Cadbury’s Dairy Milk to Marvellous Creations

Disclosure: I am a member of the Collective Bias® Social Fabric® Community. This Cadbury’s Dairy Milk cooking project shop has been compensated as part of a social shopper insights study for Collective Bias and their client. #cbias #shop

Have you ever wanted to create your own custom created chocolate (candy) bar but have been intimidated by the fact that you have to temper chocolate?

Worry not, I’ve found a way to temper milk chocolate in the microwave that takes 5 minutes or less. Yes, I love you too!

But more on that process in a later post this week. I’m such a tease aren’t I? This post is primary focussing on a great recipe I’ll be sharing to create your own custom chocolate (candy) bars.

Have you heard about Cadbury’s new Dairy Milk Marvellous Creations bars? Specifically the one that has the popping candy, candy shells (like mini M&M’s) and little jelly sweets.

I bought a bar as soon as they hit the shops and it was love at first sight bite. The first thing that hits you is that tingly tongue sensation from the popping candy, discovering the candy shells and the jelly pieces was so much fun too.

I knew I had to do a copycat and re-create this chocolate bar for all my international readers that can’t readily pick up this product in their country.

I did this little project with my daughter over the weekend. I can’t even begin to tell you just how much fun we had creating this chocolate bar together. Not to mention the amount of fun eating it after too. Awesomesauce! Here’s the process in images on G+.

Shall we get started?

You will need:

1. Popping candy
2. Chocolate beans (or mini M&M’s/Smarties)
3. Jelly Tots or any small jelly sweets, chopped
4. Cadbury’s Dairy Milk chocolate (obviously). Or any good quality chocolate
5. A chocolate mould with deep ridges
6. Heat proof (or microwave proof) bowl and a spatula.

First of all, break off enough chocolate you feel will be enough to fill the chocolate mould. It’s better to have leftovers than not enough otherwise you won’t get a bar, only chunks.

Chop into segments using the ridges as guides and reserve slightly over a ¼ of the chocolate to set aside. Place the remaining ¾ into your heat proof bowl.

Melt the chocolate either over a double boiler or in the microwave on half power in 30 second blasts stirring between each. With both methods melt until approx. ¾ melted with small chunks left.

If you use the double boiler method, ensure that the water in the pan does not touch the bottom of the bowl, and ensure that no water gets into your chocolate – it will seize if it does resulting in unusable chocolate. Ain’t no-one got time for that!

This is where your right hand, or left hand: if you’re left handed, turns body builder-esq overnight!

With your spatula you need to stir, stir and stir some more until the chunks have melted. Once they’re completely melted start adding the chunks you set aside earlier one-by-one and stir until each one has melted, then add another until the last few remaining won’t melt any further.

Once you get to the point where the added chocolate won’t melt any further, this is the optimum temperature to stop stirring and start adding in your sweet extras. It also happens to be the most fun part of the entire process.

First, I added the popping candy…

Then I added the chocolate beans (mini M&M’s, or mini Smarties, if you prefer)…

Then finally, the jelly sweets…

Gently mix together, but not too violently otherwise you’ll create air bubbles…

If you do get air bubbles, like in the photo above, try tapping the bowl down a few times on a sturdy surface so they rise to the top and move your spatula in a figure of 8 to pop them.

Working quickly, pour the chocolate mixture into the chocolate mould carefully ensuring that it’s evenly distributed. Lift the mould and tap quite harshly onto a sturdy surface (as you would with macarons) to make sure all the air bubbles rise to the surface, and to ensure that the chocolate fills all the chocolate mould crevices correctly.

If air bubbles do come to the surface, pop them using a toothpick then repeat the tapping action, and slightly shaking side to side until no more bubbles rise.

If you’re using popping candy the mixture will look lumpy, that’s normal. They’re not air bubbles. But if you want to be sure, just push a toothpick into them.

Wipe the side of the mould so we don’t get any jagged edges. This step is completely optional, but looks more professional. I did this by scraping the sides with a toothpick as it was already setting by this point – a good indication that my tempering was done correctly. Not to mention the fact that I could suck the scraped chocolate off. Chef perks FTW!

Now, all that’s left to do is place your chocolate mould in the refrigerator to set. If tempered correctly, this won’t take long at all, but the hardest part is waiting. Must. Have. My. Chocolate. Now. Cannot. Wait!

P.S. Don’t try to remove from the mould it at room temperature. I did this on my first attempt. Let’s just say it snaps where it’s supposed to snap anyway.

And voila!…

Beautiful isn’t it? And because it’s made with Cadbury’s Dairy Milk it tastes the same as their Dairy Milk Marvellous Creations bar.

Totally worth the stirring, baby.

Printable and saveable recipe summary below.

Full instructions on tempering will be posted later this week, but if you follow the steps above with good quality chocolate you should end up with tempered chocolate too, and without the need for a thermometer.

Enjoy!

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Chocolate Chip Cookie Cups

Hi everyone! I’m really excited to be doing a guest post for Lisa today (my first ever!) Sweet 2 Eat Baking was one of the first blogs I started following before taking the leap of starting my own

Today’s recipe is inspired by my friend Natasha over at Butter Baking who recently made some cookies baked in paper cases.

I’m really pleased with this cookie recipe, it’s been tweaked from recipes I’ve used before and the fact they are baked in paper cases means they don’t spread and stay nice and puffy. It also means you don’t have to wait for the cookie dough to chill as normal, which is a bonus.

