My Dad first discovered Mr Kipling bar cakes (see here if you’re yet to be enlightened http://www.mrkipling.co.uk/) when he first went overseas to England. An aficionado in all things brightly colours and sugary, he was like a moth to a flame. Fast forward to now and these are readily available to us in Australia allowing him a constant supply of these sugary, processed yet delicious snack cakes.

Knowing how much he loves these cakes, I decided to come up with a homespun version where the base could remain the same, while the icing could be interchangeable (feel like chocolate? Make it chocolate. Like passionfruit? Whack some in). Very quick, very easy and made with all the usual baking suspects that I usually have knocking about. It’s a breeze, doubly so as everything is bunged into a food processor and whizzed up in no time.

Now the true hero (and main drawcard for my Father) is the lurid, absurdly bright pink icing; he’s not a man to fear pink. It is also, unapologetically so, flavoured with imitation strawberry. I love the stuff, but if the thought appals you (my condolences) feel free to find a natural version or substitute for a tablespoon of strawberry jam. For the trashy amongst us, you’ll find great joy in this.

Ingredients

Cake

100g room temperature butter

2 eggs (medium)

1 1/4 cups of plain flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon bi carb

3/4 cup caster sugar

1/2 cup milk (lukewarm)

1 teaspoon of vanilla extract

Icing

70g room temperature butter

1 heaped cup of sifted icing sugar

1 teaspoon imitation strawberry

Few drops of pink food colouring

Few drops of milk (may be needed, might not)

Method

Place the butter, eggs and sugar in a food processor and give it a blitz. Next add the vanilla along with another blitz.

After this, sift in the flour, baking soda, bi carb and drizzle in the milk. Whiz up again until the batter is smooth. You may need to get a spatula out and have a scrap around to make sure everything is fully combined.

Pour this mixture into a prepared tin (I used an 18cm x 28cm slice tin) and smooth the pale batter evenly. Bake for 15 minutes, the cake is quite shallow so it shouldn’t take long to bake.

Leave to sit in the tin for 10 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely. This is also my favourite part of baking which is peeling back the baking paper. For some reason this provides me with a sense of great accomplishment and satisfaction.

While the cake is cooling, get started with the icing. It’s very complicated and time consuming… You can either do this with a hand whisk or the food processor again, it doesn’t really matter. Whiz the butter until smooth and add the sifted icing sugar, before adding the essence and food colouring. See? Very hard…

Spread this ridiculously pink icing thickly onto the cake and serve. Sticking to the Kipling theme, I usually slice this into thick slices reminiscent of the original.

The icing is very sweet so this isn’t for the faint of heart. But if you’re a sugar head like my Dad or know one that is, make this special treat for them.

Do you have an baking-dupes you’ve created? Let me know and happy baking!

x Yak