Cadbury Dairy Milk Mixed Buttons Tester Review Thread NOW CLOSED

[AngelieMumsnet]

This thread is for the 200 Cadbury panel members who have been trying brand new Cadbury Dairy Milk Mixed Buttons and refining their sweet treat baking & decorating skills.

Here's what the team at Cadbury says about the product: "New Cadbury Dairy Milk Mixed Buttons are a combination of milk and white chocolate buttons. They’re perfect for sharing and having fun with your family on a night in. We’re really happy to give the Cadbury panel a chance to try Mixed Buttons – we can’t wait to read your recipes and see your creations”

Please upload your recipes and photos of your unusual and imaginative baked creations to this thread.

The three most fun and creative recipes (as judged by Cadbury) will each win a £100 John Lewis voucher and a family visit (4 tickets; consisting of at least one adult) to KidZania London.

Thanks and good luck,
MNHQ

Please note: Terms and Conditions apply

I've emailed MNHQ as I doubt I can complete this test. Just writing & reporting this post so they can check for my email.

We made thumbprint biscuits, the recipe is from BBC Good Food. They're usually filled with jam but we used the chocolate buttons instead.

200g self raising flour
100g caster sugar
100g butter
1 egg lightly beaten
Chocolate buttons
Heat oven to 190c/gas 5.
Rub the flour, sugar and butter together until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs. Add enough egg to bring the mixture together to form a stiff dough.
Shape the dough into a tube. Cut into 2cm thick slices and place on a large baking sheet. Space them apart. Push chocolate buttons into the centre (I used 2 per biscuit). Bake for 10-15 mins until slightly risen and just golden. Cool on a wire rack.

We also made fairy cakes & decorated them with pink strawberry icing and the chocolate buttons.

I'm still hoping to join in on this but we're having health issues with my youngest and he's currently in hospital

We made chocolate scones by swapping some of the buttermilk with melted white chocolate drops and adding crumbled chocolate drops to the dough. The kids had ice cream inside theirs instead of clotted cream. Have to say I wasn't that impressed by the taste of the chocolate drops. Is this the same chocolate they changed cream eggs to?

I am seriously unworthy to join this thread - in awe of all the great creations above.

We kept things simple. My kids say the one thing I cook well is pancakes, so we did that. We used the buttons to make smiley faces, initials and other designs. We worked out that if you add the buttons after you flip the pancake, it melts just enough so that it holds its shape while you serve it, then melts pleasingly when you roll it up and oozes everywhere very satisfactorily. We loved our chocolate pancakes

madmother, really sorry to hear your boy is poorly. Hope things improve soon.

My son and daughter were very excited when the buttons arrived. I asked my son what he would like to make and he said a cake that looks like a hedgehog so that is what we did.

For the cake

Ingredients
225g/8oz plain flour
• 350g/12½oz caster sugar
• 85g/3oz cocoa powder
• 1½ tsp baking powder
• 1½ tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 2 free-range eggs
• 250ml/9fl oz milk
• 125ml/4½fl oz vegetable oil
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 250ml/9fl oz boiling water

Icing
300g Sifted Icing sugar
100g unsalted butter
40g cocoa powder
3 tablespoons whole milk

Method
1.Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas 4. Grease and line two 20cm/8in sandwich tins.
2.For the cake, place all of the cake ingredients, except the boiling water, into a large mixing bowl. Using a wooden spoon, or electric whisk, beat the mixture until smooth and well combined.
3.Add the boiling water to the mixture, a little at a time, until smooth. (The cake mixture will now be very liquid.)
4.Divide the cake batter between the sandwich tins and bake in the oven for 25-35 minutes, or until the top is firm to the touch and a skewer inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean.
5.Remove the cakes from the oven and allow to cool completely, still in their tins, before icing.
6.For the icing, beat the icing sugar, butter and cocoa powder in a mixer until the mixture comes together, Turn the mixer down add the milk a little at a time. Once all the milk has been incorporated turn the mixer up to high speed for 5 minutes.

To make the hedgehog shape we took about 1/5 of one of the cakes and cut it off and moulded it (with a little icing) into a point so it looked like a hedgehog's face. We then stacked the rest of the cakes and filled and covered with the frosting covering the face at the same time). We then decorated with the buttons to make the hedgehog spikes. We used one pack of buttons (including some that were eaten along the way) to decorate the hedgehog and mixed up the white and milk chocolate buttons.

