My Guilty Pleasure #4: Popcorn and Chocolate Brownie Ice Cream Sundae

 
Here it is… one of my guilty pleasures. Looks good, doesn’t it?
 

 

  

  

I’ve been known to get down to TGI Friday’s with the pretence of fancying a burger just to have their version of this for pudding afterwards. But that became a bit too expensive (and time and calorie-consuming) and now I skip the burger completely (and the trip) and make it at home.

  

All you do is just cut up a few chocolate brownie squares into bite-sized pieces (extra points given if the brownie is home-made and still warm), top that with a scoop of really good vanilla ice cream and scatter over some crisp, toffee-coated popcorn. Then you just drizzle over some (shop-bought) toffee sauce and some squirty cream. Yes, it’s dirty. But sometimes that’s what you need.

  

 What’s your favourite ‘guilty pleasure’ dessert?

Does Ketchup Flavoured Cheese Sound Like Something You’d Fancy?

It’s coming up to the end of British Cheese Week, which was fine timing for me to come across this, in a press release:

Would you buy tomato ketchup-flavoured cheddar?

It’s ketchup-flavoured cheese, made by combining the cheddar of Long Clawson Dairy with tomato ketchup from Heinz. The tomatoey cheese portions were launched this month in the hope that kids everywhere would demand them for their lunchbox treat and grown ups might want to re-live some of their childhood by slipping a slice into a hot jacket potato.

And as if that wasn’t enough, there’s also a Lea and Perrins Worcestershire Sauce-flavoured cheese too. It’s also made by Long Clawson Dairy, who suggest grating some over a Shepherd’s Pie or Macaroni Cheese. 

And don’t forget as well, that we also had the chocolate-flavoured Philadelphia cheese (tastes like a cheesecake topping) and Marmite-flavoured cheese, which I’ve so far resisted dropping into  my trolley (but I don’t think I can go on resisting much longer).  


Lea and Perrins-flavoured cheddar… fancy some?

So what do you think? Is it a good idea to mix condiments with cheese? Or should be we left to smear ketchup in our cheese sandwich ourselves, if we wish? And do kids really like it? And although people might giggle at a Marmite-flavoured cheese or a soft cheese blended with Dairy Milk, maybe these flavours aren’t actually that weird at all – chocolate, tomato and Worcestershire sauce all go well with cheese. Although it’s been a while since I had ketchup in a cheese sandwich.

Come on, readers, what do you think? Would you buy any of these flavoured cheeses?

 

Salty Sweet Chocolate Bars: Three Ways

Since I first made Nigella’s sweet and salty crunch nut bars from Kitchen I started to toy with the idea of setting various salty, crunchy things in chocolate. And, over time, I came up with three particular favourites:
 
1. salted popcorn: because it’s chewy and squeaky against all that silky chocolate.
2. salted peanuts and chopped Reese’s peanut butter cups : because I love Reese’s chocolate, especially Nutrageous bars.
3. salted peanuts and marshmallow: in homage to the American ‘fluffernutter’ sandwich of marshmallow fluff (yes, you can buy that in the UK now) and peanut butter.
 
And because variety is always good, I tend to make them now not in a big square cake tin but I make all three types in smaller rectangular dishes, so you can have a bite (aherm…) of each.
 

Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup and Salted Roasted Peanut Chocolate Bars

I use the washed up plastic trays from the Chinese takeaway and just line them with foil, so that will give you an idea of how large you’ll need your individual trays. And if you like one of the flavours so much that you want a big version then don’t let me stop you. 
 
Salty Sweet Chocolate Bars: Three Ways
 
For the chocolate, for all flavours:

• 100g milk chocolate
• 200g dark chocolate
• 100g unsalted butter
• 3 tablespoons golden syrup

For the popcorn flavour:

• 15g (this is more than it sounds) salted popcorn, from a pack

 
For the salted peanuts/Reese’s flavour:

• 7 Reese’s peanut butter cups, roughly chopped
• 25g salted, roasted peanuts

 
For the salted peanuts/marshmallows:

• 25g salted, roasted peanuts
• 50g marshmallows, chopped

Marshmallow and Salted Roasted Peanut Chocolate Bars

 
Method:

