Incase you’re wondering, I didn’t do these. Ted did.

It’s only a matter of time until Ted has a blog of his own, tonight I even caught him lining up a silver cake board as a reflector leaned up against some baked bean tins.

Meanwhile, despite best intentions, I did not manage to blog my Forever Nigella entry on the first day or the first week of the month and yikes it is already the 18th.

This is a team effort therefore of mummy making cookie dough and icing, Ted doing the rolling, cutting and sprinkling and Grandaddy sitting watching.

We are using these splendid crown cookie cutters from Lakeland and the dough from Nigella Lawson’s Butter Cut Out Biscuits from How to Be a Domestic Goddess.

These are my, well, Ted’s really, entry into this month’s Forever Nigella which is hosted by Nelly at Nelly’s Cupcakes. You still have until 28th May to submit any new posts featuring Nigella recipes done jubilee style or suitable for street parties.

It was with Nigella’s line about children having “very bad taste indeed” in mind that I submit Ted’s cookies!

It’s also great timing to tell you about World Baking Day on May 20th which is being celebrated by Stork. All you need to do to take part is tweet with the hashtag #Caking that day.

Core baking ingredients such as butter, eggs, sugar and flour have increased by around 60% since I started this site nearly 3 years ago. Baking margarine remains far cheaper than butter and I happily use it for biscuits and bake sales.

After the biscuits are baked and cooled it’s time to get busy with those sprinkles. I have jubilee coloured sprinkles although Ted also has his eye on some pink ones too.

Go easy pouring them out Ted…

Ok maybe not.

The burnt biscuit in the middle gets drowned in blue sugar crystals!

I bought these British Sparkles in Waitrose, they’re a timely selection of red, white and blue sugar crystals conveniently stored in separate compartments so I thought they were worth an investment for future biscuit projects. There’s also a compartment of red, white and blue mixed hundreds and thousands.

My only issue with them is that instead of a round penny sized hole to pour, there’s a whole quarter’s worth of the canister. Which is why Ted ended up drowning his biscuits – I imagine I’d have easily done the same.

And just to prove, he’s a dab hand getting the icing on – favouring the mini spatula spreading technique rather than mummy’s pair of teaspoons.

All Ted’s own work. I let him dive in right away!

Truth be told, actually I rolled these biscuits a bit thin today. Ted’s version (above right) was much fatter and despite my fears they would spread in the oven they actually came out better than mine!!!

I let Ted go wild with the sprinkles which accounts for the decidedly casual appearance of these biscuits. I especially like how he crammed six of the big sugar rose sprinkles onto one single crown biscuit. Way to go.

And of course, more interesting than the rack of biscuits he’d laid out, were the two trays of discarded sprinkles.

With thanks to Stork for the box of baking bits and vouchers.

PS If you’re as obsessive about sprinkles as Ted why not enter my JustBake.co.uk giveaway which is open until 28th May.

The book called them cupcakes but I call them muffins; the ingredients featured oil rather than butter and the technique required stirring rather than creaming fat and sugar. I make that a muffin.

Or rather Ted makes that a muffin.

Because apart from a bit of strawberry squishing, Ted did very well stirring all the ingredients together all by himself.

He’s less adept at spooning batter into cupcake cases – which causes much frustration.

I’ve explained that knowing the best way to spoon cupcake batter into paper cupcake cases comes with thirty years of mummy practice.

I suspect he may take to doing it with a piping bag quite well. We’ll have to try that next time.

Topped with a little glace icing, just like in the book – however I chose to ice my strawberry muffins with crushed crystallised rose petals. It was the first time I’d used them since the photo shoot for the book but I’ve got loads left and must find other ways to use them.

Today I also used a few drops of this Nielsen Massey Rose Extract in my icing and cake batter. These gorgeous rose printed paper cupcake cases are from Squires.

I am a huge fan of Squires cupcake cases as with the exception of Lakeland, they are one of the few brands I know available where the grease from cake does not seep into the paper obscuring the pattern.

