Beaver Tails with Maple Buttercream Icing

Sometime after my girlfriend moved in with me, we started introducing each other to things like our favourite movies, books, TV shows and YouTube channels. In the latter category, one of Courtney's favourites is Simply Nailogical - ostensibly a nail art channel which has more recently branched out into a nail varnish brand (Holo Taco) and a stream-of-consciousness/discussion podcast (SimplyPodLogical). This may seem like a strange subject to bring up on what is technically still a food blog (even though it's been without updates in over a year because I started using Instagram for the majority of my foodie output), but there's a connecton, honest.

Basically, one of the recent episodes of SimplyPodLogical was devoted to discussing some common Canadian stereotypes and, during the course of the conversation, Cristine and Ben mentioned a chain of pastry shops called 'BeaverTails'. They are purveyors of what is essentially a flatbread version of the classic fried doughnut, with a variety of toppings on offer, from classic cinnamon sugar to various types of icing, chocolate spreads, crushed biscuits, fruit, etc.

Naturally, I was hooked.

Since they don't have any UK branches (and, y'know, there's the Lockdown to consider anyway) I looked into recipes for making Beaver Tails myself, and realised it was something I could probably manage quite comfortably, despite the fact that I've done very little cooking from scratch in ages, and what little I have done used recipes from Gousto, where all the ingredients came supplied in the proper, premeasured quantities, and the instructions were given in clear, simple stages. I've not bothered writing those up here because it seemed a little rude (not to mention legally shaky) to recreate their recipes, and because it worked better to simply photograph and Instagram the results.

But Beaver Tails... They're precisely in line with the raison d'être for this blog, so I couldn't resist going the longform option... Not least because I can demonstrate how adaptable these fried delicacies can be.

Ingredients:

Maple Buttercream

• Room Temperature Butter, salted or unsalted - I used salted (225g)
• Icing Sugar (120g)
• Maple Syrup (120ml)
• Vanilla Extract (2 teaspoons)
• Salt (a pinch, only if using unsalted butter)

Preparation Time: 5-10 minutes

Beaver Tails

• Hot Tapwater (60ml)
• Sugar (50g)
• Yeast (7g)
• Milk (60ml)
• Butter (3 Tablespoons)
• Egg (1)
• Salt (1 Teaspoon)
• Plain Flour (335g)
• Oil for Frying
• Topping (cinnamon sugar being the usual recommendation)

Preparation Time: Approx 2 hours, including resting

Tools Required:

• Large Mixing Bowl (for the dough)
• Medium Mixing Bowl (for the icing)
• Small, Microwave-safe Bowl
• Stirring Implements, eg. spoon, spatula, whisk (some form of electric mixer is recommended for some parts!)
• Sharp Knife
• Rolling Pin
• Frying Pan or Saucepan (of sufficient size to accommodate at least one portion of the dough)
• Tongs (because you don't want to burn your fingers with hot oil!)

The Process:
Let's start by making the buttercream, because doing that after making the Beaver Tails could be problematic. Cube the butter and dump it into the medium-sized bowl, then add the icing sugar and start to stir. While I'd heartily recommend some sort of electric mixer (either a stand mixer or an electric whisk), it's best to start this process off manually, either with a spoon or spatula, because the icing sugar will be inclined to puff out all over the place under the influence of an electric mixer. Once the icing sugar is at least partially bound into the butter, it'll be safe to switch over to electric. Add in the Maple Syrup, the Vanilla and, if using unsalted butter, a pinch of salt. Personally, I found it perfectly acceptable to cut out the middle-man and simply use salted butter - the combination of icing sugar, Maple Syrup and Vanilla is easily sweet enough to take the edge off the saltiness of the butter, and vice versa. Keep mixing till everything is as smooth as possible, then set aside.

Note that this mixture will be inclined to separate over time, and may not even bind into a particularly smooth consistency in the first place. This is a common issue with adding liquids to buttercream, but we're aiming for an authetic Maple Syrup flavour, and genuine Maple Syrup is very much a liquid. As long as you're not seeing clumps of butter, it's probably good to go, and will just need a little extra stirring before it's applied to the Beaver Tails.