1. Break the chocolate up into pieces and put them into a small saucepan. Drizzle in the golden syrup and the butter and melt very slowly, stirring occasionally.
2. Tip the salted popcorn into a mixing bowl and drizzle about a quarter of the chocolate mixture over the top. Stir with a silicone spatula, to try and coat all of the popcorn in the chocolate. Tip the mixture into one of the foil-lined trays and press down as much as you can, without breaking up the popcorn too much. Scrape all of the chocolate mixture from the bowl – this will save you some washing up. Dribble over a final 1-2 tablespoons of the chocolate to fill in any gaps and then smooth it over with a spatula or spoon. Put to one side.
3. Tumble 6 of the chopped Reese’s peanut butter cups into the bowl you used for the popcorn, along with the peanuts. Trickle in enough chocolate to bind the peanuts and Reese’s cups together and then scrape into another foil-lined tray. The peanut butter cups will melt a little, this is ok. Press down, trickle in a little extra chocolate to cover the gaps as before and smooth over the top. Scatter the pieces from the remaining peanut butter cup over the top. Put to one side.
4. Finally, make the peanut butter and marshmallow chocolate. Tip the remaining peanuts and the chopped marshmallows into the scraped out bowl and then pour all but a few tablespoons of the remaining melted chocolate into it. Stir well to coat, and then scrape into the last foil-lined plastic tray. Scrape out the last of the chocolate from the saucepan and smooth it over. Transfer all of the three chocolate-filled tubs to the fridge and leave for about 3-4 hours, or until set. Cut up into cubes and enjoy.

Which would be your favourite? Do you have any salty-sweet favourite combinations?
 
 

Salted Popcorn Chocolate Bars

 

Gok Cooks Chinese – A Review

 

It was no big surprise to me when Gok Wan released a cookbook and announced his TV cookery series. It seemed to me that on almost every show he was on as a guest he ended up talking not so much about fashion, but about food. He talked about memories of the Chinese takeaway dishes his Dad used to rustle up, and he’s obviously learned a lot of these dishes along the way. Judging by comments on Twitter, Gok’s been received fairly warmly by foodies, although blogger Mr Noodles has criticised him for declaring fish sauce an essential Chinese ingredient (when it really isn’t that common in Chinese cooking after all).
 
So anyway, on to the book. 
 

 
 
In many respects, the layout of the book has a Chinese takeaway theme. The contents page reads like a takeaway menu, complete with swirling red dragons and the recipes numbered and listed in columns. The good thing about it is that almost every recipe has a photograph of it alongside, which, whether you admit it or not, helps massively when you’re deciding what to cook. There are just a handful that don’t have accompanying photos, which makes me wonder if it would have been worth them having a few less shots of Gok strolling down the street/hiding behind a steamer lid/Chinese lanterns to get shots of those recipes in.

Gok’s Garlic Chicken

The recipes themselves are very clear and easy to follow. I did find with the Garlic Chicken recipe that carrots are pictured in the dish but don’t appear anywhere in the ingredients – but that’s minor – add carrots if you make that, it’s very good. There are a mixture of both quick takeaway classics and dishes you can take your time over, such as long, slow aromatic roasts. My children love the Garlic Chicken, and we make that about once a month at least, and the Chow Mein (I used chicken instead of prawns) tastes better than our local takeaway (and it’s much cheaper obviously, too).
 

Gok Wan’s Chow Mein (I used chicken instead of prawns)

I’d already made Ching He Huang’s aromatic roasted duck and found that Gok’s didn’t have quite as strong a flavour, and the same went for the honey-glazed Char Sui pork (again, sorry Gok, I prefer Ching’s Char Sui). But there are still lots of recipes I haven’t tried yet – Singapore Noodles, Braised Beef Short Rib and Char Sui Pork Buns are ones I want to try out soon, and I’ll keep you posted as I do.



Gok Wan’s roast duck and plum sauce

Would I recommend this book? If you like Gok, and if you want to know more about his background and his love for Chinese cooking then you will absolutely love it. And if you’re just interested in cooking really good Chinese food, you’ll find it useful – there are some really great tasting recipes in there and they are simple to make, and need just a few ingredients. Ironically, I’ve yet to make a dish from the book that asks me to slosh in some fish sauce, though…
 
Have you cooked from the book? What did you think of it, or the television series? Let me know in the comments box below…

Cake and Bake Show, Earl’s Court London: 22-23 September 2012

As I stepped out of my cab into the lashing rain at London’s Earl’s Court on Sunday, I strode to the main entrance with purpose. All because I knew that, inside those walls, there was going to be cake. Lots of cake.
 
I was thrilled when I was invited to the first ever Cake and Bake Show which took place at the weekend. I knew there would be stands and demonstrations, but I was surprised at how many. The show was laid out so well – there were the usual stands selling sugarcraft materials, cupcake wrappers and various sugarpastes, a classroom area where you could learn from some of the masters of cake decorating and gain baking tips – and demonstration kitchens where you could watch celebrities of the baking world do their thing.
 