DS came home 2 weeks before half term with a volcano project. In a flash of inspiration I thought this might be the perfect opportunity to 'kill 2 birds with one stone'. So, here is our erupting volcano cake.

For the cake we used Nigella's Buttermilk Birthday Cake recipe - we made up 1.5 times the amount. We baked the cakes in a standard springform tin and one half of a giant silicone cupcake mould that I had lingering at the back of the cupboard.

Once baked we cut out the centre of the smaller cake so that we could fit a small pot into it (for the bicarb/lemon juice eruption) and then sandwiched together with the chocolate sauce - (DS1 won't touch a cake with butter icing so it is out in our house).

I had used some red food colouring to dye some of the white buttons red for the lava spill. DS2 decided that this volcano would be snow capped and so he and his younger brother set about decorating the cake mountain. The green jelly was spooned in clumps around the bottom of the cake in place of vegetation!

When we were ready to erupt we first stuck 2 cake sparklers inside and lit them. Then, we placed the small pot inside the top of the cake with a teaspoon of bicarb in it and poured the lemon juice/food colouring mix in for the lava flow. Finally an ash cloud of icing sugar descended.

I have included the link to our video - complete with DH's crazy, slightly out of time soundtrack - to show the eruption.

DS2's verdict - "it actually tastes really nice too". Having completed this I breathed a sigh of relief that one more homework project had been completed only to hear "Oh, but I want to make a model of a volcano as well." Hooray for enthusiastic children!

Cake Ingredients:
250g plain flour (I replace 50g of flour with cocoa powder for a chocolate version)
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp bicarbonate of soda
200ml buttermilk (or 75g yogurt mixed with 125ml semi-skinned milk)
1 tsp vanilla extract
125g softened butter, plus extra for greasing
200g caster sugar
3 large free-range eggs

Decoration (apart from the buttons):
Lime Jelly
200g Dark/Milk Chocolate + 75g Butter melted together
Icing Sugar

Eruption:
Mini cake sparklers
Lemon Juice (1 lemon was enough) mixed with Red food colouring.

Method (I follow this in a very haphazard way):
Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/gas 4. Butter cake tin/moulds.
Sift the flour, baking powder, bicarbonate together. Mix the buttermilk (or yogurt mixture) and vanilla extract.
Cream the butter and sugar together. Beat in the eggs one at a time, adding a little of the flour with the last one.
Gradually add the rest of the flour with the buttermilk, one after the other, until thoroughly mixed.
Pour into the tin and bake for about 30 minutes or until well risen and pale golden brown. Loosen the sides of the cake with a round-bladed knife and turn out onto a wire rack to cool.

Make some lovely chocolate cupcakes with my daughter this morning. We decorated with white icing and lots of chocolate buttons. We cannot wait to eat them later.

This is my dsughter Katie with our fabulous cakes

Amazed that I've had these buttons in the cupboard and not snaffled them all up before now. I hid them up so the dcs could create something during half term. They wanted to make biscuits, dd made plain (white) ones whilst ds went for chocolate.

When the mixed buttons first arrived, I wasn't feeling too well and so took the easy option and bought a packet of gingerbread cookie dough for my daughter to cut out shapes and decorate cookies. This was easy and we were pleased with the results

With the second packet of Cadbury’s mixed buttons, my 9 year old wanted to make a chocolate tray bake, decorating each piece individually.

Recipe for 12” square chocolate cake

12 oz butter/margarine
12 oz sugar
12 oz self-raising flour
6 medium eggs
2 tbsp Cadbury’s chocolate powder
1 pinch baking powder.

Preheat the oven to 180c. Grease and line a 12” square cake tin. Break the eggs into a bowl and beat. In a large mixing bowl, cream together the butter and the sugar. Add the beaten eggs and fold in. Sieve the flour, chocolate powder and baking powder into the mixture and combine all the ingredients until thoroughly mixed. Pour into the baking tin and cook in the middle of the oven for approximately 30 minutes, until a skewer inserted into the middle of the cake comes out clean. Stand for 5 minutes before turning out of the tin onto wire rack and allowing to cool.