The recipe for these strawberry muffins in Marian Keyes’ baking book Saved by Cake. She calls them Sweet and Simple Strawberry Cupcakes – they’re definitely sweet and simple but I’d call them muffins rather than cupcakes. My only amendment has been to add rose extract to the icing and cake batter and to top with crystalised rose petals.

Since rose is a flower I am submitting these to this month’s florally themed Tea Time Treats which is hosted by Karen at Lavender and Lovage.

Finally I am delighted to share some good news (for me at least).
I am the only food blog to be a finalist in the food categories for both the Britmums’ BiBs Brilliance in Blogging Awards and The MADS mum and dad blog awards 2012.

It’s especially touching to make the grade as finalist for both of these when I had not actively campaigned for nominations throughout the nomination period. Although some people find it very easy to reach out and ask people to do things for them, it’s not something that comes naturally to me.

There are some wonderful finalists for both awards – the BiBs are panel judged with winners announced at Britmums Live in June and The MADS are vote driven with results announced in the autumn.

If you’d like to vote for your favourite food blog and other types of parent blogs in The MADS you can do so until 6th June here: http://www.the-mads.com/the-awards.htm

A huge thank you to everyone who must have nominated me in the opening stages. I’m very touched and grateful.

Have this last muffin on me

With thanks to Penguin Michael Joseph publishers, Nielsen Massey and Squires for sample book/products.

The Queen’s Diamond Jubilee is still a month away but already I’ve amassed a collection of jubilee cupcake wrappers, cookie cutters and tea towels.

Lakeland’s Street Party Collection comprises picnicware, textiles and baking accessories. Your street party buffet table won’t be complete without their cupcake cases, bunting or food flags. Or maybe you’d like to commemorate the occasion with some seasonal jam making? There are union flagged jam kits to fit 1lb jars.

Cookie decorators can collect crown and flag cutters and Lakeland is also a stockist of Renshaw’s My Bakes range which has brought out a limited edition red white and blue pack of sugar dough (not pictured).

As well as the Lakeland kit, here is a round up of my other favourites spotted in the shops and around the web:

Clockwise from top left:

Millie’s Cookies will be selling Jubilee themed cookies and cupcakes from May 10th. Freshly baked daily they’ll be on sale as stand-alone products (cupcakes from just £1.25) and also become gorgeous gifts when presented in this Millie’s Flag Gift Tin.

Squires Kitchen have regal kit for cake decorators busy baking for the celebrations. Cupcake cases come with union flags or crowns. You can also get this detailed crown mould to stud your own icing crowns on top of your bakes.

Sainsbury’s have an extensive range of street party items, my favourite of which was this soldiers tray for just £3.00.

Tate & Lyle Golden Syrup have rebranded their iconic tins for the first time since 1904 with a truly regal “Happy and Glorious” design destined to become a collector’s item.

Marks and Spencer have given top billing to the Queen’s beloved corgis in their jubilee range. Check out this tea cosy for £12.

Finally, Montezuma’s have brought out a range of Great British Pudding Bars in flavours such as Eton Mess, Spotted Dick or Summer Pudding. You also have a chance to win one of these bars if you take part in this months’ Forever Nigella.

With thanks to Lakeland and Montezumas for sample products.

Great British Bake Off finalist Miranda Gore Brown’s most memorable contributions to the show were her beautiful iced biscuits. Therefore it comes as no surprise her new book should be a tribute to everyone’s favourite dippin’, dunkin’, crunchin’ versatile baked treat called simply: Biscuit.

Celebrating the launch of Miranda’s book alongside their kMix Boutique range, kitchen gadget supremos Kenwood invited me to bake some biscuits with Miranda at West End cookery school L’Atelier des Chefs. Crumbs!

Following the success of the kMix Boutique Breakfast range of toasters and kettles, Kenwood will be launching further Boutique items from September this year. They’re not in the shops yet but we had chance to inspect the M&M coloured gizmos up close.

