Malteser Cake

I made a lemon of a recipe the other day; a date roll. I may post about it later to make you all aware of the potential disasters surrounding it....but it will just bring back bad memories. I was looking forward to munching on the date roll, but this did not happen. Oh well. In order to cheer myself up (and because I can), I went out for cake, arrived home and then decided to bake a cake.

Flipping through the CWA (Country Women's Association) cake book, I stopped on page 102; Malteser cake! Sounded interesting and tasty enough to cheer myself up:) I hadn't had Maltesers for a long long time. I only remembered that if you are silly enough to buy them at the movies and not the supermarket, they are really expensive.

Malteser Cake
This recipe is from the book, CWA Cakes: Traditional, tempting, tried-and-true. Interestingly enough, the book was published and printed by the good people at the South China Printing Co Ltd, China. Hmm...
You'll find the recipe on page 102 and it was submitted by Shirley Morrisbly from the Bellerive branch, Tasmania.

What you need

Grrr, forgot the olive oil for the photo...you need olive oil too

• 1 cup self raising flour
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 4 tablespoons cocoa
• 2 eggs
• 2 tablespoons olive oil (the book says to use vegetable oil, but it contains trans fats, so I used olive oil)
• 2 x 150g tubs vanilla fruche
• 100g Maltesers (book says to use 165g but I couldn't find a packet of that size)

This is the fruche/creme fraiche (they're the same, right?) that you need. 98% fat free...I hate this kind of marketing. Fat is not going to make you fat!

I think all of these ingredients are scarier than any fat! I'd like to see a thickner free, gelatine free, acidity regulator free etc fruche! I usually do not eat things from packets containing ingredients I have never heard of. Making this cake was a big scary step for me.

What you need to do

1. Preheat your oven to 175 degrees, line a baking tray (18cm square...but I used a 20cm diameter round springform tin) with paper (Donna Hay style, if using a springform tin) and grease the sides with butter and flour.
2. In one bowl, sift flour, sugar and cocoa.
3. In a second bowl, mix eggs, oil and fruche.
4. Combine wet and dry ingredients.
5. Once combined, stir in the Maltesers.
6. Place mixture into the baking tray and bake for 25-30 minutes.

How to line a springform tin Donna Hay style: place baking paper over the base of the springform tin. Lock on the rim part of the tin. Now you have a perfectly lined base. Easy! Cut around the outside edges, to cut away the lose paper

 I always enjoy combining wet and dry ingredients. It's a challenge!

Wee Maltesers!

Mixing in the Maltesers. It feels like mixing in minature bowling balls

Apart from the scary fruche ingredients and the scary Malteser ingredients, this is a lovely cake. Let it cool right down, or even leave it over night. This will allow the Maltesers to go all 'fudgey' yet still remain a little crunchy. I would recommend using more Maltesers as the 100g I used wasn't really enough.

I am also wondering what one could do to make this cake a little less scarier. Perhaps you could use some small chunks of dark chocolate instead of the Maltesers. For some crunchiness, you could use some nuts. Or maybe you could use dark chocolate coated nuts. Perhaps you could use FULL FAT home made yogurt or organic yogurt from the supermarket in place of the fruche. If you play around with the recipe, let me know how it goes:)

I saw this pretty butterfly in my grandma's lemon tree. I was amazed as I usually only see Monarch butterflies in Adelaide.