You help yourself to tea, and make nothing for me
Last night, I was making cake to feed a bunch of people coming round this weekend. Among other things, I got out The Best Cake Recipe Ever.
Now, I'm not claiming that it makes the best cake ever: that would be quite a claim. However, it is the Best Cake Recipe Ever for these reasons:
1. It is trivially simple to make. No baking required, even.
2. It's a wartime recipe made with margarine. Make it with something like Stork and choose your chocolate carefully, and your cake is dairy-free.
3. It's got no eggs. See also (2), you can feed it to vegans.
4. It's got no flour. You can feed it to coeliacs.
5. I've never (yet) met anyone who didn't like it (although for one person I do have to miss the chocolate covering off, because she's allergic to chocolate).
And so it is my go-to recipe for just about every occasion (the only exception being people who are on a totally fat-free diet). Although (as mentioned) it's not the best cake in the world, it has the highest cake quality output to effort input ratio of anything I know. It's a recipe I got from my mum, and has been a staple throughout my life - but even she doesn't know who the Millie Piper named in the recipe is...
You need:
4 oz sugar
4 oz margarine (or butter)
6 oz dried dates
1 oz glacé cherries
3 oz rice kripsies (or similar brand-free rice-based cereal)
chocolate for icing [*]
Chop up the dates and cherries into small pieces. If you want a really palaver-free cooking experience, buy ready-chopped dried dates.
In a large saucepan[**], melt the marg, sugar, dates and cherries together. When it's all melted and nicely gooey, stir in the rice krispies.
Put into a swiss roll tin [***] and press it all flat with a fork. Press firmly.
Melt the chocolate, pour over and spread evenly. If you're that way inclined, sprinkle hundreds and thousands or other cakey-prettifiers over it. Put in fridge. When set, slice into fingers (hence the name; actually I usually do squares).
And that's it.
"But Venta," you cry. "You promised us exciting cake, and that's just krispie cake!"
Well, yes. What did you expect with a trivial recipe without eggs and flour? But trust me, it's quite a lot more exciting than bog-standard krispie cake. It's the dates that make the difference, I reckon - I've substituted dried apricots for the cherries before now when I'd run out of cherries.
Or, as a friend of mine put it: "What do you mean it's got dates in it? It can't have, it's nice!"
[*] Dairy-free chocolate is harder than you think; most plain chocolate has dairy in. Check carefully if it's important. I use Green & Black's 70% Dark, which says in its allergy advice "may contain traces of milk" - they don't put milk in, but it's made in the same factory as milky stuff. I know this is ok for my dairy-allergic person. Check with yours if worried :)
My sized cake takes about two packets of G&B's to cover nicely.
[**] Yes, large. You've got to fit 3oz of rice krispies in there. And that's quite a lot.
[***] That is, if you're not familiar, a shallow rectangular tin. Mine's about 9" x 7", which is a little on the large side (the cake comes out quite thin). I don't think it really matters. You could probably squash it into cupcake cases if you felt like it. It's not a very exact science.
Now, I'm not claiming that it makes the best cake ever: that would be quite a claim. However, it is the Best Cake Recipe Ever for these reasons:
1. It is trivially simple to make. No baking required, even.
2. It's a wartime recipe made with margarine. Make it with something like Stork and choose your chocolate carefully, and your cake is dairy-free.
3. It's got no eggs. See also (2), you can feed it to vegans.
4. It's got no flour. You can feed it to coeliacs.
5. I've never (yet) met anyone who didn't like it (although for one person I do have to miss the chocolate covering off, because she's allergic to chocolate).
And so it is my go-to recipe for just about every occasion (the only exception being people who are on a totally fat-free diet). Although (as mentioned) it's not the best cake in the world, it has the highest cake quality output to effort input ratio of anything I know. It's a recipe I got from my mum, and has been a staple throughout my life - but even she doesn't know who the Millie Piper named in the recipe is...
You need:
4 oz sugar
4 oz margarine (or butter)
6 oz dried dates
1 oz glacé cherries
3 oz rice kripsies (or similar brand-free rice-based cereal)
chocolate for icing [*]
Chop up the dates and cherries into small pieces. If you want a really palaver-free cooking experience, buy ready-chopped dried dates.
In a large saucepan[**], melt the marg, sugar, dates and cherries together. When it's all melted and nicely gooey, stir in the rice krispies.
Put into a swiss roll tin [***] and press it all flat with a fork. Press firmly.
Melt the chocolate, pour over and spread evenly. If you're that way inclined, sprinkle hundreds and thousands or other cakey-prettifiers over it. Put in fridge. When set, slice into fingers (hence the name; actually I usually do squares).
And that's it.
"But Venta," you cry. "You promised us exciting cake, and that's just krispie cake!"
Well, yes. What did you expect with a trivial recipe without eggs and flour? But trust me, it's quite a lot more exciting than bog-standard krispie cake. It's the dates that make the difference, I reckon - I've substituted dried apricots for the cherries before now when I'd run out of cherries.
Or, as a friend of mine put it: "What do you mean it's got dates in it? It can't have, it's nice!"
[*] Dairy-free chocolate is harder than you think; most plain chocolate has dairy in. Check carefully if it's important. I use Green & Black's 70% Dark, which says in its allergy advice "may contain traces of milk" - they don't put milk in, but it's made in the same factory as milky stuff. I know this is ok for my dairy-allergic person. Check with yours if worried :)
My sized cake takes about two packets of G&B's to cover nicely.
[**] Yes, large. You've got to fit 3oz of rice krispies in there. And that's quite a lot.
[***] That is, if you're not familiar, a shallow rectangular tin. Mine's about 9" x 7", which is a little on the large side (the cake comes out quite thin). I don't think it really matters. You could probably squash it into cupcake cases if you felt like it. It's not a very exact science.