The hand held items in the range will be a stainless steel 700w Triblade hand blenders with 5 speeds and a durable ergonomic 400w hand mixer with beaters and dough hooks that attach to the main body for easy storage.

Free standing items are the sturdy 800w free standing blender with pouring tip and programs to blend soups, dips, cold drinks and crush ice cubes and everyone’s favourite, the iconic kMix boutique stand mixer with K beater, dough hook, whisk and flexible beater for all free standing baking jobs.

After nibbling Miranda’s wonderfully chewy chocolate cookies, it was time to don aprons and get busy in the kitchen.

Our task was to make a savoury biscuit from Miranda’s book; the tasty pesto and pine nut pieces.

Helen of Fuss Free Flavours (pictured above right) has a kMix Firecracker at home and already knew her way round the Kenwood stand mixer’s features:

• The fold function can gently mix ingredients to the biscuit dough in alternating directions
• Auto-stop mode which activates when the head is lifted
• Ergonomic controls that are easy to access from the front whilst using it

Miranda’s reasons for loving biscuits include:

• They’re the perfect bake for a busy mum – mix double batches of dough and half can be frozen for another occasion.
• Individual biscuit dough portions can be frozen either in slices or ice cream scooped balls enabling you to bake a handful of biscuits at any time.
• Biscuits from frozen dough usually only requires a couple of extra minutes in the oven making instantly baked batches a breeze.
• Cooked biscuits are simple to store too – in a tin or sealed tub.

Miranda also shared a couple of nifty biscuit tricks that I will be using from now on:

• Quickly soften your butter by soaking cubes of it in a bowl of warm water – sounds weird but it works (this tip came directly from Mary Berry during the final stages of the Bake Off when the finalists had more time to chat with the presenters and judges).
• If you bake cooked biscuits for just 2 minutes in a warm oven people will think you’ve just made them. Fabulous plan!

We ended up taking our logs of dough home to bake but were able to try some ready baked pesto and pine nut pieces Miranda had, Blue Peter style, “baked earlier”.

With thanks to Kenwood, L’Atelier des Chefs and Miranda Gore Brown.

The new items in the kMix boutique range will be available from September 2012.

If the rain is getting you down then baking is the perfect escape keeping you warm and cosy indoors. We may not have much spring weather outside but you can bake up a selection of spring themed cupcakes with my latest giveaway prize.

Just Bake is a new cake decorating mail order website aimed at home bakers rather than trade producers. Just Bake was set up by Jo Shaw after she found she was struggling to find interesting cake sprinkles and cupcake wrappers in her local shops. If you’re tired of the same ranges in the supermarket but find most online cake decorating suppliers push you towards ordering in bulk, Just Bake could be just what you’re looking for.

From metallic foiled dragees to non pareils, from sophisticated Scandinavian cupcake cases to coloured Tulip Muffin wraps, Just Bake offers a wide range of cupcake and cake decorations together with stands to display then and boxes to transport them safely home.

I especially liked the wide range of patterned cupcake boxes in various sizes – and at competitive prices too. Plus a great range of cardboard cupcake stands with themes to suit all occasions from baby showers to jubilee parties and children’s birthdays.

The shop is very easy to search, products are listed by type as well as theme or colour. There’s free delivery if you spend over £75 or live locally (Nottinghamshire postal district NG25). Delivery charges otherwise start from a very reasonable £2.75 for orders under £20 – music to my ears after using so many sites where the delivery charge is a flat £5 and you end up spending loads more money to justify the delivery costs!

Here’s what you can win – this selection would normally cost you around £50!

