Chocolate Marshmallow Teacakes
I fell in love rather late with the Great British Bake Off. Season 3 has finished and I only got to see about four episodes. Thanks to my cousin for the heads up, I would have hated to miss even those! One of the bakes that I fell in love with was teacakes! These fascinating cakes of scrummy mallow have always been an attraction that I’ve resisted for the sake of my waistline {unfortunately, that didn’t work!}. To see them being made was terrific and what was even better was finding the mould to make them at www.bakedbyme.net.
Iris has a wonderful stock of goodies including a lovely range of moulds and of course I had to order the teacake mould {amongst others}. So, I set myself the challenge of making the GBBO teacakes. I had watched the masterclass with Paul Holland and took careful note of his instructions. I duly downloaded the recipe and gathered the ingredients. Today was the day I was making them! The recipe involves making the biscuit base, melting lots of unctuous chocolate and making marshmallow. I was quite dubious about the order of the recipe so I made the biscuits first, then melted the chocolate, then made the marshmallow.
The biscuits are a blend of plain and wholemeal flour and are quite lovely in their own right. A short biscuit with lots of nutty flavour. I’m aiming to use up my stock of wholemeal flour before its best by date by making these and freezing them. The marshmallow was very easy to make. You have to whisk the ingredients for 6 – 8 minutes. Having spent years in a previous life working in telecoms, I’ve a good understanding of how long 6 – 8 minutes is and how my arms will ache whisking the mixture over a simmering pot of water but oh, how it’s worth it! The combination of sugar, eggs whites, golden syrup amongst others created a lovely soft mallow that is not overly sweet; in other words, perfect!
The Biscuit Base
The Chocolate Coated Moulds
Marshmallow Heaven!
As I worked through the recipe I noticed some distinct differences in the recipe and Paul’s instructions on the masterclass show. The masterclass was to give a better understanding of the recipes and show how they should be made yet his instructions and tips were not fully conveyed in the recipe. So, here are my suggestions and tips:
- The recipe says to roll the biscuits out to about 5mm in thickness. I would suggest rolling them to 3mm at most otherwise you won’t be able to trim them as Paul suggests on the show {but not in the recipe!}. As the biscuits bake, they spread slightly so you need to trim them to the right size. Don’t leave them to cool before you do this though as they are quite hard and impossible to trim.
- The amount of marshmallow that the recipe gives would easily fill 12 if not 15 teacake cases. I doubt the volume can be reduced given the scale of the ingredients so buy extra moulds!
- The recipe says to fill the teacake cases to the top with the marshmallow while Paul tells us on the show to leave a gap for the biscuit! Now, this I find a very glaring difference! Definitely as far as presentation is concerned, the biscuit should be inside the teacake so hence the need to trim the biscuit so that it fits inside the case and the need for the gap in mallow so you don’t have any oozing out. As I couldn’t trim my biscuits I had to follow the recipe and well, I’m not showing you a close-up of the end result because it’s not as nice as Paul’s on the show!
- To get the teacakes out of the moulds, turn the mould upright so that the cakes are biscuit side down and lift it off the teacakes one by one. That way you won’t get fingermarks on the chocolate. Thanks Paul for that, otherwise I’d have had no idea!
- My final gripe is that my chocolate was not glossy and shiny, and I didn’t put them in the fridge!!! Why that happened I guess is down to the chocolate… {what’s that I hear you saying about a poor workman blaming his tools?}
VERDICT
MAKE THESE TEACAKES!!!! Even though there are a few little hurdles to overcome which I hope I have helped you with, the sense of achievement is terrific and these are a far superior cake to those you can buy in the supermarket. So go on, give them a try!
5 comments on “Chocolate Marshmallow Teacakes”
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Salt, Pepper and a Dollop of Cream 
I’m really, really tempted to try these this weekend. Thanks for the tips 🙂 x
Do give them a go but make sure you’ve lots of time as there are a lot of stages! They’re very luscious and rich unlike the shop bought ones – you’ll be making these forevermore. I’ m making them with desiccated coconut next time :). I’d love to see if there’s a mould to make mini ones as they’d be lovely for parties!
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I’ve recently discovered the Great British Bake Off and there are so many recipes from it I want to try! I’m looking forward to seeing what the Australian version is like (it’s filming at the moment). These looked quite tricky, so it’s nice to know they work at home. First on my list though is the Fraisier Cake.
It is a brilliant show, so entertaining and you learn bucket loads from it! I’m going to watch the rerun on Good Food to see what I missed. Next on my own list is French Fancies which I’d planned to make ages ago but found it hard to get a receipe for liquid fondant! That was fun to find I can tell you but I’m sorted now so aim to make later this week! Let me know how you get on with the Fraisier Cake as it looks quite the challenge! Xx P