Beautiful rose-cake on display at Cake and Bake Show

 
  I arrived at the show at around 2.30pm on the Sunday, which means I missed Eric Lanlard, so sorry for the lack of Lanlard pics. But I did get there just in time to see the end of Mary Berry’s demo – well, I didn’t get to see much of her, amid the jostling crowds and the security heavies who were moving everyone away from the side of the kitchen. I got a few blurry shots, not good enough to publish here but I did get a pic of the cake she made…
 

 
Mary attracted huge crowds for her demo, and was joined at the end by Paul Hollywood who ‘helped’ her decorate her chocolate cake. “Oh, he likes to squirt over everything”, she remarked as he scribbled some icing over her cake. “I’m glad I didn’t do that,” she added, afterwards.
 
Once Mary Berry (and her security people) had dispersed, I had a mooch around. The wedding cake gallery was completely beautiful, with 5 or 6 gorgeous wedding cakes all lined up for inspection.


Beautiful rose-style wedding cake



One of the wedding cakes on show

 


 

And looking at this Teddy Bear cake by Debbie Brown, it was hard to believe that it was actually a cake and not a porcelain ornament. Amazing stuff.

 

  

There was a frantic sugarpaste competition going on near the classroom area of the show, demos taking place absolutely everywhere and free samples being handed out, along with a 1940s-style swing group singing near the café.

  

Claire Clark demonstrating how to make rose petal decorations using egg white

  

My next stop was Edd Kimber’s demonstration at 3pm. Edd won the Great British Bake Off in 2010 and showed us how to make portuguese style tarts and chocolate truffles. He talked about Paul Hollywood (“he’s not horrible, he’s a softy”), Mary Berry (“she uses Bourneville chocolate for baking at home”), baking beans (“at home I use rice, because it fills in all the gaps better than ceramic beans”), and caramel (“it needs a bit of salt. Even if you’re not making ‘salted caramel’ always add a pinch of sea salt because otherwise it’s too sweet.”).

  

Edd Kimber at his Cake and Bake demonstration

 

  

  

When taking questions from the audience Edd was asked how much his life had changed after GBBO. “My feet haven’t touched the ground since the series ended. I get to do something I love as a job and that’s great.” He talked about how quick it all happened: “two days after I won, I quit my job and 2 months afterwards I got my first book deal.”

  

Edd also talked a bit about the GBBO innuendos, and said that recently he’s noticed a few that don’t seem quite natural and accidental but that it’s all fun, and also revealed that in the final of his series he cut himself quite badly on the wrist. He said the cameras didn’t show it but he was standing up in the kitchen, arm raised, while paramedics came to check him out, and was still kneading with the other hand. “Because it was the final!”.

  

Paul Hollywood in the Grain Chain Kitchen

 

   

The gloriously retro Gingerbakes stand at Cake and Bake

  

I loved this show, and I think it was much better organised than some of the other food shows I’ve been to. There were huge signs near the ceiling so you could easily find the classrooms or kitchens and quickly get to where you needed to be. There were also signs showing you the timetable of events so you could plan your day and everyone was really helpful and friendly. Unlike the Good Food Show too, once you pay for your entry ticket, everything else was free in the way of classes and demos. I paid extra to see James Martin on stage in Birmingham, but you could rock on up when it suited you to watch the demos at Cake and Bake.

  

Cakes at Squires Kitchen: I’ll have the ruffly one on the left, please…

  

I noticed one criticism on Twitter that the show was more cake than bake, and it’s true that sugarcraft and decorating were the main subjects of many of the demos and stalls. But I did think it was perhaps a little unfair – there was the Real Bread Debate, and demos of kitchen equipment that were as much to do with making and baking the cakes than just decorating them. There were stalls dedicated to various bread flours too, but not much in the way of bakeware. I’d like to have also seen some more refreshments, perhaps an artisan pie stall selling hot pies and pasties and more places for thirsty cake lovers to buy a cup of tea.

 


Handbag cupcakes

 
Another great plus for me is that it was held in exactly the right venue – Earl’s Court tube station is directly opposite the event. I loved it and I’d go again next year for sure. I’d just make sure I had the whole day (or both days) free next time, to really make the most of it. I came home exhausted, but full of ideas for future cakes… watch this space!
 
For more information about the Cake and Bake Show visit their website

Did you go to the Cake and Bake Show? What did you think of it?

French Toast Style Crumpets with Maple Syrup

Crumpets or eggy bread? I thought to myself as I was getting breakfast together one morning…. and then it dawned on me: why not have both?
 
Eggy crumpets are nothing new: Jamie Oliver cooked them – savoury-style – in his Jamie at Home TV series – but sweet, eggy crumpets drizzled with maple syrup? That would be amazing, I thought. And it was.
 

 
 
You just dip the crumpets into the egg, milk and vanilla mixture and then fry for a couple of minutes on each side, until golden. I love them with some berries, which I get out of the freezer to defrost before doing anything else. By the time the crumpets have cooked, they’re ready.
 