Pack of 12 “Pretty Flowers” Reusable Cupcake Wrappers

Pack of 12 “Yellow Gingham” Reusable Cupcake Wrappers

3 Tier Flora Tea Party Cupcake Stand

Pack of 54 “pink blossom” cupcake cases

Pack of 54 “pink daisy” cupcake cases

Pack of multi-coloured sugar flower sprinkles

Pack of butterfly sprinkles

Pack of large white sugar daisy cupcake decorations

Pack of yellow daffodil cupcake decorations

Pack of butterfly cupcake decorations

Pack of pink butterfly cupcake decorations

Pack of Starlight pink edible silk

Pack of magic sparkles (hint of green)

Pack of pink blossom cake decorations

Pack of pink butterfly cake decorations

Giveaway #48: Win a selection of cake decorating goodies from JustBake.co.uk

HOW TO ENTER

• Complete the Rafflecopter form below to confirm your entries made via blog comments, Twitter, Facebook etc.
• This giveaway is currently set to run until May 28th 2012 however it may close early or be extended without notice.
• Read the rules below. Entries are verified so please no fibbing.
• Winners are announced on the Rafflecopter form after they have claimed their prizes.

First timers: How Rafflecopter works (video clip)

• No form showing? Hit refresh and it should appear
• Complete the form – or your entries will not go into the draw
• Mandatory entries to be completed first; i.e. leave a blog comment
• Want more chances to win? Bookmark http://blog.maisoncupcake.com/giveaway and come back daily to register your bonus entries!
• Viewing this by email? You need to click through to enter.

Good luck!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

RULES:

1. Open to UK residents over the age of 18.

2. The prize is a selection of JustBake.co.uk products as listed above however the final selection may vary subject to availability.

3. Instructions form part of the terms and conditions.

4. No fibs: each winner’s tweet entries and subscriptions etc are cross checked, cheats will have ALL entries disqualified.

5. This giveaway is hosted on behalf of prize sponsor JustBake.co.uk who will deliver the prize(s) following confirmation of winners’ contact details.

6. The prize sponsor’s decision is final and binding on entrants; no further correspondence will be entered into.

7. There is no cash or alternative to the prize stated.

8. The prize is selected in good faith, however the prize sponsor may substitute with one similar value/type if original one is unavailable.

9.Winners are picked by Rafflecopter using random.org and the site owner contacts them by the email.

10. Failure to claim prizes within 7 days will result in a replacement winner being chosen.

Giveaway sponsored by JustBake.co.uk

Bookmark the Maison Cupcake giveaway page to see all current giveaways and return for bonus chances to win daily!

Just a quick reminder that this month’s Forever Nigella is now live and the theme is celebrating the Diamond Jubilee.

Clearly this is quite a flexible theme quite similar to when Mardi did Royal Wedding Street Party last year however much festooning of bunting and union flags over the Nigella-ness is actively encouraged.

Our lovely host this time is Nelly at Nelly’s Cupcakes who will be collecting entries until 28th May with a round up due on 1st June.

Meanwhile don’t forget to check out Forever Nigella springtime round up over at Lucy Vanilla Frost.

Good Thai restaurants in Walthamstow are something I’m yet to find so I was delighted by an opportunity to review SUDA Thai in Covent Garden’s newest shopping and dining destination; St Martin’s Courtyard.

Sandwiched between Seven Dials and Long Acre, SUDA Thai gives the exterior impression it will be dark inside but the loft apartment style upper floor is light and airy even with black walls. The interior is modern and shiny with big windows and a well lit bar and quirky touches such as carved wooden donkeys and giant bowls of rice that smell amazing as you walk past.

I was dining with two friends Helen of Fuss Free Flavours and Judith of Mostly About Chocolate. Our evening kicked off with cocktails and an appetiser of vegetable chips and puffed spiced rice cakes with a satay dip.

Our starters were “satay gai” chicken satay (£.5.25) and “tod mun pla goong” fish and prawn lollipops (£5.50). Satay chicken was a good colour although the dipping sauce milder than most. The lollipops were fun and substantial. Attention to detail presenting dishes is a plus point throughout SUDA’s menu – with touches like egg shaped plates and banana leaves cut into pointy “grass”.

