Tag: sweet

‘Bar snack’ no-bake crispy treats

Sweet salty crispy no-bake treats

Like a lot of people, I love food that combines sweet and salty flavours. Sweet and salty popcorn, salted caramel, anything of that nature. But I’ve got to say, it’s hard to get right.

I’m sure we’ve all bought some salted caramel treat, for instance (chocolate, ice cream etc.) and thought…I can’t really taste the salt. That’s why I think it has to be added to desserts carefully, so that it can spark off the other flavours as intended. In my Salty Dog biscuits, for instance, the little sprinkling of salt on the top is a great foil to the citrus flavours of the biscuit.

Sweet salty crispy no-bake treats

For my latest bake (or non-bake), I decided to combine some salty snacks with a classic marshmallow crispy rice treat. I was worried that the texture of the treat would become homogenously crispy but no- the puffed rice has a little chew to it, the pretzels are crisp and the peanuts are chunky. The saltiness is located within the pretzels and peanuts, so that you get bursts of saltiness instead of an overall salty flavour.

Pretzel peanut rice crispy treat

I cut the treats into small chunks as I expected them to be sickly sweet, but they turned out milder than I expected. I used gluten-free puffed rice without any added sugar, so perhaps that’s why. If you like your treats sweeter then use sweetened puffed rice, or perhaps drizzle these with some melted chocolate.

Texturally, these treats are unique and moreish. I think they’d be great as an alternative snack for a movie night or a football game. As you can see, this recipe filled up two small pans; halve the recipe if needed.

Sweet salty pretzel peanut crispy treat

‘Bar snack’ crispy treats

200g marshmallows

1 and 1/2 tbsps butter

150g gluten-free puffed rice

100g salted peanuts

100g gluten-free pretzels

  1. Prepare two small pans with baking paper.
  2. Chop the pretzels (not too much).
  3. Melt the marshmallows with the butter over a medium heat until liquified.
  4. Add the marshmallow mixture to the other ingredients and stir well.
  5. Press into the pans and put into the fridge for a few hours. Once chilled, slice them into however many pieces you desire. A bit of oil on the knife might help, I used coconut oil.
  6. Keep them in the fridge or freeze them!

Mini sweet and savoury Dutch babies

This week I find myself in a bit of a challenging situation. I’m staying with my boyfriend for a few days. That’s not the challenging bit…it’s the fact that he owns no baking apparatus. No scales, no mixer, not even any oven gloves. He doesn’t mind this arrangement, but I’ve got a baking blog to uphold.

I could have brought some of my own equipment across the length of the country, but I decided not to. Instead I am going to make recipes to the best of my ability, following my baker’s instinct, and then guesstimate the quantities in my recipes. Not only that, I decided to make a recipe today which I’ve never made before.

Mini Dutch babies

Dutch babies, or Dutch pancakes, are a cross between pancakes and Yorkshire puddings. The cooking process is the same as for Yorkshires: you heat a muffin tin in the oven, pour in some melted butter, and the pancake batter, which should puff in the oven. I’ve never made a Yorkshire pudding before, but I’ve certainly made pancakes enough times to know what a pancake batter should look like.

I suppose what I’m trying to show with this recipe is that you can create something tasty (and dare I say, a bit elegant in a chunky sort of way?) with very little equipment and few ingredients. The batter itself consists only of butter, flour, milk and eggs, and then the fillings are up to you.

I decided to create a sweet and savoury version, filling one half of the batch with garlicky wilted spinach, goats cheese, and a red pepper sauce. This was inspired by my travels in Montenegro, where I ate a lot of Dalmatian stew: wilted chard with garlic and soft chunks of boiled potato. I couldn’t find any chard in the supermarket but spinach works nicely as a substitute.

Mini Dutch babies with goats cheese, spinach and red pepper

I decided to simply top the others with some sliced berries and yoghurt flavoured with a little cinnamon and maple syrup. These would be great if you were doing breakfast for a lot of people (less time consuming than making endless pancakes over a stove). If you choose to make sweet ones only, add one tablespoon of sugar into your pancake batter.

Mini Dutch babies with yoghurt and berries

The Dutch babies, once baked, are golden and crispy on the outside, but soft in the middle. Mine didn’t all develop a dip in the middle as expected. I hesitated to hollow them out myself because that seemed wasteful, but it’s necessary if you want to place your filling inside.

It was great to try something new, and I’ll definitely be making this recipe again. I think they could be nice rolled in cinnamon sugar after baking. Make this recipe yourself if you’re keen to try something new, or if you’re stuck somewhere without any scales.

Gluten Free Dutch Babies (makes 12):

1 mugful gluten free self raising flour

4 tbsps melted butter or alternative (I used sunflower oil spread)

3 eggs

1 mugful milk or alternative

1 tbsp sugar (if making sweet pancakes only)

Savoury (makes 12):

150g soft goats cheese

125g marscarpone

1 clove garlic

200g spinach

Red pepper dip

Sweet (makes 12):

Berries of your choice (I used strawberries and blueberries)

Unsweetened Greek full-fat yoghurt

Maple syrup

Cinnamon

  1. Place a muffin tin in your oven and set it to 200 degrees fan.
  2. Start by preparing your fillings/garnishes. For the savoury fillings: finely mince the garlic clove and place it in a frying pan with a little oil on medium heat until the garlic becomes fragrant. Add the spinach and stir until it is wilted. Place the spinach into a sieve and press some of the water out with a spoon. Set the spinach aside for later.
  3. In a separate bowl, mix the goats cheese with the marscarpone and season with salt and pepper. Set aside.
  4. If you’re making sweet pancakes, mix some yoghurt with maple syrup and cinnamon to taste. Slice the berries and set aside.
  5. To make the pancakes whisk two tablespoons of the melted butter with the other ingredients.
  6. Carefully bring the hot muffin tin out of the oven and pour some of the remaining butter into each section. Then pour the batter into the tin so that each section is about two thirds full.
  7. Bake for 15 minutes. They should be puffy, golden and crisp. When they’re done, they may be a bit greasy from the butter, so put them on a piece of kitchen paper to soak up any grease before filling them.