 
I did try this with some icing sugar over, but I think it works much better with maple syrup – you get that stodgy sweetness, which is perfect for a gentle wake up on a groggy morning.
 
French Toast Style Crumpets
makes 4 crumpets (to feed 2 adults)
Ingredients

• 1 large egg
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 tsp milk
• 4 crumpets
• 1 tbsp flavourless oil
• maple syrup and raspberries and/or blueberries, to serve

Method:

1. In a shallow, wide bowl, crack in the egg, pour in the vanilla extract and a tiny slosh of milk and beat together with a fork.
2. Heat a non-stick pan with a trickle of oil, and dunk the crumpets into the egg mixture, pressing them down so they’re properly saturated. Turn them over and do the same again.
3. Place each crumpet into the hot oil and fry for 2-3 minutes on each side, or until crispy and golden. Drain on a piece of kitchen paper and then transfer to a plate. Drizzle the crumpets with maple syrup and eat while hot.

 
 
What do you think? Would a couple of these wake you up?
 

Some Grown Up Rice Pudding Suggestions

Rice pudding was one of the comfort foods of my childhood. The rice pudding itself: tinned. The topping? Cold raspberry jam. But it can also make a very good grown up dessert in its own right, drizzled with a warming, amber-coloured liqueur or folded around a block of melting dark chocolate.
 

Vanilla rice pudding with dark chocolate folded in…

 
Once you get the basic recipe down, you can play around with flavours as you wish. The amount of milk you’ll need to add will vary depending on the size of the pan. If you have a large, wide, shallow pan the liquid will evaporate quicker (more surface area) and then you’ll have to add more milk to keep the rice cooking and stop it drying out altogether. Go for a medium-sized, non-stick saucepan, and stir regularly with a wooden or silicone spoon. I’ve given the quantities here for the way I make it at home, but be prepared to add a little extra milk in towards the end, if you need to.
 
And one of the best things about rice pudding is that it’s cheap, a little goes a very long way, and it’s very filling. So don’t hog it all to yourself.
 

Basic stovetop vanilla rice pudding

 
 
Basic Stovetop Rice Pudding
Serves 4
Ingredients

• 100g pudding rice
• 650ml semi-skimmed milk
• 50ml double cream
• 1 vanilla pod
• 2 tablespoons golden caster sugar

Method

1. Tip the pudding rice into a non-stick saucepan and pour over the cold milk. Switch on the heat underneath and bring to a gentle simmer.
2. Slice the vanilla pod in half lengthways, removing the seeds. Add the black seeds and also their pods to the pan, along with the sugar. Keep an eye on it, stirring regularly. If you see that it’s drying up, add a little more milk. Keep it simmering for about 25-30 minutes.
3. Fish out the vanilla pod, swilr in the double cream and take the rice pudding off the heat. Serve while hot.

And now, jazz it up a bit…

Chocolate and Vanilla
Once you’ve taken the pan off the heat, break in a square of dark chocolate and gently fold the rice over and around it until it starts to swirl and give a marbled effect. You could also add in some white chocolate, but adjust the quantities of sugar and maybe vanilla, so the end result isn’t too sweet or the vanilla too over powering.
 

 
Tia Maria
Coffee and vanilla complement each other so well, so once you have your basic vanilla rice pudding, serve it in bowls and then dribble a small amount of Tia Maria or another coffee liqueur. Other liqueurs that would work well include Baileys and Creme de Cacao (chocolate liqueur). Or I’d be tempted to break in the chocolate as above and dribble over some dark rum too.

Vanilla rice pudding with a Tia Maria drizzle

Fruits
Fold in some raspberries or blackberries and let their juices marble the pale, sweet rice. You could also stew fruits in liqueur and pour them over the top, like Jamie Oliver does in Jamie’s Great Britain. He stewed rhubarb in Pimm’s, and then swirled it through vanilla-scented rice pudding. And although he suggests folding some clotted cream through at the end, I did this and found it to be far too rich. That’s why I use semi-skimmed milk and then a swirl of double cream. It’s just slightly less creamy.
 
Do you have any recipes using rice pudding? How do you like to eat yours?
 
 

My 1980s Childhood in Ten Dishes: What Were Yours?

I was born in 1977, and so my childhood was spent backcombing my hair and wearing lace gloves and pixie boots, pretending to be Madonna; listening to Wham! on cassette tapes and fiddling about with a Rubix cube. And so, as you may have already gathered, most of my childhood took place bang in the middle of the 1980s.

Sadly, the 1980s seemed to be the era of two extremes, food-wise. You had the haute cuisine of expensive but fiddly little portions of food served on huge plates for what my dad called the ‘yuppie’ crowd. And then you had the likes of us eating anything that could be covered in breadcrumbs, frozen and pinged in a microwave. And when I look back at my childhood, here are the top 10 dishes that I remember the most. And if you grew up in the 80s too, do they jog any memories for you as well?