The stand out dish was “guaytiew lui suan” fresh rice wrap with braised duck and Thai herbs (£4.95) – fresh rice rolls with juicy tender duck filling and a savoury dipping sauce. We also loved the glass dishes in a rack and dipping sauce in a small pouring dish.

Our main courses were “choo chee pla” sizzling sea bass in kaffir lime leaf red curry sauce (£9.50), “gaeng massaman gai” thai massaman curry with chicken (£8.50) and “gaeng phed ped yang” roast red duck curry (£9.50) alongside servings of jasmine and coconut rice (£1.95 each).

Portions were not huge (especially the bass) although on balance we had ordered enough. The bass was a little too crispy for my liking but otherwise good. The massaman and duck curries were not hugely different to each other apart from the meat cooked in them but I enjoyed sampling both.

For sides we tried “som tum malakor” classic papaya salad with cherry tomatoes and roasted nuts (£6.50) and broccoli and shitake mushrooms (£4.50). The som tum’s spice and texture is fresh and vibrant against Thai curries.

Dessert – we were curious about “bua loy puek” taro balls in coconut cream (£4.50, above) – a glutinous Thai speciality with sliced coconut although visually unappealing. It tasted better than it looked but I’m glad Helly had it instead of me.

I had golden banana fritters with honey and sesame and a scoop of vanilla ice cream £4.95 (below); suitably sticky and sweet although the sesame could be more prominent.

Judith had “kao tom mud sai chocolate” sticky rice roll with bitter chocolate filling £4.95 (below), also with vanilla ice cream. It looked amusingly like a piece of fish with soy sauce but otherwise good.

Thai wine, Monsoon Valley rose (£19, below) is a little coarse by itself however has enough oomph to stand up to the heat. Listed on the drinks menu only in red and white, we spotted the rose version on the bar. It’s not available by the glass but well worth sharing with friends and a perfect match for the meal.

The cost would be £40 per head for three courses with drinks. Our trainee waitress was friendly and enthusiastic but unable to explain some dishes and a little too keen to whip used plates away (just my personal pet foible). Bathrooms were clean and bright. As an after note, the restaurant’s website is a little tricky to navigate with animations of large images. Online reservations are taken.

Overall I heartily enjoyed the meal and would recommend others to try SUDA out.

With thanks to SUDA Thai for our review dinner.

The first baking focussed Cake International show is taking place this weekend at London’s Excel and I had the pleasure of nipping in the car down the road to see the opening day this morning.

This is a lightning, timely post for anyone mulling over whether they want to go. It’s bigger than the Squires sugarcraft show and slightly more mainstream in focus. It is however a total mecca for sugarcraft geeks wanting to collect virtually any cake decorating tool, paste, nozzle, whatsit, whatever.

These pics are smaller than usual since I just wanted to get them up quickly – I’ll tidy up and pop hyperlinks into various people afterwards.

If I’ve tempted you to attend the show, enjoy!

This whopping flamingo cake had a stand of it’s own.

I’m just speechless. It’s made of chocolate.

Judging in the competition area with some filming going on to – for TV I think?

Not quite sure what this cake depicts but I love the two figures and the dinky handbags.

The buxom bride’s wedding cake of choice. I probably looked quite similar to this cake (minus the ruffled bits) actually.

Everyone agog at detailed piping work. Look how fine this lace piping work is.

Hurrah for Waltham Forest sugarcraft classes! Glad to hear these have been brought back to my home borough after a few years.

Time for a friendly chat with Ruth at The Pink Whisk stand promoting her new book The Busy Girl’s Guide to Cake Decorating (published by same folks as mine, David & Charles).

The ultimate baker/sugarcrafter’s shopping fix – all the fabulous stuff you normally see only online right there in front of you to BUY (my advance is take plenty of cash – the chip and pin machines at the venue are horribly slow and you can whip round buying bits much quicker with cash plus stay more “aware” shall we say, of how much money you’re spending!).

