Sometimes birthdays happen while you’re camping, sailing or when it’s too hot to bake. Although it may seem impossible you can still make a fabulous birthday cake even with limited electricity, scarce water and without heating up the house. All you need are some basic ingredients, an 8-by-8-inch pan and a day’s notice. Here’s a delightfully simple “cake” recipe (shhh it’s actually fudge) that’s guaranteed to bring a huge smile to everyone celebrating:
Ingredients
- ⅓ cup unsalted butter
- 300mL can sweetened condensed milk
- 3 cups of chocolate chips (2 x 300 gram bags)
- ½ teaspoon vanilla
Instructions
- Lightly grease the baking pan.
- Add butter, sweetened condensed milk and chocolate chips to a medium saucepan.
- Over low heat, mix constantly until everything melts. The mixture should look shiny.
- Remove from heat, add vanilla.
- Keep stirring until mixture is thick.
- Pour into greased pan.
- Decorations can include: sea salt, colourful sprinkles, crushed nuts, dry fruit or berries.
- Chill until firm.
- If you don’t have refrigeration, cover the pan and leave somewhere cool to harden overnight.
PRO TIP: To make different flavours of fudge, only use ¼ teaspoon of vanilla and ¼ teaspoon of different extract flavours like mint, orange, or coffee. For an adult version, add rum!
And, of course, the beauty of this recipe extends to kitchen clean-up. This sugary mess will dissolve in water with a few quick wipes of a microfibre cloth. And, with only two pans to clean, you’ll have so much more time to celebrate!
Photo by Alexander Dummer
