This week I have been experimenting with marshmallows.  It was about time I took some cakes into work after having changed jobs, and there were a few grumbles about where the infamous cakes were, so I spent Sunday afternoon cooking up a frenzy.

I decided to make two different types but to use the same base cake and fill and decorate each half differently – I just use a simple 8oz cake mixture (4 eggs, 8oz margarine, 8oz sugar, 8oz, self-raising flour with a splash of milk and vanilla essence) which gives a fairly standard light and moist sponge.

I halved the mixture and added fudge pieces to one half, these were very tasty but ended up sinking to the bottom and forming a fudgy crust at the bottom of the cake – tasty but not quite the intended effect.  Next time I’ll try covering them with flour before adding to see if this will keep them from sinking in the oven.

Half of the cakes I piped lemon curd into when they were fresh out of the oven using the Bismarck icing nozzle – this adds a nice subtle lemony flavour to the centre of the cake, however I need to work on getting a bit more lemon in the centre of each cake to get some tangy lemon in every bite.

The marshmallow centres were made from melting some big marshmallows in a double boiler and piping them into a ready-made hole in the middle of the cake – I definitely did not make the holes big enough this time.  I tried spooning the mixture into the holes but the melted mallow was pretty sticky and the best method I found was to pipe it in using a disposable piping bag – it was so sticky that washing a icing bag would have been hard work.

I used some new paper cases this time, they look much more professional and give a great finish to the cakes but I did struggle gauging the right amount of cake mixture and it was very hard to ice the cakes without getting it all over the cases!  They were also great as the opened out into a bit of a plate when eating and could then just be thrown away – perfect for cakes in the office.

The icing was probably the best part of the cakes this time – I made one large batch of butter cream and coloured half yellow – for the lemon cakes and piped it on using a 1M nozzle and sprinkled with some pale yellow glitter.  The marshmallow cakes had mini marshmallows mixed in with the buttercream, I used the whole bag (180g) and I first I thought I had put too many in, but the results spoke for themselves and more was much better.  The finishing touch was some bright pink glitter – you could tell who had eaten a cake in the office by the glitter left around their mouth!

Wonderfully delicious cakes… here are some of the comments from the tasters at work:

“No doubt one of the most unhealthy, but most delicious, things I’ve had to eat in a long while”

“yumyumyum”

“Delicious – very light”

“your glittery marshmallow cake was lovely”