Homemade Raider (now called Twix) for #PamK

The theme for "post/mail from my kitchen" is "childhood memories" this time. Since many of my sweet childhood memories (butter cream cake, waffles with vanilla sauce, truffles, Kinder-Riegel, ice cream) are unfortunately either impossible to mail or (almost) impossible to prepare at home, I had decided on homemade Toffifee and homemade Nutella. 

After I had searched, sorted and compared recipes, it occurred to me suddenly that my exchange partner has a hazelnut-incompatibility and thus both ideas were out! So I came up with homemade Raider or Twix - no hazelnuts and actually a special childhood memory for me, since I still remember the "Raider is now called Twix" - advertising in 1991 very well! So I baked a shortcrust base for my 22 x 22 cm brownie mold, the one I always use for the cashew toffees.

I was able to use the crème caramel (dulce di leche) from the Russian store which I wanted to use for the Toffifee for the Twix instead, but it was a bit softer than the original caramel.

Cashew Toffees

This recipe for cashew toffees, just as the  as Nougat Cookies, from my very first Brigitte Cookie magazine, and I als modified this recipe slightly. Cooking the condensed mass is a little difficult, you really have to be careful that nothing burns and stir all the time, and if the mass has not thickened enough, it bubbles up in the oven, takes a long time to solidify, and sticks very much at the cutting. But with some practice, it works quite well and the toffees are just so amazingly tasty that I take the trouble every year - I can really recommend them!

Zebra Muffins with Caramel Chunks

I think it's funny how we all searched for paper forms for muffins, especially when they were still hard to find, and now, you see a lot of chic bakeries just using plain baking paper squares instead - which seem even more chic to me than the good old paper forms! On the other hand, I thought it a bit exhausting to wrestle the dough into them. We shall see if my colleagues find the muffins comfortable to eat out of the paper squares tomorrow ;-)