Since wedding cakes tend to come in tiers, I’ve put together a set of figures for a whole range of tin sizes. I haven’t made anything as huge as the big ones myself, so I can’t swear to their failsafe-ness but the figures are accurately scaled up. If you are making a cake for anything important I would always urge you to have a dry run to make sure that everything works properly.

Choose either the metric or the imperial measurements, but don’t mix them up. For measuring small quantities in mls, use metric measuring spoons: 1 tsp = 5 mls. A random teaspoon out of the cutlery drawer may well not be anywhere near this.

The first set of measurements are in metric:

And in Imperial:

All the instructions are in the main madeira cake post. With the larger ones you may have to extend the baking time a little, but it’s not by as much as you might think as the depth of the cake is the same so the heat reaches the middle in pretty much the same time. As usual, use the gentle pressure of fingers to test the cake and you can always use a  skewer to test the centre if you wish.

NOT OK

McVitie’s Digestive Biscuits

These used to be fine, but were adulterated with skimmed milk powder a year or so ago. Motto: always read the label!

OK

Waitrose Essentials

Morning Coffee

These taste good and are small and nibblish. They are completely useless in a cheesecake base. They just don’t hold together. You’re left with a cheesecake which you can’t get off the plate except in dollops: not very attractive.

Ginger Nut

Bog standard ginger biscuit. Good and firm. Can be used to make a very tasty base for a baked cheesecake, but they can be very difficult to beat into submission to make crumbs! Beware, if you put fresh ginger biscuits into a food processor to crumb them from scratch, you’ll blunt your blade! Bash them hard first is my advice.

Fruit Shortcake

These are a family favourite. They do fill the back of the car with crumbs like few other biscuits I’ve come across, but they also taste really good!

Almond Biscuits

Bourbon Creams

Another fave. One of the very few “cream” biscuits which is dairy-free. Very more-ish.

Nice Biscuits

Digestive Biscuits

These remain the number one choice for cheesecake bases, whether baked or unbaked. They crush up finely and evenly and they absorb the melted spread/Tomor well, so they stick together properly.

Rich Tea

These can make a successful cheesecake base, but they do tend to go into very fine crumbs and make a slightly softer base than digestives. They work better in a baked cheesecake than an unbaked one.

Shortcake Biscuits

As usual, I shall add these to our reviews page for easy reference.

For this recipe you will need a food processor and a 1lb loaf tin (lined with silicone paper or a loaf tin liner).

Labelling issues

1. rdas

   We are all bombarded with “recommended daily allowances” (rda) of things these days. They turn up on most food packaging. However, we don’t hear very much about the fact that there are different rdas for children. This is particularly crucial when it come to salt. Plastered all over crisp packets and processed cheese stuff is the adult rda for salt, but what are the child’s figures? Well here they are:

   Babies = none

   Child 5-7yr old = 3g

   Child 7-10yr old = 4g

   Child 10-14yrs = 5g

   Adult = 6g

   This makes a huge difference when looking at the % of daily allowance figures on packaging. Far too many companies put the adult % of rda on products clearly aimed at the children’s lunchbox market. For instance, look at these:

   Oreo Snack Packs

   Each pack has 4 biscuits, but it says in very small print that the figures are per biscuit.

   
   

   Salt = 0.1g per biscuit = 2% rda

   That doesn’t look too bad, until you realise that this translates into:-

   
   

   Salt = 0.4g per pack = 13% child’s rda!!!

   IN 4 BISCUITS !

   These happen to have milk in them (as well as lots of sugar and salt!) so they’re not in the shopping list, they’re just here as an example of sneaky labelling.

2. Did You Know?

   Not all companies label salt as salt.

   Sounds odd, but it’s true. Some give you the sodium content and some even hide this by using the chemical symbol for the element sodium, Na.

   Why do they do this?

   Well, it just so happens that sodium only makes up part of salt, which is sodium chloride. So, of course, the figures look very much smaller for the sodium content than they would for the salt content. Responsible companies give you both the sodium content and what that means as salt, which is more than twice as much.

   Salt = Na (sodium) x 2.5

Some Top Salt Offenders

Morrison’s Twists 1.02g salt per portion	Dorito’s Cool Original 0.8g salt per portion
Tesco Value Sausage Roll 0.6g salt per portion	Real McCoy’s Salt and Vinegar 1.02g salt per portion

The last one would give a 5-7 yr old child a staggering 44% of its daily salt allowance in one small bag of crisps!!

It’s the sodium in salt which does the damage, but to make comparisons easily, you need all the labelling to be the same. It’s not helpful to have some companies giving the sodium content and some giving the salt content. For everybody to have a chance of drawing proper comparisons, the figures have to make sense and since rdas are given for salt rather than sodium, you have to wonder why food companies would choose to put the sodium content without the salt conversion…unless they don’t want us to know just how much salt is really in things…? To stand a chance of keeping track of the real salt content of many foods, you have to be prepared to stand in the supermarket multiplying things by 2.5 in your head. That’s after you’ve had the patience to find where on the pack they’ve chosen to hide the little box with the figures in the first place!

