Doctor Who 50th Anniversary Culinary Shenanigans

I've been toying with the idea of backdating this post so it appears on the 23rd November rather than today, but realised there's so sense in trying to rewrite the timeline of this blog. It would have been nice to have posted this over the Doctor Who Anniversary Weekend but the content this post deals with was actually made over the course of the 23rd and 24th anyway, while the plan was to make up some cupcakes and some truffles, then scoff them all while watching the 50th Anniversary special, The Day of the Doctor.

So... Just over a week late, here's what happened...

My girlfriend had previously brought round a whole stock of Lakeland's exclusive Doctor Who silicon cake pans and ice cube molds, as well as the Dalek cupcake wraps and toppers (colourful ones, based on the New Dalek Paradigm). All we needed was some food colouring (red, orange and blue) and a piping bag, and we'd be well on our way to making a selection of Dalektable* cupcakes to gobble up whilst glued to the screen. I also suggested using the ice cube tray to make some Doctor Who truffles, since it's been a while since I last larked about with chocolate.

It didn't all go smoothly... The first problem was that the Morrisons where I now do my usual weekly shop didn't seem to stock any red food colouring. I'd have expected blue to be hard to find because it's quite a weird colour for food, while red is surely pretty common these days. In the end, I had to make a brief second trip out, to my local Sainsbury's, to get the red colouring.

Next up, while the cakes themselves worked out very well - we just made twelve using two standard cake pans rather than the silicon molds (they're not as well-suited to having icing piled on, since the character designs on top would be covered over) - the icing was where it started to go wrong. Perhaps I should have known better than to expect a £2 piping bag to hold together, but the darned thing started to split before we'd even done three of the cakes, and was completely unusable by the time I finished the first six. We ended up only producing plain vanilla icing because of this, when the plan had been to (hopefully) make three of each colour.

Now, granted, I used ready-made Betty Crocker icing... but it had been out of the fridge for most of the day, and was easily soft enough to be piped right from the start. The piping bag I bought had a very thin heat-sealed seam, and split gradually further as I worked, even though the icing only got softer while the bag was in my hands. I'd have taken it back were it not for the fact that I already had a piping bag I wasn't aware of, and this new one came with seven nice, metal nozzles, which are a massive improvement on the three crappy plastic ones that had been packaged with the other bag. A quick switch-around, and I'll be ready to pipe icing again next time...

Thinking about it in retrospect, making three extra colours of icing would have required an awful lot more time than we allowed for the project, since the piping bag would have needed washing out after each group of three had been iced. As it was, we finished these just in time to start making our dinner, which was then ready just in time for the Doctor Who special.

Still, they turned out OK... and the two plates of cupcakes were further decorated with Jelly Babies, in a nod to a certain former Doctor who made an unexpected appearance in the show.

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The truffles were also not quite right. Where my previous attempts used bricks of Willie's Cacao chocolate, shattered by hand, we tried an easier option this time: bars of Fairtrade 70% Cocoa Dark Chocolate.

That it was far easier to melt should have clued me in to its vastly different makeup - far more cocoa butter, for one thing - and the final mixture of chocolate, butter, honey and egg yolk was much runnier than any previous truffle mixture I've made. This did make it easier to pour into the mold - which is always good - and it still set perfectly well - which is also good - but the truffles ended up much, much sweeter than I'd have hoped. It's not that the honey was the most potent flavour, but it certainly came close and, without the coating of cocoa powder, these could have been almost unbearably syrupy. As it was, I could only eat a couple at a time... which was, I suppose, true of the last batch of truffles I made, just for a very different reason.

The molds were Daleks (naturally), the TARDIS (just as naturally) and K-9. All were reasonably detailed molds, and the truffles came out with minimal breakage (the Daleks' dome lights broke off quite easily, as did the lantern on the roof of the TARDIS, but the bulk of the detail came out well. Dumping them all in cocoa filled in a lot of these details - most annoyingly the 'K-9' lettering on the side of the robot dog and many of the TARDIS window panes - but the end result turned out well... And the truffle mixture left over from the nine molded characters went on to make at least a dozen 'balls' of truffle.

* Excellent food/Doctor Who pun courtesy of my girlfriend

Last Course: Mint Chocolate Truffle Tart

Because, let's face it, once you've made truffles, the logical progression is "How would that work in a tart?"

I'd actually intended to write up a Waitrose chocolate tart (the seriously tautological 'Seriously Chocolatey Tarte au Chocolat'), but took so long to get my head together during one of my quiet, non-blogging patches that I'd basically forgotten what it was like. Consider this not just an alternative, but a home-made spin on the same theme.

This is much the same process as making truffles, but the quantities and proportions of ingredients were altered, basically by guesstimate. So, without further ado...