Renshaw have a huge stand showing off their melting buttons and jubilee red white and blue sugarpastes.

It’s gadgets-a-crazy including this stand for The Cake Pop Kit – it was so mobbed I could barely see what was in the kit but it appears to comprise melts, sprinkles, sticks and most importantly, a transporter to move those fiddly cake pops around in. Cake Pops are an absolute nightmare to transport without something like this.

Wonky cake tins – you know I’m so daft I actually thought people lopped off bits of cake to make these.

Cupcake boxes, cake stands…. you got ‘em.

Piles and piles of Magic Sparkles.

Genius idea for craft kits to decorate kids’ cupcake wrappers. They’re themed “royal”, “monsters” and “wildlife” with more themes in the pipeline. I bought a set for Ted and I to play with.

There seems to be a never ending desire for gadgets to display and transport cake – these pretty cardboard standards and paper HANDBAGS if you please.

PME cake pop demonstration. I picked up some nifty tips for stopping your cake pops slide off their sticks.

Cake Craft & Decoration magazine stand with seriously impressive tiered cakes.

Some crazy cake decorating challenge going on – not quite sure what was happening but I think they were professional cake decorators/businesses having some kind of filmed “ice-off” for want of a better word.

My favourite cake of the show. Me want Cookie.

Jo Wheatley giving a macaron demonstration. Seriously I would have keeled over if I had to do this infront of all those people.

This is a mould apparently. You get bears in a row. I can’t decide whether it’s too sickly sweet or whether I want one.

Jubilee paraphrenalia everywhere!

Candy melt mountain!

Taste my icing! Don’t mind if I do…

Fancy Stand – the magazine from Julian Graves which I rarely see as I don’t have a branch near me. But what’s that you say? £15 to subscribe? Bargain!

Finally, my new friends at The Sugar Shack. This was my favourite stand at the show – they’ve got heaps of gear from PME and Wilton and a shop in North West London to boot. I’m going to lobby them to open a branch in Walthamstow as it’s sugarcraft desert here and we need them.

Cupcake Courier boxes at The Sugarshack Shop – £30 each holding 36 cupcakes. They worked out a lot cheaper than the chap opposite selling 24 cupcake holders if you want to transport 100 or more cupcakes at a time.

So that’s it! A quick whizzy look at Cake International. There was a sign on the way out advertising the 2013 Cake International and it’s in my diary already. But such a long time to wait… fortunately there’s also a show at Birmingham’s NEC in November. Hurrah!

Well well well. Bread you actually knead with your own hands rather than the bread maker or at a push the dough hook is a novelty to me. I really don’t like getting my hands doughy and my wrists are quite weak and pathetic.

But I threw myself into making hot cross buns for Fresh From the Oven as part of my month determined to do take part in more blog events after a prolonged “holiday” from them.

After investing in new tubs of candied peel and new bags of sultana I went and messed them up by forgetting to add the egg.

Not to worry, I thought, real bread doesn’t have egg in it so surely they’ll still work.

Despite increasing in size on proving, my buns were a bit harder than I’d like (now there’s a phrase I never thought I’d be using).

My dad declared them “substantial” however he admitted he’d not eaten a real hot cross bun for about 30 years (he exists on a diet of mostly porridge, watercress, sardines and roast dinners).

They weren’t inedible by any means, I ate one toasted for breakfast three days on the trot but they weren’t as soft as I’d assumed they’d be. Maybe i’m getting them mixed up with toasted tea cakes? I followed the recipe to a tee (apart from mislaid egg – no pun intended) but thought the ratio of fruit was that bit too high. It was a lot of raisins etc to submerge in that dough.

Then my flour paste crosses were too chewy. I kept peeling them off. Not amused.

Anyway this, warts and all, is my entry to this month’s Fresh From The Oven currently hosted by The Little Loaf where you can find the recipe too. The round up is due to be published by Claire at Purely Food.

