Biscuit Cake

kowloon

So I tried my hand at making a biscuit cake today. You know the type, the blocks of dense chocolate cake with biscuit through it, also known as Tiffin cake. It's a fridge cake, so I thought it would be fairly difficult to mess up, but mess it up I did. It's far too sweet, and instead of being moist and soft it's chewy and difficult to eat, the consistency of set tar. The mixture also left behind quite a lot of oil/fat which I presume came from the chocolate.

I used:

1/2 lb Unsalted butter
250g chocolate
A few tablespoons of cream
4 tablespoons of golden syrup
400g of digestives crushed
3 crunchie bars smashed up.

The addition of raisins or marshmallows was optional, I skipped on the grounds that it looked too sweet already.



I got this recipe off a website and now know it isn't right, but I'm not sure what to change to get the right consistency.

Does anyone have a decent recipe for this?

DreamC

I would take not just "chocolate" but a good quality dark bitter chocolate. As milk chocolate is much sweeter and that could be you problem.

Acoshla

The odlums recipe for biscuit cake is what I always use and it's lovely, cuts very easily and tastes gorgeous. I can't link to it right now because of computer issues but there isn't as much golden syrup (if that makes a difference?) and no cream, sometimes I add condensed milk but not always.

I use a combination of 74% chocolate and a lovely good quality creamy milk chocolate, so it's still quite dark but not too bitter. I myself love it made with all dark chocolate but that's a bit much for a lot of people so I add the bit of milk chocolate. What kind of chocolate did you use? The worst chocolate biscuit cake I ever tasted was made with Wunderbar chocolate and was the consistency and colour of fudge, so poor is the quality of that chocolate.

JohnK

Heres the one on the Odlums site http://www.odlums.ie/index.php?page=chocolate-biscuit-cake

Baby Boots

I need to make a chocolate biscuit cake as a wedding cake for 200 can anyone help with quanties. I like the odlums receipe. Thank you

kerash

hey there has been a previous thread on this that may be helpful http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055258763&referrerid=59211

deelite

JohnK wrote: »

Heres the one on the Odlums site http://www.odlums.ie/index.php?page=chocolate-biscuit-cake

Sorry for bringing up an old thread but do you cut the malteasers up before you add them and should they fully melt to nothing?

emeraldstar

deelite wrote: »

Sorry for bringing up an old thread but do you cut the malteasers up before you add them and should they fully melt to nothing?

No, they definitely shouldn't melt; they add a lovely crunch. I leave them whole – they're more substantial and look nice in the slice when you cut through them.

Cerulean Chicken

deelite wrote: »

Sorry for bringing up an old thread but do you cut the malteasers up before you add them and should they fully melt to nothing?

They don't melt and you don't cut them, that's the whole point, you see them when you cut it.

deelite

Thanks everybody - another stupid question the ingredients says 1/2 x 400grn rich tea and 1/2 x 400grms digestive - does that mean 200grms of each? I have both types just can't figure out quantity.

Cerulean Chicken

deelite wrote: »

Thanks everybody - another stupid question the ingredients says 1/2 x 400grn rich tea and 1/2 x 400grms digestive - does that mean 200grms of each? I have both types just can't figure out quantity.

Yes 200gm of each.

annamcmahon

I've used lidl and aldi rich tea and digestives and both were lovely in biscuit cake. Lidl have lovely own brand maltesers too

phormium

I use the lidl biscuits too, they are grand, don't like their version of Maltesers though, they seem a bit chewy or something, not nice and crisp like the real thing. Best value in Maltesers is in Tesco, the large bag of little packages, cheapest price per kilo, mind you I end up eating the spare bags so would probably be cheaper just to buy one full price pack.

deelite

Me again - this is my first time for making a cake (other than muffins / fairy cakes) - but I cook dinners from scratch more or less.


I've followed the recipe to the letter and it's now in the kitchen cooling and getting hard before I put it in the fridge. Just looking for advice /tips roughly crushed does that mean a breadcrumb consistency or should the biscuits have been a broken biscuit consistency.

Secondly, the golden syrup - how the hell do you measure it - I used a jug but the syrup (lyles from a tin) came out in one gulp (I got the measurement right) so I put the jug in
the water to help melt it but now I'm worried did it double when melted - if you catch my drift.

Otherwise it went okay - just have to wait till later. How long should you be in the fridge for approximately?

Thanks again for all the help

Faith

deelite wrote: »

Me again - this is my first time for making a cake (other than muffins / fairy cakes) - but I cook dinners from scratch more or less.


I've followed the recipe to the letter and it's now in the kitchen cooling and getting hard before I put it in the fridge. Just looking for advice /tips roughly crushed does that mean a breadcrumb consistency or should the biscuits have been a broken biscuit consistency.

Secondly, the golden syrup - how the hell do you measure it - I used a jug but the syrup (lyles from a tin) came out in one gulp (I got the measurement right) so I put the jug in
the water to help melt it but now I'm worried did it double when melted - if you catch my drift.

Otherwise it went okay - just have to wait till later. How long should you be in the fridge for approximately?

Thanks again for all the help

Broken biscuits

Ideally you use a digital weighing scales that has ml on it. You can also use tablespoons (15ml ones) and measure it out that was.

Leave it in the fridge until it's hard, and then it will keep for quite a while.

Toto Wolfcastle

It's easier to use the squeezy bottle of golden syrup if you're not using the full amount. Comes out nice and clean. I always very lightly oil whatever I'm using to measure it out, usually a bowl on my scales or measuring cups.

Cerulean Chicken

Broken up biscuits, crushing them to breadcrumbs would be pointless, you'd just have a big giant chocolate bar with the odd biscuit crumb in it, no actual texture, contrast or flavour of the hard Rich Teas or salty digestives.

I push the syrup out of the tin with a butter knife into a jug that has mls on it, it has straight sides so then I just run the knife around the sides of the jug to get it all out into the choc/butter mix.

Toto Wolfcastle

When I was a kid my neighbours used to make an amazing biscuit cake using crushed biscuits. It was delicious and I still make it the odd time. There's nothing wrong with it. It's just a different kind of chocolate biscuit cake.

Cerulean Chicken

Bobblehead Panda wrote: »

When I was a kid my neighbours used to make an amazing biscuit cake using crushed biscuits. It was delicious and I still make it the odd time. There's nothing wrong with it. It's just a different kind of chocolate biscuit cake.

Yeah, but if someone was expecting it to be like the more typical biscuit cake (from what they previously tasted etc) it would be quite different. I like the broken biscuit one but not the crushed biscuit type at all for example, just wanted to explain that that detail could make it quite different.

deelite

Went down a treat with himself and the kids, and there's still lots left. I wasn't expecting it be so nice.

Thanks everybody for your advice and help xxx.

mel703

I put crunchie bars in mine also and it is delicious!