Dec 04 2008
What a treat!
Finally made these, after holding out in vain for an elusive ingredient.
- Lunchbox Treats
Nigella calls for one of those ‘London Ingredients’ in this recipe; Rice Malt Syrup. It’s made by Clearspring (presumably amongst others) and Waitrose stock lots of Clearspring products: no joy. You also get Clearspring in various Hippy Shops but we had no joy there either. Internet-fu suggested Asian Supermarkets but they looked at us like we were a little crazy. The end of December was looming, so we died a little inside and just went with Golden Syrup.
Let me tell you, Rice Malt Syrup must have some amazing stick-things-together-whilst-not-sticking-to-you properties. Because Nigella suggests rolling these treats into walnut-shaped balls, which was just not possible for us. I ended up with hands totally coated with sticky cereals, which steadfastly refused to clump together at all. We conceeded defeat and started putting them in petit-four cases and fairy cake cases instead.
The mini treats in the petit-four cases looked brilliant and would be a dainty thing to serve with coffee at the end of a dinner party, not a use I’d thought of for them. However I didn’t get to eat a single one as D took them all to work. The bigger ones, however, were really cracking with a big mug of strong milky coffee. We’ve not quite finished them yet. They taste kinda nutty, which is presumably down to the sesame seeds, and with this far more sophisticated than they ought, being as they are basically crispie cakes. They were easy to make (once we gave up on balling them!) so I’ll probably do these again, the next time we have a bring-a-cake day at work. Perhaps next time I’d supplement the chocolate with some maltesers, to make up for the absence of the malt syrup.
