I made Violet Crumble - that's chocolate honeycomb to you non-Aussies

There are a lot of chocolate bars (or candy bars as an American would call them) that exist in Australia and nowhere else.  Well, possibly in New Zealand too, but as I've been in the UK for the last ____  years then here is where I need them.  Some of these bars are, in no particular order, Violet Crumble, Chokito, Polly Waffle, White Knight, Peppermint Crisp  oh my gosh, I've just read that Polly Waffles were discontinued in 2009 due to poor sales after 62 years!  Darn it, if only I'd liked them more  ;)

Anyway, I digress.  I love all of these chocolate bars and have told the girls about them too - in preparation for our upcoming trip to Melbourne later this year.  It's Mr Becca's and my first trip back in over a decade, and the girls have never been, so to say we're excited might be understating it just a little.  Me, I'm excited about all the chocolate bars and sweets (lollies in Aussie vernacular) I'll get to eat.  After all, diets don't exist in other countries, do they??

Hmmm, digressing again.

So anyway, I made some honeycomb for the first time ever.  And parts of it tasted just like I remember Violet Crumbles used to taste.  Result!!

I had a chance to use the sugar thermometer I had bought not so long ago, which was fun in and of itself.  It's surprising how long a watched pot actually does take to boil to 150c.  And then it all happened so suddenly that it wasn't so funny any more.

The recipe said to do everything quickly once it reached the right temperature, so I did.  But for next time I shall mix the bicarbonate of soda more thoroughly, and hope that the golden syrup doesn't sink so much to the bottom of the heavily oiled, foil-lined pan when poured out.  

Apart from that though, it was delicious.

As mentioned, in parts it was a bit chewy so I thought it'd taste better chocolate coated.  The next day I melted a mix of milk and dark chocolate and got to work.

For future reference, I think I'll just use the whole amount as milk chocolate as I feel it would taste better.  But there were no complaints on the taste, and every last bit was nibbled up by The Team and our friends.  So pleased!

Home-made honeycomb ice-cream? Yes please!

A while ago I was approached by the makers of Angel Delight to try out their new product, Angel Delight ice-cream.  Whilst it doesn't involve a proper ice-cream machine, or hours in the freezer then stirring and re-freezing, it is home-made ice-cream and you can add anything you like to make it more fun.

So we chose Crunchie bars - yumm!!  Now, in this instance, when I say we I mean I.  Although to be fair, I didn't really think the girls would complain too much at the thought of ice-cream full to bursting with crushed Crunchie bars. 

 I used all 4 bars, so we'd have plenty of 'bang for our buck', to coin a phrase.  Looking good so far...

Then it was popped into a container for the freezer.  You can see I didn't need any fancy equipment to make this - just a mixing bowl and simple handmixer.

Here we can see the finished product naked - choc-full of scrumptious honeycomb and chocolate chunks.  Mmmm

 And here one girl wanted chocolate sauce and coloured sprinkles...

 Whilst the other chose chocolate sprinkles.  And what an after-dinner treat that was.

 

Hershey's Kisses don't melt well, fact.

I've recently gone through my baking store cupboard, to check if any items are nearing their use-by date.  And found some Hershey's Kisses and Crunchie (honeycomb choc) bars. 

There are odd other items, but I wanted to use these up first.  I had thought perhaps to do cookies, or pop them into a tray of brownies or cupcakes, but couldn't face eating any of those things.  Then I remembered a traybake I'd done in the past that used Crunchie's and was divine.  So I removed all the wrappers and got the chocolate ready to melt.

And the long and the short of it is, these Kisses don't really melt very well.  But I didn't learn that until a little too late.  If you look closely at the next image, you may see a little evidence on the top layer of the slice, where it seems to have separated slightly.  Nevermind, these were for us and it didn't affect the taste at all, agreed by the external taste-testers (non Team Becca).  Yummy!

Customer service matters. As does great cake...

As the school's here went back half-way through last week, all the toddler groups and extra-curricular activities resumed this week.  So we went back to Mini-1's sports classes and Mini-2's playgroups.  Friday morning's is my favourite, because I've met so many lovely mums there and enjoy catching up with them most weeks.  However, at about age 4 Mini-1 kind of outgrew it, as the 4yr olds tend to get morning nursery places in that area and both Mini-1 and Mini-2 had/have afternoon places.  Thus there is a predominance of 1, 2 and young 3 year olds so less kids for Mini-2 to play with.  As such, we may not go there so much from now on :(

But on to the point of this post - two mums spoke with me about cake (how exciting) at Friday's group, and I was able to help them both.  One wanted an Octonauts cake that I felt was a bit beyond my current capabilities, and the other wanted a traybake for guests coming over on Sunday.  I was able to help the first lady by suggesting other local bakers, more proficient at sugarcraft than I, and thrill the other lady with a golden sparkly Sweet & Salty Crunch Slice at short notice - so everyone was happy!

It doesn't look like much in the tray, but it sure does taste good!!

Sorry Rich, sweet & salty crunch nut slice

We caught up with an old friend today, Rich, meeting at Stirling Castle (about halfway between our cities).  He is an avid follower of our Facebook page (www.facebook.com/beccabakes2) and so knows that we bake often.  Thus he was most disappointed when we arrived empty-handed.  I was secretly pleased, because I didn't think he'd mind.  So, as a way to ensure I don't disappoint anyone else this week, I whipped up a Sweet & Salty Crunch Nut Slice for our picnic lunch at Falkland Palace tomorrow (yet again, about halfway between us and tomorrow's friends).  We're seeing different friends on both Tuesday and Wednesday, so I'm not yet sure what we'll do for that.  Cupcakes are the best bet, because a batch goes a long way... But we've done them a lot lately, so perhaps something new?  Or at least different.  Any ideas?