Monday 16 June 2014

Baking cakes with silicone moulds

We made cakes for Father's Day.  Master Chief loves to help out in the kitchen and especially loves baking cakes so when we saw some silicone cake moulds for sale we snapped them up.  Train shapes, butterflies and beetles, little houses and dinosaurs - just what everyone needs.
We've made the train ones before, obviously with Master Chief being Thomas The Tank Engine crazy, this time we decided on the houses and insects.  The results were impressive, I didn't expect them to look so good shapewise.  Well, the insects looked good, I think the houses could've looked better.   We used a basic sponge recipe for the insects and an eggless cake with chocolate pieces for the houses.




The most important thing with silicone moulds is to ensure that the cake doesn't stick, and here's the best way I've found to ensure that doesn't happen - I've had cakes turn out as shapeless blobs.  They're tasty but not quite the image you're going for!

Make sure the silicone mould is absolutely clean and dry. Oil the moulds thoroughly - I used spray-on oil, I found it easier to cover all the little bits of the mould properly.  Instead of putting the floppy mould on a baking tray (this can affect the cooking) I used an oven shelf and slid the moulds in and out of the oven on that.
After it's cooked leave the cake to go completely cold, inside the mould. This is the most important thing.  When it's cooked the cake will be firmer and you'll be able to turn it out easily.
That's it really, I've out the two recipes below, the eggless one is so useful for when you haven't planned to bake cakes or have just used the last egg for breakfast.

Basic sponge
Ingredients
Butter - 125g (4oz)
Sugar - 125g (4oz)
2 eggs
Self raising flour - 125g (4oz)

What to do
Heat the oven to 180 (C) / 350 (F) / gas mark 4
Cream the butter and sugar together.Beat in the eggs.
Sieve in the flour and mix in (it says to use a metal spoon but if you haven't got a suitably large one then use what you've got!).
The mixture should be a gooey, kind of yoghurty consistency, so you can dollop it into the moulds.  Bake for about 20-25 minutes or until it looks good.  If you want to get technical then stick a skewer in and if it comes out clean then it's done.  I kind of go by the visual and sometimes I poke it a bit to see if it's still gloopy!

Eggless sponge
Ingredients
Plain flour - 175g (6oz)
Baking powder - 3 tsp
Butter - 70g (2.5oz)
Sugar - 60g (2.25oz)
Golden syrup - 1 tbsp
Milk - 150ml (1/4 pint)

What to do
Heat the oven to 190 (C) / 375 (F) / gas mark 5
Sift the flour and baking powder into a bowl.
Cream the butter, sugar and golden syrup in a separate bowl until light and fluffy.
Add a little flour/baking powder and then a little milk and mix.  Repeat this until it's all mixed together.
Dollop it into the moulds and bake for about 20-25 minutes or until they're done (or what you think is done - see above for my version!)

Don't forget to leave them to go completely cool before you turn them out of the moulds.


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