Making the dough for the Beaver Tails themselves is rather more complicated a process than I've encountered for bread and cakes, largely because I've normally only dealt with ready-made mixtures. I think the only other time I've used yeast anywhere on this blog was in my failed attempt at crafting home-made Cream Soda, but we seemed to have some more recently-purchased yeast in our cupboards.

Start by pouring the hot tapwater into the larger mixing bowl with a teaspoon of sugar (this can be taken from the measured 50g - that still leaves plenty for the remainder of the recipe), add the yeast, stir and set aside for a few minutes so it can proof. What you'll end up with is an off-putting, yeasty-smelling, frothy beige mess. Believe it or not, this is a good thing.

Add the butter, milk, and the remaining sugar to a small bowl and microwave (carefully!) to melt it all together. Stir it up and allow it to cool for a few minutes before adding to the yeast mixture in the large bowl - it needs to be hotter than room temperature, but if it's too hot it could ruin the yeast. Stir the two mixtures together, then crack in the egg, add the salt and whisk together. Start slowly adding in the flour, a little at a time, and keep stirring until a dough is formed. Knead this for a few minutes, adding flour as necessary. The end result should still be quite sticky, but very definitely a dough rather than a paste.

Cover the bowl - if it has a lid, so much the better, otherwise cling film will do the job - and leave it aside somewhere warm to allow the dough to rise. About an hour should be sufficient, but I had to make way for Courtney to take an online cookery class at this point, and only returned to my dough quite late in the afternoon, by which time it was very puffy and smelt strongly of yeast. Beat the dough back down to its original size, then divide into eighths - I rolled mine into a fat cylinder, as that seemed the easiest way to cut it into portions semi-accurately. Roll these out flat, to something in the region of half a centimetre in depth, then set aside for frying. Just for fun, I cut a grid pattern on one side of mine... Not sure why, but the idea had occurred to me, and I was curious to see how they'd end up after frying.

Fill your chosen frying pan or saucepan with cooking oil, just enough that the dough sections will be able to float, then put on what's described as "a medium heat". I gather from the recipes I found online that you'd be aiming for about 180°C/350°F, but it's a tricky thing to judge because hobs aren't marked that way, and they often have different sized burners available, each offering a different range of temperatures. For me, "a medium heat" usually seems to be the lowest setting on the mid-sized burner, but that isn't entirely consistent so your mileage may vary. I ended up tearing off a small chunk of the dough and using that to judge whether the oil was hot enough.

Place the dough pieces into the oil carefully to avoid spitting or splashing. Depending on the size of your chosen vessel, you may have to do them one at a time, or you may fit two or three. Fry each side till golden brown - depending on the vaguaries of the hob and the actual temperature of the oil, this may be anything between 30 seconds to a couple of minutes... though I suspect I may have overdone a couple of mine. Once done, pick them out of the oil (allowing the excess to drain off) and add the topping of your choice while they're still warm.

The Results:
To be honest, this went better than I'd expected, albeit perhaps not perfectly. For starters, I didn't get all my ingredients ready and set out before waking up the yeast, so that was left going rather longer than recommended in any recipes (maybe about 15-20 minutes, while I got everything else together?). I'm not sure if there's an ideal point in the proofing process, after which something can go wrong... but certainly nothing exploded. I actually started the yeast off in a tiny bowl of its own rather than in the large mixing bowl and, by the time I started bringing everything together for the dough, it looked as though it would have overflowed if I'd left it there much longer.

Still, the dough came together very well, but it did leave me coveting those mixers with dough hook options, because mixing what ends up as quite a tough, sticky dough was not fun with a standard spoon. I also had trouble with the dough's stickiness... Sure, it's described as "sticky" in recipes, but how sticky is that? Once I'd mixed in all the flour and started kneading, quite a bit of the dough stuck to my hands. I suspect I should have added a little more flour at that point, but didn't want to overdo it. This is probably something I'd know better if I made bread regularly (and from scratch). Nevertheless, it rose very well in its covered-over bowl... and ended up being left for several hours rather than the recommended "one hour or so". Whether or not this worked in my favour, I'm still not sure. