Kit Kat Cake

Yesterday I made a cake for my lovely housemate, Sylvia. She turned 21 over the Christmas holidays and we finally got everyone together to celebrate with add-your-own-toppings pizza and cake.

Sylvia loves Kit Kats and simple flavours so I made a vanilla sponge filled with vanilla cream cheese icing and surrounded in Kit Kat fingers and topped with a swirl of chocolate in the cream cheese icing. 

It was pretty awesome buying all these Kit Kats, though unfortunately I had exactly the right number so no nibbling for me. I had some plans for a fancier design but the fingers were too heavy and the icing too soft. 

We served the cake with homemade French vanilla ice cream (recipe here) and David Lebovitz's classic hot fudge sauce from The Perfect Scoop. Incredibly rich but delicious. 

I've finally sorted out a good place to photograph and bought some nice mounting card for a background. I like the thick Jersey cream colour of it. 

I'm not including a recipe as the vanilla cake is slightly adapted from this recipe. The cream cheese icing recipe isn't right yet - there's a flaw in the method that I'm going to change next time. Otherwise you just need to arrange the Kit Kats!

Alfajores

I made these the day before I left Switzerland, almost a month ago. I suppose that's testament to how hectic things are. I definitely wasn't wavering over the recipe - it's a keeper. 

I had to try these because the recipe is unusual - more cornflour than flour, brandy in a biscuit etc etc. I can't help myself with these things - I have to find out how it works and tastes. 

I used some of the dulce de leche I made for my banoffee pies to make these. The recipe is from David Lebovitz, here. It's a great recipe, especially if you don't like the idea of boiling tins.  I needed to cook mine for a little longer - I'd like it to be a deeper gold. 

Though the biscuits are delicious sandwiched, mum and I actually thought that they were very nice on their own. You lose quite a bit of the subtlety of the biscuit with the big flavour of the dulce. Either way, they're delicious!

They're also quite crumble and delicate. Don't do as I did and try and take a few on a trip in a bag - I ended up with a bag of (admittedly tasty) crumbs. 

Alfajores

(adapted from Lindsay Cooks)

95g cornflour

70g plain flour

1/2 tsp baking powder

75g caster sugar

75g butter

1 1/2 tbsp brandy or cognac

1/4 of a lemon zested

2 egg yolks

Preheat the oven to 180C/350F. Sift together the cornstarch, flour and baking powder into a bowl and set aside. In a mixer, beat the butter and sugar together until pale and fluffy. Add the brandy and zest and beat in. Add yolks one by one, beating in between. Add the contents of the flour bowl and slowly beat in. Knead for a minute or two. Divide into two. Roll out into a 1/4" thickness. Cut out with a cookie cutter and place on lined baking sheet spaced 1" apart.  Roll out any scraps. Bake in the oven for 12-15 minutes until golden. Leave to cool. Fill with a heaped tsp of dulce de leche and sandwich. 

(Makes 10 when sandwiched)