Me, aged about 5. In the 1980s.

Fish and chips
We lived in a little town near Southampton, so seaside trips were quite a regular thing for us. But funnily enough, although seafood was constantly eaten in the house, the nearest us kids got to it was mass-produced fishfingers from the freezer. My Dad ate fresh whitebait, lobster, cockles, crab and squid but although we got to have the odd taste, it wasn’t ever considered ‘kid’s food’. Even after a trip to the chip shop, I used to go all wide-eyed at the curled up, crispy cod fillets that my parents crunched on with their chips, while I was only allowed a fishcake or a crispy battered sausage. But no problem – on our birthdays we always got to choose what the family dinner was going to be that night: I always, always chose fish and chips. With proper fish.

Tinned rice pudding with a blob of cold raspberry jam
I didn’t know it then, but looking back I realise that as a family, we didn’t have much money. And tinned rice pudding, heated up and with a fridge-cold teaspoon of raspberry jam blobbed on top was one of the cheapest puddings there was. I love it even now, on a cold day, and my children love it too.

Liver and onions
I dreaded liver and onion day. I don’t know what she did, but my Mum would serve up chewy, grey, gnarly pieces of liver with slippery onions and a thick, brown gravy, all piled onto mashed potato. Only when I grew up and started cooking for myself did I realise that liver cooks in just a couple of minutes – she must have been cooking that for ages, bless her.

Fish and chips… one of the dishes of my childhood

Rounders
Anyone remember Rounders? They were breadcrumbed, fat discs of mashed potato – I think there was some sausage meat in there too, with a baked bean centre. I loved them. I can remember the taste of them now, always dished up with oven chips and some tomato ketchup. And we always had a steady supply from the (I believed) bottomless chest freezer in the hallway.

Coke float
Summer holidays were the best. They seemed to always be so hot for a start – and I’d go out with my sister and friends at 9 in the morning and come back for dinner at 5. But if we got thirsty riding our bikes or rollerbooting around the block, we used to stop off at one of our friend’s Mums’ houses, where, if we were lucky, we would get given a coke float. We showed our Mum how to make them, with coca-cola and vanilla ice cream and I reckon I spent most of the summer of 1988, with scuffed and muddy knees, sipping one of these frothy, ice-cold drinks on the steps of our porch.

Brain’s faggots
‘Euuurrrgh!!!’ Tommy Lucas screeched at me one day across the school dinner table when I was 6. ‘You don’t eat Brain’s faggots, do you? They’re made from brains!!!’. But I did eat them, and I loved them. I tried to ignore what Tommy Lucas had said while I was tucking in, though. I don’t know if you can still buy them. They were little balls made up of different cuts of meat and offal, doused in a rich, thick and quite sweet gravy.

Coke Float

Microwaved cakes
I remember a distinct change in my Mum when we got our first ever microwave oven. She was a keen baker – always baking something, and all our birthday cakes were home-made, golden and had a gorgeous crumbly, buttery crust. And then one day my Dad brought home the microwave. Overnight, our cakes turned a strange, pale colour and turned bubbly, chewy, rubbery and perfectly-shaped in whatever it was they were zapped in at the time. I remember lots of murmuring between my Mum and my grandmother about the ‘rays’ and wondering if they were really safe. Well, it didn’t stop her cooking practically everything in it – even ‘fried eggs’ (microwaved on a buttered plate).

Jam tarts
These were one of the first things I learned to cook with my Mum. I have a really very fuzzy memory of standing up at the kitchen worktop on one of the dining room’s wooden chairs and spooning the jam into pastry circles. Awww.

Apple flavoured pizza
I wondered if this was actually a bad dream (and was kind of hoping it was), until I asked my Mum about this the other day. “Oh, yes,” she said, “I used to buy them off the freezer man at the market.” So it was true. A pale, stiff pizza base, with bright (almost luminous) green ‘tomato’ purée, bright green ‘cheese’ to match and a sweet, zingy apple flavour coming off it. They were labelled with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles characters on the box. And I think they were marketed to try and get kids to like pizza. Get that? To get KIDS to like PIZZA. Sheeesh.

Findus Crispy Pancakes
I used to love Findus Crispy Pancakes, until I bought some to try again recently. And then I felt cheated. They were tiny! Have they got smaller, or did they seem bigger in those days because I was tinier? Crispy and breadcrumbed on the outside, these little half-circles were filled with either minced beef and gravy or cheese and ham. We loved them, with peas. Oh yes, and oven chips (again).
 
