Sugar and Crumbs

Last week I received a parcel in the post from Sugar and Crumbs asking me if I would sample three of their new natural flavoured icing sugars and natural flavour cocoa powders for them.  I was more than happy to do so!

The three lovely pink packets I received from them were 250g Pink Lemonade Icing Sugar, 125g Coconut Lime Icing Sugar and 30g Chocolate Lime Cocoa Powder.  They certainly sounded lovely and looked lovely, especially the Coconut Lime Icing Sugar and one other think I was pleased to see was that they came in re-sealable packets, very useful.

The next decision was what to make.  I didn’t want to go down the route of using them all for icing, so it was out with the baking books to have a flick through for ideas.  I wanted to create something new with them.  After an evening of tapping away on my laptop, I had created three new recipes.  (All the recipes are at the bottom of this blog should you wish to bake them too.)

It was time to bake …

The first cake I made was a ‘Lime and Coconut Cake’.   I think this cake was the one I was most excited about as the flavours sounded amazing.  When I opened the packet I was literally blown away to a Caribbean island, the smell was divine.  I had to quickly dip my finger in to taste a little.  I wasn’t disappointed you could taste the lime first, but then the coconut came through.  I did keep a little icing sugar back and mixed this with a little water to make a smooth icing to pipe over the top.  The verdict from the whole family was definitely positive, in fact they loved it.  It didn’t stay around very long at all.  My husband actually had some for his breakfast the next day.  The flavours were just about right in the cake, not too over-powering, but strong enough to give you the taste of the Caribbean for a little while.  This is definitely one I’ll make again.

Onto my second cake.  I decided to make a ‘Pink Lemonade Swiss Roll’.  I made the Swiss Roll in the usual way, but decided to add some pink colouring to it, just to make it a little different.  Once the Swiss Roll had cooled I made a simple buttercream with the Pink Lemonade icing Sugar.  Again, I had a little taste, this was something I hadn’t tasted before and although it tasted good, it was very, very sweet.  The buttercream was put into the cake and rolled up.  It’s probably a cake that would go down very well at a little girl’s birthday party.  It was very pink!  Personally, I wasn’t too keen on this flavouring it was, as I feared far too sweet for me.  My children thought the same, but my husband loved it.  In fact I think he probably ate the majority of it.  I think I should have put some raspberries into the cake to as the sharpness of them would have offset the sweetness of the buttercream.

Finally my third cake – well it wasn’t a cake, I decided to make a Chocolate Lime Cheesecake.  On opening the bag I was surprised at just how much you could smell the lime.  It was quite overpowering.  I used a biscuit base and the cocoa was added to the filling.  After making the two cakes above, we were all sugared out by now, so the cheesecake wasn’t sampled until the next day!  It was a nice cheesecake, again very sweet.  But one thing we all noticed was that although you could smell the lime, the flavour didn’t really come through when you ate it, which was unusual.  Again, this needed a good spoonful of cream to go with it to take away the sweetness or you could, as above, have decorated the top with some raspberries or other ‘tart’ fruit.

I will definitely be popping over to look at Sugar & Crumbs website for the other flavours they sell, as they are definitely different from anything else I’ve tried before and I’m now intrigued to try a few others.

Thank you Sugar and Crumbs for sending me the samples.  I’ve enjoyed baking with them and if you’d like me to sample any more, you know where I am!

I was sent the samples reviewed above by Sugar and Crumbs and all opinions stated are my own.

Lime and Coconut Cake

Ingredients

• 100g butter/margarine
• 175g self-raising flour
• 1tsp baking powder
• 100g Sugar and Crumbs Coconut & Lime icing sugar
• 75g caster sugar
• 200ml milk
• 2 eggs
•  25g Sugar and Crumbs Coconut & Lime Icing Sugar
• Small amount of water

Fan Oven 180°C

2lb loaf tin

 Method

1.  Grease and line the base of the tin.  Preheat the oven.
2. Weigh out all ingredients and put in a large mixing bowl.  Beat together until smooth.  Pour into tin.
3. Place in oven and bake for 40 minutes until golden brown and firm to the touch.
4. Mix together the remaining icing sugar and water to make a drizzle icing.
5. Remove the cake from the tin once cooled.
6. Drizzle the icing over the top and enjoy!!

Pink Lemonade Swiss Roll

 Ingredients

•  4 large eggs
• 100g caster sugar
• 100g self-raising flour
• Few drops pink food colouring
•  200g bag Sugar and Crumbs Pink Lemonade Icing Sugar
• 100g softened butter
• 1tbsp milk
• Raspberries

 Method

1.  Preheat the oven to Fan 200°C.  Grease and line a 33 x 23 Swiss roll tin
2. Whisk the eggs, sugar and food colouring together until the mixture is light and frothy and the whisk leaves a trail when lifted out.  You may have to keep adding a few more drops of food colouring until you get the colour pink that you require.
3. Sift the flour into the mixture and carefully fold it in.  If you’re making this in a food mixer, I would remove the bowl and fold the flour in using a metal spoon – you don’t want to knock all the air out of it, otherwise you’ll end up with a very dense cake!
4. Pour the mixture into the tin and give it a gentle shake so that it finds its own level.  Make sure it has spread evenly into the corners.
5. Bake for 10 minutes or until the sponge is beginning to shrink from the edges.
6. Whilst the cake is cooking, place a piece of baking parchment a little bigger than the Swiss roll tin onto the worktop and sprinkle the surface with caster sugar.
7. Turn the cake out onto the parchment and peel of the paper.  Trim the edges to make them neat.  Score a mark approximately 2cm in from the edge along one of the short sides, but be careful not to cut all the way through!
8. Leave to cool.
9. Mix the softened butter, icing sugar and milk together until it is pale and fluffy.  If you want you can colour this too!  Spread the buttercream over the surface of the Swiss Roll.  Roll the cake up firmly from the scored end.
10. Colour some caster sugar with a little pink colouring and sprinkle over the top of the cake.

Chocolate and Lime Cheesecake

Ingredients

•  250g digestive biscuits
• 100g butter
• 425g soft cream cheese
• 30g Sugar & Crumbs Chocolate Lime Cocoa
• 60g icing sugar
• 200ml double cream

23cm round loose bottom flan tin or other suitable container

 Method

1.  Melt the butter in a saucepan.
2. Crush the biscuits in a bag with a rolling-pin or whatever you have to hand!
3. Add the crushed biscuits to the melted butter and mix thoroughly so the biscuits are completely covered.  Pour into the tin and press down firmly.  Allow to chill and set in the fridge.
4. Combine the cheese and icing sugar and whisk until combined.
5. Add the cream and whisk until fairly firm and thick.
6. Spread over the biscuit base and smooth out evenly.
7. Chill in the fridge for at least 4 hours or overnight.
8. Remove from the fridge approximately 30 minutes before serving.  This will allow you to remove it from the tin.
9. Decorate if you wish with some chocolate shavings or raspberries or something similar.