Ingredients:

• 300g Dark Chocolate (I used 2 bars of Green & Blacks Organic Dark Cooks' Chocolate this time round, for convenience - 72% cocoa, "made with finest Trinitario cocoa beans with extra cocoa butter for easier melting", each bar made up of 30 5g pieces)
• 90g Unsalted Butter
• 80ml Runny Honey (the same Sainsbury's 'Light & Mild' Acacia as last time)
• 3 Large Egg Yolks
• Peppermint Extract (2 teaspoons, I used Star Kay White's Pure Peppermint Extract)
• Waitrose Sweet Pastry Case
• Cocoa Powder & Icing Sugar (optional, as decoration)

Preparation Time: About 10 minutes mixing, then just chill in refrigerator till serving time

Tools Required:

• Microwave
• Microwave-Safe Bowl
• Jar Scraper or similar (for stirring and smoothing out the mixture in the pastry case)
• Measuring Implements (cups, scales, etc.)
• 2 Small Cups/Glasses (for separating the eggs)

The Process:
Break up the chocolate bars into the bowl, then blast in the microwave, set to medium, for 30 seconds at a time, mixing with the jar scraper each time. This Green & Black's chocolate melted far more easily than Willie's, thanks to that 'extra cocoa butter'. On this occasion, I also gave the butter some time in the microwave, which made it even easier to stir into the chocolate. In fact, I was able to dump the whole 90g into the chocolate in one hit, and it really didn't take long for the few remaining lumps to melt in.

Slightly more honey was used for this version of the mixture but, considering the Green & Black's cooking chocolate is sweeter than Willies in its raw form, this isn't strictly necessary... In fact, it's entirely possible you could do without. Make sure to stir it in thoroughly if you are using it.

Add the mint extract next. Being alcohol-based, the Star Kay White stuff I used here took a lot of stirring to mix in properly - it seemed to want to just stay on the surface of the mixture. In fact, all things considered, the addition of this particular mint extract is the only reason the mixture took as long as it did to prepare!

Finally, as with the truffle mixture, separate and add in 3 (slightly beaten) egg yolks. The mixture should begin to thicken up noticeably. When it's all mixed together thoroughly, pour it directly into the pastry case. If you're lucky, the quantities listed above will leave you with enough mixture for about 10 minty truffles, so refrigerate any leftovers right along with the tart.

For an extra finishing touch, mix up some cocoa powder and icing sugar to sprinkle over the tart. The remains can be mopped up by whatever truffles you make.

The Results:
Confession time: this is another recipe where the quantities I've given above have been adjusted as a result of my efforts. I used more honey and only two egg yolks and the result was OK, but not quite right. Certainly, I used far too much honey (100ml, just for the record) and that, coupled with the mint, reduced the impact of the flavour of the chocolate. It still tasted like mint chocolate, and the mint was actually quite subtle... but excess honey coupled with the lower cocoa content in the chocolate didn't do the finished product any favours. 80ml is only a third again more than the quantity used for the truffles, so it should offer a more balaced sweetness. I also only used 2 eggs, and immediately realised my mistake when the mixture didn't gain the same initial texture as my truffle mix. Based on the approximate proportions, I determined that one egg yolk is needed for every 100g of chocolate melted, hence 3 yolks for 2 bars worth of chocolate. I toyed with the idea of breaking and separating another egg when I made this, but didn't want to risk it so late in the process.

I would also add that Waitrose ready-made Sweet Pastry Case is probably a bit too thick, dry and biscuity for this tart. Something a bit more buttery and soft would have worked better... and having less of it would have been a bonus, too, because the ready-made case is actually quite a thick crust.

All that said, this turned out to be quite a pleasant minty-chocolatey dessert. My parents were the first to sample it, and gave a generally favourable review, though it was a little tough to cut straight from the fridge (furthermore, my father would have preferred it without any kind of pastry case, but that would have made it one whopping great truffle, rather than a tart). Considering how ridiculously easy this is to make, and the vast range of ready-flavoured Green & Black's chocolate on the market (why didn't I just buy their mint chocolate?), there are many variations on this theme to be tried and, while I am certain to try some of them in future, they may not get such a thorough write-up.

This is actually a rather more extensive coverage with cocoa/icing sugar than I'd originally intended but, after a couple of accidents where great clumps of the stuff fell onto the tart, I decided I'd just spread the stuff around, rather than even try to make it look 'natural'. In retrospect, I probably didn't need to mix icing sugar into this batch, because the tart itself turned out sweeter than I'd expected.

And, of course, the leftovers went to make these:

And very nice they were, too.

Great Scott! Did I Just Make Truffles?!

Some years ago, I worked in a certain trendy part of west London (you know the one - it was the title of a movie starring Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts). Down one road right near the office was a shop specialising in high-quality and hand-made foods. One of their specialities was the little boxes of the most awesome chocolate truffles I've ever tried. If ever there was a special occasion in the office, I'd head down and pick up some truffles to share out (or several small boxes to hand out to my team before Christmas).

