the caramel layer400ml sweetened condensedmilk*

200g butter65ml golden syrup(or 4 tablespoons)

For the chocolate topping150g milk chocolate150g dark chocolate(70% cocoa solids)

*If it comes in a canof 397ml, that’s grand.You needn’t fret aboutthe missing 3ml.

Himself ’s Millionaire’s ShortbreadHimself has no interest at all in sweet things. So all this cake stuff has been very boring for

him. Nevertheless, he has been monumentally patient as I drone on beside him, chatting away to

myself about caster sugar versus demerara sugar versus golden syrup. So there we were one day,

me ‘bouncing ideas off him’ (i.e. forcing him to sit and endure while basically I intoned, ‘Cake,

cake, cake, cake, cake, cake, cake, cake,’ over and over again) and somehow the conversation

strayed on to Millionaire’s Shortbread and how hard it would be to make. To my great surprise,

he suddenly became very animated and stopped looking like a man considering setting himself

on fire, sat up straight and said, ‘No, it’s really easy! I used to make it when I was a teenager!’

I can’t tell you! It was like discovering he was secretly Argentinian and had enjoyed a moderately

successful career as a polo player in his twenties. Intrigued, I pressed him further for details

and this is what he gave me.

Butter a 20cm square tin and line the base with baking paper.Make surethe tin is at least 6cm deep. Preheat the oven to 160ºC/325ºF/gas 3.Sieve the �our into a bowl. Add the sugar and butter. If you have amachine, blitz everything together until you have a sandy-lookingmixture, but beware of overmixing – you don’t want this to turninto a dough. If you don’t have a machine, I’m afraid you’ll have torub in the butter by hand. Pile the mix into the prepared tin andprick the surface several times with a fork.Bake for 30 to 40 minutes until it’s no longer pale-looking. Don’t letit overbake and become hard and crusty because you’ll have troubledown the line when you come to cut it. Leave to cool on a wire rack.Now for the caramel layer. Put the condensed milk, butter and goldensyrup into a heavy-bottomed saucepan and heat gently. Then, stirringconstantly, bring the temperature up until you reach bubbling pointand keep it there for 5 to 8 minutes. Don’t make the mistake that Idid in the �rst few minutes of thinking that if the butter was melted,that we were bombs away. Himself came in, took one look at it andsaid, ‘No, it’s way too pale,’ so I had to put the saucepan back on theheat for at least another 10 minutes. Don’t be tempted to turn upthe heat any further! The caramel must be made over a low heat toavoid it catching and burning. Eventually, the mixture will thickenand darken and change, so that when you allow the mixture to fall o�the spoon, it makes light ribbons on the surface of the caramel.Pour the caramel on top of the shortbread base and leave to cool forabout an hour. For the chocolate topping, melt the chocolate (seepage 20) and pour it over the caramelly layer. Leave to set, but notin the fridge, for at least a couple of hours.Remove from the tin and carefully cut into sixteen cubes.

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69cupcakes

Red Velvet Cupcake SwirlsAccording to my research, Red Velvets date from the olden days when cocoa powder was a muchlighter colour than it is now. During the baking process, the acid in the cake mix (sometimesprovided by buttermilk, sometimes, as in this recipe, by vinegar) chemically reacted to createthe distinctive red colour. Nowadays though, with cocoa powder being so dark, the red colour isprovided by food colouring. Nevertheless, the yumminess remains the same.

It seems to be a given that Red Velvets are served with cream cheese frosting, but I�ve gone alittle experimental here and incorporated a cream cheese layer into the mix, so the frosting is�built in�, if you get me. It is �swirled through� and actually baked into each little cake, which notonly looks beautiful, but means you don�t have to do any decorating or icing at the end.

Line a 12-hole cupcake tray with paper cases and preheat the oven to170ºC/325ºF/gas 3.First, make the cream cheese layer by beating the cream cheese withthe egg, sugar and vanilla extract. Keep it standing by.Make the red velvet mix by melting the butter. Put into a bowl withthe sugar and beat well. Next – in this exact order! Something todo with chemical jiggery-pokery that I can’t explain, but must beobserved – add the vanilla extract, the cocoa powder, the salt, thefood colouring and the vinegar, beating between each addition.In a separate bowl, beat your eggs, then add to the butter/cocoamix. Sieve in the �our and fold through.Divide most of the mix among the paper cases, reserving perhaps a�fth. Then, dollop a lump of cream cheese mix into each paper caseon top of the red velvet mix. Then, divide the remaining red velvetmix into the paper cases, on top of the cream cheese mix.Now, swirl. You can use a cocktail stick, but I used a bamboo skewer –something with a bit of length is nice because you can get right downinto the red velvet mix and dredge up its murky depths – and twirland swirl until the red and white mixes are beautifully striped. This isan extremely enjoyable exercise, so enjoyable that I never want to stop,but I must because if I don’t, the two mixes will become one and thewhole thing will be pointless.Bake for 17 to 20 minutes. Cool fully on a wire rack.

Makes 12

For the red velvet layer110g butter170g caster sugar1 teaspoon vanilla extract40g cocoa powdera pinch of salt1 tablespoon red foodcolouring*

1 teaspoon white winevinegar

2 eggs160g self-raising �our

For the cream cheese layer200g cream cheese1 egg40g caster sugar½ teaspoon vanilla extract

*I used Squires’ Extra RedGel.

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