Sometimes when a recipe isn’t quite perfect how you expected it to be, it tastes just as good all the same.

Making cheesecake is something I’ve been meaning to do for a long time but I have been putting it off, worried about immersing springform tins wrapped in foil into bain maries and suchlike.

Then it dawned on me I could whip up a no bake cheesecake. The Paul Young cheesecake recipe on the UKTV Good Food Channel site appealed to my expectations of chilling a mixture of cream cheese, icing sugar and very little else.

Where this went wrong is that the cheesecake topping in his recipe did not set very much (in my experience).  So I doubled the amount of icing sugar in it and it still didn’t set. I hadn’t over beaten it as I’m aware of the perils of using electric mixers with cream cheese (it goes runny pronto). I left the cheesecake topping overnight instead of the recommended hour and it still didn’t set. The bowl of left over topping in my fridge still hasn’t set 3 days later.

Now I didn’t use low fat cream cheese but I did use a basics one which seemed pretty firm (his recipe called for 500g cream cheese which gets expensive when you’re talking Philadelphia).  So consider this a work in progress, I am going to remake this no bake cheesecake topping with Philadelphia, use whipping cream rather than double (and less of it) to find out whether that sets and report back soon. If it doesn’t I will be dropping a clanger amongst the glowing five star reviews for the original no bake cheesecake recipe… they’re all saying it’s working? *confused face*

 
I am entering these mini cheesecakes to One Ingredient hosted by Nazima at Working London Mummy alongside Laura of How to Cook Good Food and also Ren at Fabulicious Food for Simple and in Season.

The instructions for the bases are the same as yesterday but you can use normal digestives rather than speculoos if they are easier to find.

Incidentally, the drizzled caramel under these mini cheesecakes was applied with one of the squeezy bottles from my Kuhn Rikon cookie and cupcake decorating set that has been an instant hit with my 4 year old son. I have been badgered ever since with one request; “Where is the syrup? Where is the syrup Mummy?  I’m going to squeeze it all over the plates! Where is the syrup Mummy?” ad infinitum…

Recipe: Mini Caramelised Rhubarb No Bake Cheesecakes

Ingredients (makes 24 mini cheesecakes):
for the bases
100g speculoos or Lotus biscuits or digestives
50g demerara sugar
50g unsalted butter

for the topping
250g soft white cheese
150g icing sugar, sieved
100ml double cream, whipped
2-3 sticks very pink rhubarb
2-3 tbsp light brown sugar

You will need
A food processor (or a thick plastic bag and a rolling pin!!)
Disposable piping bag (optional)
2 x 12 hole mini muffin tins or a Lakeland Mini Morsel tin.

Directions:
1. Grind the biscuits in the food processor until you have fine crumbs.  Mix the crumbs with demerara sugar in a medium sized bowl.
2. Gently melt the butter in a small saucepan. Allow to cool slightly then pour into the sugar/biscuit crumbs and combine.
3. Spoon the crumb mixture into the holes of the tin(s) evenly then using fingers push the crumbs down into the tin to make a solid base around 10mm thick.  Chill in the fridge for at least one hour.
4. Meanwhile gently fold the icing sugar into the cream cheese. Avoid using an electric mixer as this can make cream cheese very runny in a flash. In a separate bowl, whip the double cream until stiff and fold into the cheese mixture.
5. You can spoon the cream cheese onto the biscuit discs whether they’re in the tin or out. Alternatively you can pipe the cheesecake topping with a disposable piping bag with a hole snipped in the end. (The latter is much tidier)
6. When the biscuit bases have gone solid in the fridge, use the tip of a knife to coax them out of the tin and arrange on a plate. Put the topping on now if you haven’t already.
7. Finally, slice the sticks of rhubarb into 7mm discs and scatter on a piece of foil on a grill pan. Sprinkle lightly with the sugar and grill gently taking care not to burn the sugar.  Arrange discs of cooked rhubarb on top of the mini cheesecakes.