Which foods do you most remember from your childhood? Let me know in the comments below…

Quick Smoky, Spicy Chipotle Lentils and Beans

This is another of those storecupboard dinners you can stir together in just a few minutes, and it makes a pretty good veggie Chilli Sin Carne (chilli without meat) too, when served up with some boiled rice and cheese for sprinkling on top. All you need to do is keep a few tins lurking in the back of the cupboards and a couple of fresh ingredients and you’re away. As well as being a cheap meal in itself, it’s also great added to burritos, spooned over baked potatoes or heated and made into beans on toast with a difference.

You can of course use fresh tomatoes if you have some you need to use up, and dried beans and lentils but I have to admit I do often rely on tinned because there isn’t always time for all that soaking and cooking. I’ve also just given the basic recipe here – you can add chopped veggies in just after the garlic frying stage, too.

The amounts given below make up a deceptively large batch, which will feed about 6-8 people. Keep any leftovers in the fridge for a couple of days, or freeze in individual portion sizes and defrost before reheating for a quick, warming treat. This is one of the quick, cheap and nutritious meals I wish I’d discovered before I went to university…

Smoky Chipotle Lentils and Beans (or Chilli Sin Carne) 
Serves 6-8 people
Ingredients

• olive oil
• 1 large garlic clove, chopped
• 1 heaped teaspoon chipotle chilli paste
• 1 x 400g can green lentils
• 1 x 400g tin chopped tomatoes
• 1 x 400g can red kidney beans
• 2 tablespoons tomato puree
• salt and pepper
• pinch of dried mixed herbs

Method
Heat the olive oil in a non-stick frying pan and gently fry the garlic, until it turns aromatic and soft. Stir in the chipotle chilli paste, the lentils, tomatoes, kidney beans and tomato puree and season with a pinch of salt and a grinding of black pepper. Add the herbs and leave to bubble gently for about 10 minutes.


Do you have any really quick meals you rely on in the week when time is tight?
 
 
 

Limited Edition Mars Caramel – What do You Think?

Yesterday, while I was out and about I ended up popping into the little café to the side of Slough railway station for a bottle of water, and as I paid, I saw one of these little beauties eyeing me up on the counter:
 

 
 
It’s a Limited Edition Mars Caramel. Less thick, and possibly shorter than its original form (I didn’t measure it though so I might be wrong), it promised ‘100% Mars Caramel’. I was curious, so I bought one to try.
 

 
 
I don’t know how they’ve done it, but although the nougat part inside the Mars bar was completely missing and the inside was all caramel, it did have the initial flavour of a Mars Bar. The caramel centre is quite stiff, not the soft gooey caramel you get in, say a Galaxy Caramel, and the chocolate on the outside is still quite thick. But for me, it was all too rich, sweet and sticky. Next time, I’d just get a regular Mars Bar. And, anyway I quite like the nougatty, chewy part in the original.
 
If you see one on sale and you fancy trying it, have a taste and come to your own conclusion. Let me know what you think of it in the comments box below. Have you tried one? Did you like it?
 
 
 

How to Spatchcock a Chicken

 
 
Spatchcocking is my new favourite way of roasting chicken. It does require a small amount of brute force but get over your squeamishness because it cooks much quicker and I think, results in juicier chicken meat, especially the breast, which can turn stringy and dry if it’s roasted for a while.
 
You can always get your butcher to do this for you, but if you ever fancy spatchcocking a chicken (or another bird) then here’s how to do it:
 
First, place the chicken breast side down on a sturdy chopping board. Cut with a sharp knife or with a pair of heavy-duty kitchen scissors through either side of the spine of the bird and then remove it.
 

 
 
You should be able to now flatten out the bird.
 
Turn the bird breast side up, and poke in a wooden skewer through the thigh, the breast area and then out near the wing on the other side. You will need to wiggle the skewer around to get past bone and cartilage). Poke another skewer in the opposite direction. This will keep the bird flat while roasting.
 

At this point, you can marinade your chicken, or simply massage with olive oil and a sprinkling of salt and pepper.
 
To cook, place in a roasting dish (if you are marinating the chicken, it’s a good idea to line the dish with foil) and cook at 200°C for around 1 hour, depending on the size of your chicken (I usually use a 1.2kg sized bird). Always just check that the chicken is cooked through and no pink juices are left before serving – if there is any hint of blood or pink flesh stick it back in the oven for another 10 minutes and check again.
 

 
 
Remove the skewers, carve the chicken and serve.
 
 

A Sneak Peek at Hotel Chocolat’s Halloween Range

Although they do cater for kids, I always associate Hotel Chocolat with grown-up chocolate. And at Halloween, why should kids have all the fun? The luxury chocolate retailer has come up with some classy, gothic-style chocolates for Halloween and when I saw them, I couldn’t wait to share them with you.
 