Vanilla Butter Cream

6oz butter (softened)
12 oz icing sugar (sieved)
2-3 drops vanilla extract
2 tbsp milk

Soften the butter in a large bowl. Add the sieved icing sugar, followed by the vanilla extract and milk and thoroughly beat all the ingredients until thoroughly mixed.

We spread the buttercream over the cake, marked the individual pieces with a knife and then my daughter decorated the cake by herself.

The buttons were fun to use to decorate the cake and biscuits, but I would agree with other testers who mentioned that the white buttons lacked flavour. To me there was just a sweet taste, with no chocolate flavour at all and I did feel that mixing the two types of buttons did nothing to enhance the milk chocolate buttons.

Extra photo of the whole traybake.

We made a pirate treasure chest cake. The cake recipe is a totally bizarre recipe, but it tastes really nice - fudgy and dense and easy to carve into shape.

It uses cups, sorry!

3 cups water
2 cups sugar (any type)
250g butter
1 cup cocoa powder
4 beaten eggs
3 cups self raising flour
1 teaspoonful bicarbonate of soda

In a big saucepan melt the butter, water, sugar and cocoa powder together slowly, stirring frequently. Bring to the boil, then take off the heat, mix in the bicarbonate of soda (it bubbles!) and allow to cool for at least 15 minutes. Then mix in the flour and beaten eggs - you can use a hand blender which does the job v quickly. Then pour into greased tins - we used a square one and a loaf one - and bake in the oven at 170 degrees (fan). Not sure how long to suggest - the smaller one was done after about 25 mins and the bigger one 40 minutes. Allow to cool in the tin for ten minutes or so. Wrap in cling film and refrigerate for a couple of days.

Then we carved the cakes into treasure chest shapes! We hollowed out the base and cut triangle wedges of cake to keep the lid up. We then decorated the lid with chocolate butter icing, and then filled the chest with chocolate button 'treasure'.

My 5-year-old DS and I had great fun making this cake (and he is having even more fun pinching the treasure when I'm not looking!). Thanks Cadbury!

We made chequerboard brownies!

150g butter
275g sugar
75g cocoa
1tsp vanilla extract
3 eggs
80g plain flour
100g prunes, chopped
Melt the butter, sugar & cocoa gently in a pan. Transfer to a mixing bowl. While this cools a little, grease a square / rectangular cake tin & with baking paper. Put the oven on 160C.
To the wet mixture add the vanilla essence, and mix in the eggs one at a time. Next add the flour -sifted, mix until you have a smooth batter. Finally throw in the prunes and fold in. Pour into your prepared tin and bake for about 30 mins.

We added our buttons to pancakes yesterday and they were yummy! We aren't normally keen on white chocolate but they were lovely!

Buttons Cheesecakes

8 oz crushed digestive biscuits
4 oz Margarine/Butter

1/2 pint double cream
2 oz sugar
8 oz Full fat cream cheese

Cadburys Mixed Buttons for decoration
Melt the butter and combine with the crushed biscuits.

Press the mixture into your preferred dish or into individual muffin cases.

Whisk together the cream cheese, double cream and sugar and spread over the biscuit base.

Allow to chill and decorate with Cadburys Mixed Buttons

Buttons Chocolate Bark

One bag of Cadburys Mixed Buttons
Decorations to suit ones preference
(Nuts, Raisins, Cranberries, Popcorn etc)

Theres so many ways you can customise this recipe but here's how we did it...

Separate the white and milk chocolate buttons.

In a microwaveable bowl, melt the milk chocolate buttons , stopping at 20 second intervals to give a stir.

Spoon the milk chocolate onto parchment paper and with a spatula, spread the chocolate out to the required thickness to create your chocolate bark.

Decorate the bark with the remaining white chocolate buttons and nuts and dries fruit. Add sprinkly bits to give it the finishing touch.

Alternative would be to melt some white choc buttons separately and swirl them into the milk chocolate. The recipe could be done vice versa. Could mix some Raisins, etc into the chocolate but I'm not sure how thin you would be able to spread the chocolate then.

Place in the fridge to set. When set cut into pieces as desired or break into shards.

