HALOWEEEEEN

HALOWEEN!

So it's that time of year again! Doesn't it come round so quickly? It seems like only last week I was getting into my zombie outfit...

  or last years costume (can you work out what I was?)

 or even two years ago as a very good Joker!

(yes the guy next to me is Morissey)

 

But this year only means bigger and better so try this recipe, get it down you and have a scarily good Halloween!

 

Pumpkin Soup...with a scary twist

 

 

 

Start of by chopping your onion into spookily fine pieces, add couple scary cloves of garlic and two tablespoons of ghostly butter. Fry it all for about a minute, or until you are really scared. Now add a heaped teaspoon of paprika, a teaspoon of cumin, some coriander, salt, pepper, some finely chopped thyme if you have some and if you want a bit more of a kick try a teaspoon of grated ginger root.

 

Next chop up a BUTTERNUT SQUASH , (yes a butternut squash!) into horrific cubes (about 1-2cm). Now chuck it all in the saucepan and fry off for about 5-6 minutes on a medium heat until they start to soften and go a gruesome golden brown.

 

Now add 700ml of vegetable or chicken (CHICKEN!) stock and bring it to the boil, simmer for 10 minutes, blend, add half a pot of cream (125ml) and serve with terrifying toast or gory bread.

 

Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn, and caldron bubble

 

 

Melt in the Middle Chocolate Puddings

Melt in the Middle Chocolate Puddings

They are certainly very near the top of my dessert list and should think most chocoholics out there! The great thing about this dessert is you can make a batch of the mixture and then chuck one in the oven whenever you a feeling sad, or mad, or glad, or rad, or horny.

Start off by melting 100g of dark chocolate with about 50-60g of butter and a tablespoon of glorious golden syrup, remove from the heat and allow to cool. Now whisk an egg yolk and a whole egg with 60g of half brown sugar (any) and half caster sugar and use a hand whisk to mix it in with the chocolate mixture.

Now grease two ramekins (small cake tins) I use ones about 10cm diameter and roughly 7cm depth but anywhere around that is fine. If you use a big cake tin or tiny little ramekins then adjust your cooking times and temperatures! 

(For a larger cake tin, cook on a lower heat for longer and crank up the heat for a final 10 minutes, for a smaller one just have high heat for about 6-7 minutes)

 Sift 50g of flour into the mix and fold in.

Dust the sides of the ramekins with flour or cocoa powder and fill up to about 3 quarters.

Bake in a preheated oven at 160C for about 6 minutes then turn up the heat to 200C for the last 4-5 minutes. Experiment with your times as each ramekin shape and size will vary the cooking times.

Why not make a batch of the mixture and freeze some?

Harmonic - A - WESOME

Nothing to do with cookery apart from the awesome tunes I will cook up on this bad boy!

A very big and public thank you to my girlfriend!

P.S. Stay tuned for hopefully a recipe for melt in the middle chocolate puddings later! 

Seb's Scotch Eggs

Seb's Scotch Eggs (They're delicious!)

Today I managed to find the time to cook up some scotch eggs! If you are disgusted by the thought of a warm meaty outer layer, coated in delicious crispy bread crumbs, and a succulent hard boiled egg in the centre, then you should just go away.

I started out by removing the skin from about 550g of sausages (about 70g per scotch egg, I made 8) and mush the meat up with a spoon or if you are dirty dirty, DIRTY person then use your dirty hands. Chop up a spring onion or two, some fresh thyme and some parsley and chuck that in with the meat. Of course you could use dried herbs and a normal onion or really anything you fancy! Some sausages come with yummy stuff in already so why not try them?

Next you need to hard boil your eggs! Place them in COLD water, bring to boil, then STTTTART YOUR TIMER and simmer. (For roughly 9 minutes.)

Once the eggs are done, run a cold tap over them, peel, and cover in flour.

Seperate your sausage meat into however many you want, if you used 550g then 8 balls. Flatten these balls and roll then eggs inside them. Use a little flour on the work surface to stop the meat from sticking to bloody everything!

Once you have done that get two eggs (one egg per 4 scotch eggs) and beat them with a fork for 20 seconds. Roll each ball into the egg then immediately into breadcrumbs. I like to place them neatly in a little pile until I'm quite ready. Sometimes I take photos...

