Easy Cakes > Chocolate Crispy Cakes 28 February 2006
Posted by cath in Recipes, cakes and treats, easy.trackback
Chocolate Crispy Cakes
Everyone loves these cakes, but I’m posting this recipe especially for Col…these cakes take around 10 minutes to make, after about an hour in the fridge they are ready to eat!
Basic Recipe makes about 12 cakes.
Ingredients:
200g Good Quality Chocolate – this can be Dark Chocolate (min 60% cocoa solids), Milk Chocolate or White Chocolate – it should be broken into small pieces of roughly the same size.
1 tbsp butter
1 tsp golden syrup
80-90g Cornflakes (roughly)
Preparation:
- Place the chocolate pieces, butter and syrup in a heatproof bowl.
- Place the bowl on top of a saucepan of barely simmering water (make sure the bowl does not touch the water in the pan)
- For white chocolate and/or AGA cooks – boil an inch or so of water in a saucepan, remove it from the heat then place your heatproof bowl on top to melt the ingredients together. The heat from the water should be sufficient to melt everything.
- Alternatively you can put the bowl in the microwave for 2-3 minutes, in short 30s bursts, stirring each time. When almost fully melted, stop heating and stir well until smooth – the heat of the bowl and mixture should help melt the last few bits of chocolate.
- Melt the chocolate, butter and syrup: stir until most of the chocolate is melted and smooth, then remove the bowl from the heat (take it off the saucepan!) and continue stirring until the larger chunks of chocolate are melted and the mixture is smooth.
- Add the cornflakes, 1 handful at a time, stiring until they are all thoroughly coated. Then add another handful and repeat until you have a good thick coating on the cereal – you may have to add more or less cornflakes depending on the amount of butter and syrup you added to the chocolate initially.
- Place a heaped tablespoon of mixture into each paper case (or place them all on a buttered baking sheet) and refrigerate until set.
Notes:
Valrhona Grand Cru Noir Manjari Gastronomie Chocolate (64% cocoa) makes luxury dark chocolate crispies.
Other cereals could be used instead of cornflakes.
To make much stickier and sweeter versions of the same cakes:
- To go with Dark Chocolate, add up to 50g of butter and/or 4 tablespoons of golden syrup to the chocolate and melt together.
- With Milk/White Chocolate add up to 25g butter and/or 1tablespoon of golden syrup to the chocolate.
- Experiment with other combinations: use different syrups, add dried fruit or nuts, other cereals etc.
Be careful about adding syrup and butter to the White Chocolate cakes – as white chocolate is already much sweeter and more buttery…
When using additional sugar and butter, more cornflakes are usually needed to complete the mix.
Chocolate Melting
Tip # 1: Be careful when melting chocolate! If the bowl is warm and most of the chocolate is melted, REMOVE FROM THE HEAT (this means taking it away from the saucepan and hot water) and continue to stir, allowing the chocolate to melt gently.
Overheating the chocolate will produce a grainy texture. It will look dry and thick rather than glossy and smooth. There is nothing much that can be done with overheated chocolate – for cooking anyway, so start again with a fresh batch.
White chocolate is much more sensitive to heat, so take extra care when melting it.
Tip #2: Microwaving chocolate – be careful not to microwave chocolate for long blasts (more than 30 seconds) as chocolate pieces appear to remain whole and unmelted, but in fact they will hold their shape until you stir them smooth and so they could easily overheat.
Tip #3: Don’t let any water come into contact with chocolate that you want to melt, the bowl and spoon must be completely dry. Don’t add any cold liquids (i.e. extra syrup) to the chocolate once it’s melted. Additions at this time will also produce a grainy texture as they will cause the chocolate to cool suddenly.
What to do with chocolate that has overheated/become grainy?
I’m just about to try some as a chocolate spread on toast…will let you know how that goes (hmm – OK but not very easy to do!). Also melting into cream can usually recover slightly overheated chocolate, but won’t help make these cakes!
You can now print this recipe from here
YuMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM!!
check out that enthusiasm! thanks col
:)
I hear there were problems following this recipe (adding syrup to melted chocolate, oops!)
I’ve made some edits to the post, hopefully this will emphasise the rules of melting chocolate!
REMEMBER to add all the syrup and butter to the chocolate peices THEN melt the whole lot together…
I hope you have another go, and best of luck this time!
As I have never made crispy cakes before, I’d like to thank you for your recipe tips, after 2 batches of over heated chocolate. I decided to find out what I was doing wrong and so came across your site. THANKS….got it now !
That’s fantastic, I’m glad my advice was useful! Hopefully there is some reasurrance for Colin there too…it’s easy once you remember that chocolate requires a bit of special attention, I hope he will also be giving it another try…!?!
Thanks for your comment!
we over heated the chocolate so it went wrong very fast thats a hard recipie . but i ate the chocolate anyway it was nice .
Ah, what a shame! Remember to take the bowl completely off the heat before all the chocolate chunks have melted…the larger bits will melt easily (if not quickly) in the residual heat. Just keep stirring and be patient, I know it’s difficult with anything chocolate-related. I assure you though, that a bit of care with the chocolate melting stage and that’s all there is to it…you’ll soon be making chocolate crispies like a master-chef :) I hope you’ll give it another go…?
Thanks for your comment!
Heya umm… when i made one batch i over heated the chaocolate so i had to add some milk to it but they havent yet been in the fridge for long so ill have to see whats gone wrpng!
Well Georgii, please let us know how the milk addition worked out, that could be quite a good option for those using darker chocolate. I hope you enjoy them!
Thanks for sharing that with us.
I made this with a slightly more healthy option…. 70% dark chocolate, bran flakes, walnuts and raisins, with low fat margarine instead of butter and honey instead of syrup… delicious!!!
I was overcooking the chocolate to start with too. oops. But thanks for clearing up the method!
Hi Lucy!
Sounds very healthy! Not the first thing you imagine when thinking of chocolate crispies :)
If you want to go a step further?! I sometimes cut out all the butter and syrup to make a pure dark chocolate mix. It sets hard like the original chocolate bar and is very tasty too. As dark chocolate is supposed to be quite good for you (in small quantities), it makes a somewhat-healthy treat.
The combination you picked of bran flakes, nuts and raisins sounds good. I wonder what other cereal combinations are popular – any suggestions? Keep them coming!
Thanks for your comments!
you can do them an easier way just get any chocolate but no nuts just plain chocolate and put it in a sause pan with water in it but just a little bit of water and some rice crispies or any cerial if its chocolate ball cerial use golden syrup to stick it together because it wont stick then so any way thats the most simple way ever so dont do the way he done it because thats kind of advance so do it this way oh and when you put them in the baking cases let them dry and then serve and enjoy
that was a great and understandable recipe for children and adults alike, however instead of golden syrup i also add peanut butter (mmmmmmmmmmmmm nuttybrilliant)
Hi, Sam. What an interesting idea to use peanut butter as well!
Thanks for your comment, enjoy the recipes, I’ll strive to do more in 2009!
i love crispie cakes especially your version!!i make a batch every week!!
i have just made 3 batches in the last 3 days and on one i used mars bars instead of plain chocolate and on another i used mint chocolate -it works… maybe you could try those aswell? thanks for ure recipe we had overheated it aswell :( but are trying again thanks for the advice
as a solution to the over cooked chocolate you can put warm/hot milk with it and blend them together. then you will have a bit of a thicker mixture but itm still works when mixed together. i hope it helps
Just made them with my three year old. Not nearly as sophisticated looking as your white chocolate ones, but delicious nonetheless. We added chopped apricots and brazil nuts in a vague bid to be healthy! Thank you.