Start the cookie dough by melting the butter and allowing it to cool slightly. This recipe uses fridge cold eggs (unusual I know). The eggs still blend beautifully with the butter and sugar when they are cold, so don’t worry! I have to admit, I sneaked a taste of the creamed butter, sugar, vanilla and egg mixture, which tasted like vanilla ice-cream.

You are welcome just to use chocolate chips for the cookie cups (I used a mixture of milk and white chocolate), however as a delicious add-in, I made some of my peanut butter chocolate ganache that I used to ice the Peanut Butter & White Chocolate Caramel Cake. It’s really straightforward, just melt smooth peanut butter and white chocolate together, spread on a lined baking sheet and freeze for around half an hour. It can then be chopped up to use in the cookies.

Hope you enjoy the recipe!

Joy is the girl behind the blog, Baking Joy.

Joy started her blog in October 2012 as she likes feeding people(!) and people kept asking for her recipes. She also loves the photography aspect of blogging too.

You can also find her here on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest.

Thank you Joy for this wonderful ooey gooey guest post. Don’t forget to checkout more of Joy’s post on her blog, Baking Joy.

Want to contribute a dessert or sweet treat recipe post on Sweet 2 Eat Baking?
Why not submit a guest post?

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Giant Double Chocolate Cookie

A big hello to all you wonderful Sweet 2 Eat Baking readers.

I’m so glad to be here to help out Lisa, I’ve been reading her blog for a good couple of years and have always loved her recipes and her incredibly beautiful photographs. In fact it was Lisa’s blog that inspired me to start my own, so I’m incredibly excited to be guest posting for her.

Now I love me some cookies, I truly do. If you saw how many notches my scales have gone up in the last 6 months you have to agree, but sometimes I don’t want to bake up a whole batch (usually 24+ cookies) or experience the sugar induced coma I no doubt put myself in my attempting to eat them all fresh out of the oven.

So I thought ‘Do I really need to bake a big batch, could I not bake just one?’

So that’s what I did.

Okay, So yes it is a giant cookie. Bigger than my own hand but that’s better than 24 regular sized cookies making their way into my tummy.

This cookie hit the spot. All crispy on the edges but nice and fudgy in the middle.

Mmmmm, my kind of a cookie and I know you’re all going to crazy for it as well.

I did purposely use a white chocolate that would melt in the oven because that marbling is just so pretty but feel free to use proper baking white chocolate that will retain it’s shape if you want to.

Tash is the girl behind The Velvet Moon Baker blog.

She is a 23 year old Essex native, now baking and living in the weather wild Donegal Countryside with himself and their little poppet.

She uses her blog to spread her baking wings and tells you all about it with a little real life thrown in for good measure.

You can also find her here on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest.

Thank you Tash for this delicious guest post. Don’t forget to checkout more of Tash’s post on her blog, The Velvet Moon Baker.

Want to contribute a dessert or sweet treat recipe post on Sweet 2 Eat Baking?
Why not submit a guest post?

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Banana Bread

This Banana Bread Loaf is delicious and moist with lots of flavour. Perfect sliced with tea or coffee. Banana bread is wonderful toasted too. Best with overripe bananas.

It was my birthday on Friday. I turned 21 again, but with 11 years experience! Yes, that’s right, I turned 32. *barf*

I’ve always enjoyed birthdays, that is until I turned 29. I was terrified of the BIG 3-0! But 30 wasn’t a big deal after all.

Saying that, I still get asked for I.D when I attempt to buy alcohol in supermarkets! It always makes me laugh. Most of the cashiers asking me are always older than I am, but one time a young cashier (who barely looked old enough to be working, let alone be demanding my I.D) asked me just before Christmas when I picked up a bottle of barely alcoholic cider for the giant man baby, but thanks for the huge compliment anyway.

I think 30 was my cut off point where I didn’t want to tell anyone my age after I reached it and beyond. There’s nothing like birthdays to remind you that you’re getting old after your cut off point, and people seem to know that and buy you the funny ‘you’re an old hag’ cards too. Pffft, nice!

I had to comfort myself in some way or another and since there were some overripe bananas looking at me with big puppy eyes, I chose to make a Banana Bread Loaf.

I’ve never tried banana bread until now, but I’m so glad I did. The orange juice in this banana bread makes it so incredibly moist but without a strong orange flavour. Of course the bananas make it moist too, and add that incredible delicious flavour.

If you haven’t tried banana bread yet, you’ve been missing out! Go make some, stat!

Are you “organized in your heart” but you’d never know it by your surroundings?

Join the club!

Sinea’s blog, Ducks ‘n a Row, is full of no-pressure encouragement to help you organize, simplify, manage time, save money, create delicious dishes, have fun with your family and enjoy life.

Smoothies are simply milkshakes without the ice cream.
That’s why we love them!
This Strawberry Banana Smoothie is a tasty delight
and a healthy meal, besides.

Freezing Bananas: Peel the banana, cut into 1-2 inch slices, lay out on a small cookie sheet or freezer safe plate, freeze and then put into a plastic bag to store in freezer.

Freezing Strawberries: Wash, pat dry and trim off leaves. Cut in halves or quarters and freeze in the same manner as above. Store frozen berries in a plastic bag or container in the freezer.

Keep in touch! Follow Sinea’s blog and social media and be sure to leave her a comment so that she knows you found her on Sweet2EatBaking!

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Photo credits:
Smoothie photo by Sinea Pies
Strawberry by Ambro on Freedigital Photos

Thank you Sinea for this delicious guest post. Don’t forget to checkout more of Sinea’s post on her blog, Ducks ‘n a Row.

Want to contribute a dessert or sweet treat recipe post on Sweet 2 Eat Baking?
Why not submit a guest post?

I link up to these link parties.