The first is a limited edition Dead Gorgous coffin, with a laughing skull design and trimmed in black satin for a luxurious touch. The coffin comes with 28 chocolates finished in 24 carat edible gold. They’re only making 190 of these so if you want one you’ll have to get in quick, although if you do it’ll cost you £50.
 

 

They’re also launching other chocolate treats including a chocolate skull decorated with gold leaf (£50), Horrif-Eyes (£6.50) and a Boo! Box – a box of various Halloween figures cast in dark chocolate (£8). Also look out for the Crystal Skull – a chocolate skull with cherry crystals (priced at £2.50).
 

 
They’ve even got a Count Chocula figure for the kids (although, thinking about it, who said it had to be for the kids? *winks*)…
 

The chocolates are all luxurious, creative and as Hotel Chocolat say, they do convey a sense of ‘horror-chic’. But do you ever turn to them for trick or treaters? Or do you rely on the cheaper supermarket ‘bag of chocolate eyeballs’? I’d buy the Count Chocula for my nephew perhaps, but probably not for the hoards of kids that arrive at my door continously on Halloween night. I’d be more likely to just bolt the door and snuggle down with a box all to myself.
 
Do you ever buy Hotel Chocolat products for Halloween, or do you tend to rely on budget chocolate for when trick or treaters arrive at your door? And would you fork out £50 for a gold-leaf covered chocolate skull? Let me know in the comments section below….
 
The chocolates can be purchased from Hotel Chocolat stores and online from 17th September 2012.
 

 

Is This The Best Burger in Reading?

Edited: You may want to read my updated post, on Handmade Burger Co in The Oracle at the Riverside…

Secretly, I’ve been on a bit of a mission to find Reading’s best burger. And over the last few months, whenever I’ve gone out to lunch in  town I’ve always ordered a burger (honestly, the things I do for you guys…) so I can compare them and work out which is the best.
 
Now, before I reveal my overall winner, you need to know two things. The first is that I’ve not managed to get round to every single burger-serving restaurant in the town. I’ve been to the main ones most people would think of when they fancy a burger but may have missed other, up-scale restaurants that serve their own burgers. I’m working on that, and as I get around to more I’ll post updates as I go along. (I haven’t been to Brown’s for example, but that’s next on my list.)
 
The second thing you need to know is that when I visited these places I dined completely incognito. I selected the places myself and there were no invitations via restaurant owners or PR companies. I turned up and ate just as you would – no special service, no extra toppings, no being more careful about how they cook the burgers – nothing. So my views are completely unbiased and objective.
 
So, on to the burgers. *cue drum roll*.
 
Here is, in my view, Reading’s best burger. Doesn’t it look good?
 

     

And I ate it at Jamie’s Italian, on the Riverside near the Oracle. Part of me hates to admit it, because I’m a bit wary of the celeb-chef restaurant chain thing, but it was brilliant. You get a seeded bun, with a burger made from British chuck and flank steak. A crispy slice of mortadella sits on the bottom and a slice of fontina cheese melts over the top of the burger. I loved the soft texture of the bun and the heat from the whole, green jalapeño chilli which lurks underneath. I now find I can’t eat a beefburger without a few jalapeños tucked inside, otherwise I’m disappointed. They’ve also squeezed in some sticky balsamic onions and a slice of tomato as well as a bit of lettuce. The only annoying thing is that you don’t get chips alongside it but have to order them separately, and at £10.95 per burger you’d expect the chips to be included. (If you like a bit of extra carb with your burger a portion of funky chips (tossed in garlic and parsley) will set you back an extra £3.25). But a gorgeous burger it is, with or without the chips.
 
 
And the ones that got away…

But I couldn’t end there, without a run down of some of the other places I tried, and although many of them served great burgers, why I didn’t think they made it to the top. I ate some truly awful burgers, and I don’t want to name names here. Well not right now, anyway. But there were just a few that were pretty close calls and very nearly pipped Jamie to the post. The Giraffe Burger (Giraffe is just behind Jamie’s) came a very close second but I think the bun let it down for me. It just seemed to lack the texture of Jamie’s, and it did fall apart about half way through, meaning I had to resort to using my knife and fork. But the burger was meaty, and, unlike Jamie’s you can choose what you want inside it and tailor it to suit your preference. Bacon, fried onions, chorizo sausage… you can pack quite a bit in there if you wanted to. And for £10.95 (you pay extra for the extra toppings) you get your fries in, too.
 

     

 

The Giraffe Burger – a very close second

After trying their steaks, I had high hopes for the burger at Miller Carter, but I was disappointed – the burger itself was fantastic (Miller and Carter cook meat very nicely indeed) but for me there weren’t enough extra toppings. My £1 worth of added Stilton was modest – and I would have liked more mayo and lettuce to make the whole thing more juicy and moist.
 