Now get a good amount of oil (500ml) and put it on high heat for about a minute to heat up. Place the scotch eggs in and give them about 5-8 minutes or until the breadcrumbs are golden brown.

CAREFUL NOT TO OVERHEAT THE OIL, TURN IT DOWN IF IT'S COOKING YOUR BREADCRUMBS TOO QUICKLY!

So there you have some wonderful scotch eggs! Enjoy!

Apron anybody?

Apron Anybody?

So today saw the launch of the official Student Cookery clothing line!

Grab one while they are not only hot off the shelves but while they are 33% off!

Get your apron here!
  

Perfection Series 1 - The Perfect Chocolate Cake

The Perfect Chocolate Cake

 Now when I say perfect chocolate cake, it's perfect for chocolate lovers and cake lovers, so me!

It's so simple and easy anyone can make it, and it's just so moreish!

All you need is:

110g Butter

125g Caster Sugar

125g Brown Sugar

125g Dark Chocolate

1 tbsp Golden Syrup (or two if you are a greedy fat pig)

2 Eggs

1 tsp Vanilla Extract

100g Flour (sifted)

1/2 tsp Baking Powder

2 tbsp of Cocoa Powder

Preheat the oven to 170C or a little less for fan oven (150-160).

Now melt the butter, sugars, chocolate and golden syrup in a pan on low heat. Stir until there are no lumps.

Beat the eggs with a fork or whisk until they are light and frothy, you need to put air into the cake! (Not too much so don't use an electric whisk)

Now put everything together, folding it all in with the eggs last of all. Folding instead of stirring keeps the air in the eggs as much as possible.

Now place in the oven for about 15 minutes. After this time check on it and push a smooth sharp knife into the centre. If it is very sticky still leave for another 5 minutes before moving on.

If there is little cake mix on the knife, turn the oven temperature up 10C or so and leave for another 5 minutes. This makes the edges nice and chewy and keeps the cake firm.

Once the time is up pull it out of the oven, let it cool, turn it out and DEVOUR!

"You could cover it in melted chocolate, a 

chocolate frosting, ganache, or 

even just a dusting of icing sugar."

Today I Made Chicken Pie

Today I Made Chicken Pie.

 

It was very nice.

Ras-Seb-Berry Flapjack

Ras-Seb-Berry Flapjack

Hello again! Today I only have one lecture (Hurrah) so I decided to make something I have been craving for a long time, flapjack!

They are so simple and so cheap too! Here's a list of what you'll need to recreate this masterpiece:

Flapjack
300g of butter - I bought 500g of baking butter for £0.89, totalling £0.54p used.

60g of plain flour - 1.5kg £1.00, totalling £0.04 used.

2 Tbsp Golden syrup - 1 tin for £1.07, used roughly 1/10th so call it £0.20 used

275g of oats - 1kg for £0.79 totalling £0.22 used.

125g light brown sugar - 500g for £1.05, £0.27 used

1 tsp vanilla extract - you should already have?

Half a bag of frozen raspberries, defrosted. I bought two bags for £3 so i used £0.75


Topping
1 tbsp natural yogurt - should be able to get a big tub for £0.80 so used about 5p
50g cream cheese - depends where you get it, you could use creme fraiche too, say 50p used.
200g of icing sugar - a 1kg bag will cost around £1-£2 so call it 50p

This totals a very frugal £3.07! And if you were wondering i got 27 slices out of it (See size of slices below)

Method
Preheat the oven to 180C. Melt the butter, sugar, vanilla and golden syrup until there are no lumps. Remove from the heat and whack everything else in, breaking up any big lumps of raspberry. Make sure you give it a thorough stir and then pile it into a baking tray. My tray was about 40cm x 20cm and 1-2cm thick but you could have thicker ones if you wanted. Now chuck it in the oven for about 25 minutes.

I covered mine with foil for the first 15 minutes and then removed it for the last 10. This protects the top from burning whilst still cooking the inside.

If you are making thicker ones, leave the foil on for 20 minutes or even longer and just turn the oven up for 5 minutes and crisp up the top layer.

Once it's cooled (15 minutes) put the topping ingredients in a bowl and give it a whisk by hand for 30 seconds. Pour it over the top and spread it evenly. Let it set if you want, I couldn't resist the warm smell of the baked raspberries and ate 3 slices straight away!