Wallace and Gromit's BIG Bake for CookBlogShare

When I was approached to promote the Wallace and Gromit BIG Bake I really was intrigued. As a family we love Wallace and Gromit so I had to look into what it was. I discovered that the Wallace and Gromit Organisation is a children's charity that helps to improve the lives of sick children in hospitals and hospices. They rely on campaigns such as the BIG Bake to help raise funds to enable them to do this important work.

Since 2003, Wallace and Gromit's Children's Charity has given over £2 million in grants to 291 projects, in 93 different hospitals and hospices. This is providing life saving medical equipment, free family accommodation, a range of arts, music and play therapy programmes, sensory equipment and facilities as well as respite care.

I was amazed to read that the Wallace and Gromit Children's Charity is the only charity that supports sick children in hospitals and hospices in the UK.

This year baking queen Fiona Cairns has been announced as this years BIG Bake ambassador. They are urging the country to come together and have a big bake and sale. All of the money raised will go towards helping sick children and their families. The BIG Bake week is 7th December - 13th December 2015.

To get you going Fiona Cairns has created some recipes for bakes. Today I am sharing with you the Sticky Toffee Cupcakes with Salted Caramel Buttercream. These are delicious little cupcakes which really will impress at a cake sale! I did change the salted caramel buttercream to a salted caramel toffee sauce.

I thought that CookBlogShare would be the perfect place to share this great fund raiser!

This is how I got on...

Sticky Toffee Cupcakes

Ingredients - makes 12 cupcakes

For the cupcakes:

180g dates, pitted and chopped

1 tsp vanilla paste

180g self-raising flour

1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

80g unsalted butter, softened, I used President butter that I received in October's Degustabox

150g light muscovado sugar

2 eggs

For the caramel toffee:

125g white caster sugar

80ml double cream

½ tsp salt

1 tsp vanilla paste

Method

Preheat the oven to 180C / fan 170C / 350F / gas mark 4

1 - Place the chopped dates in a heat proof bowl and pour over 180ml boiling water over the dates, leave to soak for 20 minutes.

2 - After 20 minutes break up the dates with a fork and stir in the vanilla paste.

3 - Mix together the flour and bicarbonate of soda into a bowl.

4 - Mix together the butter and sugar until light and creamy.

5 - Add the eggs, one at a time along with a little flour to prevent curdling.

6 - Fold in the remaining flour and then the date mixture.

7 - Spoon the mixture into the cupcake cases and bake for 15 – 20 minutes.

8 - Once to cake are thoroughly bakes remove them from the cake tin and allow to cool. 

9 - To make the caramel toffee sauce dissolve the caster sugar in a pan with 60mls of water over a medium heat.

10 - Once the sugar has dissolved turn up the heat and bring to the boil.

11 - Leave the sugar water to boil until it thickens and turns a caramel colour, keep a close eye on the pan as once the sugar starts to turn it will quickly change colour.

12 - Once the sugar has turned golden brown remove from the heat immediately.

13 - Pour in the double cream, it will froth up but keep stirring until you have a smooth caramel sauce.

14 - Stir in the vanilla paste and the salt if you want to make a salted caramel sauce, then leave to cool completely before drizzling over the cupcakes. If you make a salted caramel, sprinkle over some sea salt to serve.

If you go to the official Wallace and Gromit's BIG Bake website you will find this recipe, plus others and materials to download for your own bake sale. Here you will also find where you can register to take part in the BIG Bake. If you do not have time or the chance to take part in the BIG Bake but would still like to contribute to the fundraising you can do by clicking donate.

Now back to CookBlogShare!

I would just quickly like to recap on the rules. You  can link up any foodie post, old or new, you must comment on the hosts blog post, add the CookBlogShare badge so that others can find us and comment on at least two others blogs. Remember that we all love a comment or two and the comments can make a bloggers day! So share the love!

I would love to see what you have been cooking up so without further ado, here is the linky!

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