Cook with your children

Maltesers® surprise cake

SERVES 15 a PREP 40 MINS a COOK 1 HRS 20 MINS PLUS COOLING a A LITTLE EFFORT

175g caster sugar 175g butter, softened 2 medium eggs 1 medium egg yolk 175g self-raising four 1/2 tsp vanilla extract 1 x 121g packet Maltesers® a little apricot jam FOR THE ICING 1 x 121g packet of Maltesers® 2-3 tbsp single cream or milk

1 Heat the oven to 160C/140C fan/gas 3. Lightly grease a dome-shaped cake tin or 20cm heatproof Pyrex bowl. 2 Beat together the sugar, butter, eggs, egg yolk, four and vanilla extract using an electric food mixer for about 2 mins until pale. Spoon into the prepared tin or bowl, level the surface and bake for 1 hr 5-10 mins, or until a skewer inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean. 3 Remove from the heat and leave to cool for 10 mins, then turn out on to a wire rack and leave to cool completely. 4 Place the cake on a plate, then cut in half horizontally across the middle and hollow out the centre of the bottom slice with a pastry cutter, within 1.5cm of the edges. Fill with as many Maltesers as possible and put the top back on, brushing on warmed apricot jam to help it stick, then press down. 5 For the icing, place the Maltesers in a plastic bag and, using a rolling pin, very fnely crush. Transfer to a pan with the cream or milk and bring slowly to the boil, stirring until the Maltesers are melted and smooth. Remove from the heat and allow to cool until the mixture is thick enough to spread. Spread over the cake and arrange any remaining Maltesers around the edges. Allow to cool completely before serving. W hen it comes to sharing fun moments with your nearest and dearest, baking has to be one of the nation’s top picks – especially when you add in Maltesers and Comic Relief’s Red Nose Day.

With one of the UK’s favourite chocolate treats and one of Britain’s best-loved charities in the mix, it’s a win-win situation. Not only can you enjoy and share the deliciously light chocolate in all manner of wonderfully tempting baked delights, but you’ll also be raising money for a really good cause at the same time. That’s because Maltesers, an official partner to the UK charity, is again this year selling specially designed Red Nose Day packs to help raise £1 million for the charity, with 5p being donated from every pack sold.

And, since the much-loved chocolate is the perfect baking ingredient, Maltesers is also sharing a selection of delicious recipes with you so you can have a laugh with friends and bake yourselves silly. All in the name of a charity that works tirelessly year round for a just world, free from poverty.

You can find a variety of simple and tasty recipes online at maltesers.co.uk, but in the meantime, try making the easy and delectable sweet treat here, Maltesers surprise cake (see left), to get going.

THE ICING ON THE CAKE

Comic Relief’s Red Nose Day is a great excuse for people across the country to get together and do something fun for money. So why not do some baking for this Red Nose Day on Friday 13 March, and hold your own bake sale to help raise even more funds?

It will give you the chance to spoil your friends, family and work mates with lovely cake, but it also means Comic Relief can use the money you raise to help people living incredibly tough lives in the UK and across Africa. Just £180 is enough to pay for three orphaned children in Zambia to go to school for a year, while £100 could pay for 20 lonely older people in the UK to go to a dinner club and make new friends. Every little bit counts.

See the box below for a few pointers on where to start and how to make your bake sale a real showstopper with Maltesers. So go on, what are you waiting for?

Get ready for your bake sale with Maltesers

Whether you do it at work, at school, or your local community centre, organising a bake sale is easy, as Maltesers has created a Bake Yourselves Silly pack to help you get it off to a great start. Follow these easy steps for a top sale: • Download the Bake Yourselves Silly pack from maltesers.co.uk. • Get your friends and family to join in on the fun. • Have a look at the tasty recipes on maltesers.co.uk to get inspiration. • Buy your ingredients – including Maltesers or Teasers to add extra deliciousness to your cakes. • Bake yourselves silly! • Use the downloadable pack to add pizzazz. There are flags to decorate your cakes with, rosettes to award the yummiest and silliest, a stencil to help you add an icing sugar smiley face to creations and a table talker to help you advertise your sale.