I made Arsenic and Old Lace Cake Variation 5:- This recipe is taken from “Chocolate and Salted Caramel Squillionaire by Harry Eastwood (Page 140 in Red Velvet Chocolate Heartache - ISBN 9780593062364). This recipe is downright spoiled. Years of getting his own way mean that this squillionaire is opinionated, pedantic and often unreasonable. Patience is required at every level, but ....”

Ingredients
397g tin condensed milk
100g unsalted butter, melted
3 tablespoons golden syrup
300g digestive biscuits
a very small pinch of Malden sea salt
150g dark cooking chocolate (minimum 70% cocoa solids)

 

Equipment
You will need 30 Cupcake cases - 50mm base diameter, 38mm depth.

 

Method
Preheat the fan oven to 160 degrees Centigrade.

To make the caramel, place the tin of condensed milk in a medium saucepan (not non-stick). Fill the pan with boiling water until it has run over the top of the tin. Boil hard for 1 hour, remembering to top up the water.

To make the biscuit base, put the butter and golden syrup in a heatproof dish in the oven for 5 minutes to melt. Crush the biscuits by blitzing in a food processor to get a sand consistency. Then, blitz the melted butter and syrup into the biscuit. Fork it into the 30 cup cases to about 12mm thick. Bake for 20 minutes in the middle of the oven, before taking out and placing onto a wire rack.

The recipe states “Remove the tin of condensed milk from the water after 1 hour and open it carefully... Sprinkle in the salt flakes, give it a good stir and pour the thick caramel over the biscuit base”. I let it cool for 15 minutes, opened the tin and using a flexible spatula I ladled dollops onto the bases without adding the salt.

Place the cup cakes in the freezer for 20 minutes whilst the chocolate melts in a bowl over boiling water until is smooth and runny. Ladle a teaspoon of chocolate over each cake to make the third layer. Put cakes in the fridge for 20 minutes until cold. Keeps for 5 days in an airtight tin.

 

I suspect that it was not until a person had eaten 4 out the 20 consumed at the Medway Fair Traders Scheme Network meeting, that she may have decided that they were edible!

 

PS.
You do need at least 300g more chocolate to give 3 teaspoons of chocolate per cupcake instead of 1.

Fortunately ingredients of Arsenic and Old Lace were not included in the cakes mixture!!