Hello quite late feed back as we have been on holiday and youngest child was unwell and prescribed antibiotics for 2wks. We managed to make pancakes and decorated with smiley faces and it was fun watching the kids separate the White from the regulate chocolate buttons as they get very indecisive on which one to but for treats so it was great to have both in one pack. It tasted yummy as we didn't need Nutella on our pancake this time

Hello quite late feed back as we have been on holiday and youngest child was unwell and prescribed antibiotics for 2wks. We managed to make pancakes and decorated with smiley faces and it was fun watching the kids separate the White from the regular chocolate buttons as they get very indecisive on which one to buy for treats, so it was great to have both in one pack. It tasted yummy as we didn't need Nutella on our pancakes this time grin

I'm not the most creative baker, with my bakes tasting better than they look so we kept it simple and took a basic chewy cookie recipe and added in the buttons. I just about managed to take a photo while cooling before they were devoured.

125g unsalted butter, softened
100g light brown sugar
2 tbsp golden syrup
1 tsp vanilla essence
160g self-raising flour
1 pkt Cadbury's buttons

oven at 180ºC/gas 4

Beat butter and sugar together until light and creamy. Add the golden syrup and vanilla essence, then mix in the flour and chocolate buttons.

Roll a teaspoonful of the mixture into a ball, then place on a greased baking tray, flattening it slightly, and repeat with the remaining dough. Allow space for the cookies to spread whilst baking.

Bake for approx. 12-15 mins until golden brown then cool the cookies on the tray for a few minutes before transferring to a wire rack.

Needed a recipe me and DS (5) could do while I juggled newborn! So went for chocolate marshmallow cornflake cakes as no baking required.

Recipe:
Couple of handfuls of cornflakes
half a bag of mini marshmallows
Both bags of chocolate buttons

We separated the buttons into milk and white chocolate with the aim of making marble effect cornflake cakes. Microwaved both bowls of chocolate for one minute then stirred (with lots of spoon licking from DS!)

Stirred half of the cornflakes and marshmallows into each bowl, then gently mixed them together. Marble effect not entirely successful.

They tasted very good :-)

3 Medium eggs
75 g caster sugar
75 g plain flour
caster sugar for dusting

Filling
2 packs of cabury buttons (one for icing, one for decoration)
Icing sugar (100g)
25g butter

Jar of Whipped cream
Packet of frozen raspberries

To make basic swiss roll

Preheat the oven to 200⁰C, gas mark 6. Grease and line the Swiss roll tin with baking parchment.

Using an electric hand mixer, whisk the eggs and sugar together in a large bowl until thick and creamy and leaves a trail. Sieve the flour and cocoa together and fold into the mixture carefully with 1 tbsp hot water, trying not to knock out too much air.

Place into the prepared tin and tilt the tin to level the mixture, making sure it goes right into the corners. Bake for 10-12 minutes until springy to the touch.

Dust a large piece of baking parchment with caster sugar and turn the sponge out onto it. Trim off the hard edges and cut into three sections
Leave to cool

Melt a bag of the chocolate buttons with a little butter (25g) and add some icing sugar until you have the texture of icing you want for the top (I like a thick texture, but some may want a runny texture

Then put the first piece of sponge onto the serving plate. Then put in your filling, I used whipped cream, raspberry jam, and some de-frosted raspberries. Repeat. At the top of the cake spread your chocolate frosting. Add your chocolate buttons and some raspberries

Serve in slices and enjoy

Pictures of the cabuary cake

We made mixed button cookies - simple, but seriously tasty and simple to make. Here's the recipe:

150g softened salted butter
80g light brown muscavado
80g granulated sugar
2tsp vanilla extract
1 large egg
225g plain flour
1/2 tsp bicarbonate
1/4 tsp salt
200g mixed button (almost two packs, with a few to nibble whilst we cooked!)

Preheat oven to 190c/170 fan or gas mark 5
Cream butter and sugars until creamy
Beat in vanilla extract and egg, a little at a time
Sieve the flour, bicarbonate and salt over mixture and mix through.
Add the buttons and mix
Roll into small balls and place on baking trays with a good gap between them
Bake for 8-10 mins until edges are light brown and centre still soft
Wait as long as you can before scoffing them, but do have at least one nice and warm!

Delicious. Thanks for letting us try them.