This little experiment (because I surely cannot claim I expected it to go well) came about because I was pretty sure that cream was not an ingredient of truffles, but the recipe I had to hand - not to mention many, many more I found online - all listed varying proportions of double cream or whipping cream as the major component. Now, conceivably, this is because proper chocolate - of the kind I've used below - is both very rich and very bitter. Cream will smooth that out, but if you go looking for traditional truffle recipes, cream is among the many things you will not find.

Ingredients:

• 180g Dark Chocolate (I used Willie's Supreme Cacao Venezuelan Black, Caranero Superior - 100% Pure Cacao!)
• 80g Unsalted Butter (cubed, and at room temperature, not straight from the fridge!)
• 60ml Runny Honey (I used 'Light & Mild' Acacia honey from Sainsbury's)
• 2 Large Egg Yolks
• Cocoa Powder
• Icing Sugar (optional, but recommended with this dark chocolate!)

Preparation Time: About 10 minutes mixing, 1-2hrs refrigeration, then about 10-20 minutes to make the individual truffles.

Tools Required:

• Large Kitchen Knife (to break up the chocolate)
• Microwave
• Microwave-Safe Bowl
• Jar Scraper or similar (for stirring)
• Measuring Implements (cups, scales, etc.)
• 2 Small Cups/Glasses (for separating the eggs)
• Small Bowl (for coating truffles in cocoa)
• Cling Film
• Small Ice-Cream Scoop or Tablespoon

The Process:
There are two ways to melt chocolate - putting it in a bowl over a pan of boiling water... or putting it in a bowl and blasting it in the microwave. Either way, it has to be broken up and, when working with bricks of Willie's chocolate, the best way seems to be to just get all Norman Bates on it. Stick the brick into a bowl, and channel your inner Mr. Stabby with a large kitchen knife. Ideally, the chunks should be of a reasonably consistent size but, until Willie's get their act together and start making their chocolate into bars that are easily breakable into more-or-less identical chunks, like everybody else, you'll just have to live with random fragments and little splinters.

Heating the chocolate is a very delicate matter. Set the microwave to medium power, and heat the fragmented chocolate for 30 seconds at a time, stirring with a jar scraper each time, because it won't be immediately obvious how well it's melting. Once the whole lot is in a liquid state (should take about 5 minutes, overall), add in the butter a few cubes at a time, and stir till it's completely incorporated. Depending on how soft the butter is, you may need to put the mixture back in the microwave for another 30 seconds to ensure its warm enough to mix in the whole lot. Alternatively, warm the butter separately in the microwave beforehand.

Once the butter is all in, add the honey and stir thoroughly. Finally, add the egg yolks and - you guessed it - stir thoroughly. At this final stage, the mixture will thicken dramatically, almost becoming like dough. When it seems consistent (though, I found, rather grainy-looking), set it aside to cool for a while, then cover the bowl with cling film and refrigerate for an hour or two.

An interesting aside at this point is that some recipes you'll find online will refer to this mixture as a 'ganache'. This is inaccurate. A ganache is the result of pouring hot cream over chocolate, then stirring till smooth. You will notice the absence of cream in the above recipe. Also not to be confused with Ganesh, who is a Hindu deity.

Once the mixture has cooled, grab it out of the fridge. Pour some of the cocoa powder into a small bowl, then mix in some icing sugar to sweeten it up. Scoop out some of the truffle mixture and mold into as regular a ball as you can be bothered with, then drop it into the bowl and shake around to get an even coating.

Finished truffles should be stored in the fridge in an airtight container, and should last about a week.

The Results:
When I saw what happened to the mixture when the egg went in, I thought I had a disaster on my hands. I'd done a fair bit of research on truffle recipes (the trick, unless you're going for the cream-based, ganache type, is to search for 'traditional truffle recipe', or just go the whole hog and add 'egg yolk' into the search terms) and most of them refer to the mixture being smooth... but only up to the point where the egg goes in... then the descriptions are conspicuous by their absence.

I did find that the mixture was tougher around the edges of the bowl when it came out of the fridge (big surprise - mixture hardens when cold... edges are coldest. Duh.) and I couldn't keep the size of each scoop consistent to save my life but, hey, "cock-eyed" is just another way of saying "lovingly hand-made" in my books.

Or something.

In retrospect, I think I should have added more honey to the mix. The finished truffles were rather bitter. That said, I actually forgot to mix the icing sugar in with my cocoa, so the coating was pure cocoa until I decided - as a last resort patch-job - to sprinkle some icing sugar over the top of the finished truffles. Alternatively, it's quite common to add some kind of additional flavouring - anything from liqueurs to chilli.

Texture-wise, they turned out far smoother than I'd expected from the dough-like final mixture, but I will concede that cream would make them smoother still, and reduce the bitterness of 100% cocoa chocolate. The quantities listed should give you at least 30 good-sized truffles, so this would be a great thing to try over a weekend, so that any leftovers ("enjoy responsibly" as the ad goes) can be taken to work on Monday and shared around.

Go on, you know you want to.

Also, 'lovingly hand-made' truffles make the perfect Valentine's gift, gentlemen. You're welcome.