I also went along to TGI Fridays. I tried their Jack Daniels burger – with a sweet Jack Daniels dipping sauce, the Black and Bleu – oozy blue cheese inside the bun along with the burger and a blue cheese dip; and the Monster Burger. The Monster is 12oz of beef burger with bacon, Colby cheese, Cajun-spiced onion rings, all squeezed into a bun with some salad (Yeah, I went OTT). But the best there was the Smokehouse – slathered in BBQ sauce, with salad, cheese and bacon. But although it was a perfectly good burger it didn’t seem to have the distinct flavours and textures that the Giraffe and Jamie’s Italian burgers had.
 
So, at least for me, Jamie’s it was.
 
Do you eat in Reading? What’s your favourite burger? Have you eaten a burger that’s better than Jamie’s? Let me know and I’ll go and check it out!
 
Image of Jamie’s Italian Burger provided by Jamie’s Italian – with thanks.

 

Gluten Free Foods vs Regular Foods

Although I haven’t been to the doctor yet to have my diagnosis confirmed, I found after the Making Sense of Sensitivity campaign that I was better suited to a gluten free diet. I had less bloating, more energy and generally felt more healthy. So for a couple of months or so I’ve been eating the vast majority of my foods ‘gluten free’ (until I can get round to visiting the doctor). When I have to test a recipe I do have to schnaffle down a limited amount of gluten-rich foods, but generally in everyday life I do try to avoid it.
 
But it soon occurred to me that not all gluten-free foods are the same. While I can get by eating foods with rice, potatoes and rice noodles instead of bread and wheat-based foods, there are times when you need to use a special gluten-free ingredient like pasta or bread.
 
I’m sure that many gluten-free foods will improve over time, as more people ask for them and they’re not just seen as a ‘health food’. But here are a few differences I’ve found between regular and gluten-free substitutes.
 
Gluten-free pasta

See? Looks exactly like ‘normal’ pasta

Gluten-free varieties of pasta seem to vary entirely on the shape of the pasta and the brand. Some brands have the same texture and taste almost as regular pasta. Some have a strange, starchy coating even in the finished dish. Funnily enough, DS spaghetti seems to have this, while DS pasta twirls don’t. Because it can’t contain wheat, gluten-free pastas are usually made from corn (maize) or rice flour. I tasted some corn-based pasta at Carluccio’s recently, and apart from it’s bright yellow colour, I wouldn’t have known the difference between that and regular pasta, texture wise. And I do like Dove’s range of gluten-free pastas. My advice is not to stock up on a whole load of gluten-free pasta at once – shop around and try a bag here and there until you find one you like.
 
Gluten-free bread

Gluten free bread rolls made from Dove’s GF bread mix

If you have children, cast your mind back. When weaning your babies did you ever taste a little bit of the baby rice when you checked the temperature of it? And if you don’t have children, do you remember the flavour of a Farley’s rusk? Some gluten-free breads taste a lot like baby rice or rusk, because they’re made up from rice flour. They also tend to be drier. I once bought a gluten-free brioche at Sainsbury’s and looked forlonly at the rest of my family tucking into buttery, eggy chocolate brioches, while I chewed on mine. Also, gluten-free bread can be expensive. Get round this by making it at home, using a gluten-free bread flour mixture. Don’t just use the flour as you would normal wheat flour, it will behave differently. You’ll need to add vinegar and often some xantham gum, but you’ll get a decent bread roll that you can freeze and defrost as needed. It will also work out much cheaper than buying indivisual gluten-free bread rolls from the shops. I like Dove’s gluten-free bread flour.
 
Biscuits and cakes
As I mentioned with the brioche above, you do seem to get a drier texture with gluten-free cakes and biscuits. I bought a pack of gluten-free shortbread fingers and they tasted to me, exactly like Farley’s rusks. However, you can buy a massive range of gluten-free biscuits – from chocolate chip cookies to flapjacks and sweet Rice-Krispy cake things. Unless I want the comforting milky sweetness of a rusk-type biscuit I tend to avoid  these altogether and snack on a piece of fruit. I do have to admit though, that Byron Bay’s gluten free cookies are pretty good (but expensive when compared to regular cookies).
 

Bob’s Red Mill Gluten Free Baking Flour

Baking flour
You don’t have to miss out on your baking if you’re eating gluten free. You can use exactly the same amount of Bob’s Red Mill Gluten Free Baking Flour as you would wheat flour in recipes, although you will have to add some xanthan gum (check the label for quantities). I’ve made cakes and cheese scones and they’re hard to tell from the originals I used to make. It’s just great that you can still bake. (Thank goodness). I bought my baking flour from Waitrose.
 
 
Have you bought any of these gluten-free products? What did you think? Do you notice a difference between gluten free and regular foods?