There will be more on this theme! Once you start looking you have to be concerned. Having become very concerned myself, I have to pass this on.

There is also the fact that you have to think about how you use these things. They are great for that car trip from school to an after school activity requiring energy such as swimming, football or dance. The sugars in these bars will give an instant lift to perk up a child who is fading a bit after a day in school, but the best also provide some longer burning fuel in the form of oats or rice. What you have to watch for are those which stack the odds in favour of sugar at the expense of cereal. These simply won’t provide the energy for a long enough period for the benefit to outweigh the cost. What these bars are not, is a good, healthy, guilt-free snack food which you can feel virtuous about eating as often as you like. The sugar content will start to translate into body fat the moment your energy needs are lower than your sugar intake.

Remember, children have much higher carbohydrate (starchy stuff) needs than adults do. They are very active and they’re growing. You just have to decide where you’re going to draw a sensible line.

To help, I’ve collected the sugar details for the milk-free cereal bars, as I did for the mueslis and granolas. Then you can look at the figures and make up your own minds which you want to use.

OK

Dove’s Farm

All these are Fairtrade, organic and vegan. They contain no wheat, no soya and no hydrogenated fat.

Chocolate and crispy rice bars

5 x 35g bars.  These are 40.8% sugars by weight, with 14.3g per bar. Obviously there’s sugar in the chocolate. They are £1.99 a box, which works out as £11.40/kg.

Fruity oat cereal bars

5 x 40g bars. These are 42.3% sugars by weight, with 16.9g per bar. Isn’t it interesting that the chocolate one has less sugar? Just goes to show, you shouldn’t always go on what you think you already know. They are £1.99 a box, which works out as £9.95/kg.

Tropical fruit and nut cereal bars

5 x 40g bars. These are 38.7% sugars by weight, with 15.5g per bar. These look good, but my kids don’t like them at all. I’ve ended up using up the box myself. I think they’re OK, but they really aren’t as special as they look. They are £2.19 a box, which works out as £11/kg.

Nature Valley

Canadian Maple Syrup Crunchy Granola Bars

These may be called “Nature Valley”, but there’s a lot of added sweet stuff in all of them.

6 x 2 bar packs. These are 25.2 % sugars, with 10.6g per 2 bar pack. They have added sugar, honey, maple syrup and molasses. They also have 0.3g salt per 2 bar pack. They are £2.30 a box, which works out as £9.13/kg.

Roasted Almonds Crunchy Granola Bars

6 x 2 bar packs. These are 25.1% sugars, with 10.5g per 2 bar pack. They have added sugar, honey and molasses. They also have 0.4g salt per 2 bar pack. Notice that as you lose 0.1g of sugar, (compared with the maple syrup ones) you gain 0.1g of salt to keep it as “tasty”. They are £2.30 a box, which works out as £9.13/kg.

Apple Crunch Crunchy Granola Bars

6 x 2 bar packs. These are 27.9% sugars, with 11.7g per 2 bar pack. They have added sugar, honey and molasses. They also have 0.1g salt per 2 bar pack. More sugar in these, so they’ve cut down the salt. They are £2.30 a box, which works out as £9.13/kg.

Nakd

These have no wheat, no gm ingredients and are vegan. They contain peanuts. They have no added sugar or salt and my kids think they’re great. However, the figures are vague. The carbohydrate figure is not broken down into sugars and starches. It’s just 56% carbohydrate. Some of that will be from the oats in them, but you can’t tell how much. Given the bars are 49% fruit and 9% apple juice, most of the carb figure is probably sugar. Natural sugar, but still sugar. The box says they are “guilt-free goodness”. I would dispute that. Nothing which is full of fruit and nuts can ever be eaten without thinking sensibly about the amount of energy you’re taking in and how much you actually use in a day.

Cocoa loco

The bars are 49% fruit and 9% apple juice. 56% carbohydrate. They are £1.99 a box, which works out as £16.60/kg!

Berry cheeky

All the same figures as above, though the actual ingredients are slightly different. They are £1.99 a box, which works out as £16.60/kg!

MAYBE

Nature Valley Fruit and Nut Chewy Trail Mix Bars

These have the “may contain” label, which is surprising, given the granola bars don’t have it. It’s hard to know how seriously to take these things, since they’re often just the corporate lawyers covering themselves. However, if you’re seriously allergic it’s always safest to avoid them. When you look at the list of added sugars, you might not want to eat them in any case (glucose syrup, sugar, caramel syrup, honey, sugar, fructose, maltodextrin & caramelized sugar)!!

Jordans

This company makes a wide range of bars. I found the same variety of bar in two different styles of wrapper, one of which said “may contain…” and the other of which didn’t. Again, part of the range was clearly labelled with the usual disclaimer and part of it wasn’t. I have no idea what Jordans are up to. All their mueslis are labelled “may contain…”, so they obviously have zealous corporate lawyers. When the labelling settles one way or the other, I’ll let you know. Until then, safer to avoid these.

NOT OK

Geobar

There are lots of these, but they all have skimmed milk powder in them.

Tracker

Several of these. All have condensed milk.

go ahead

All of these have milk ingredients too.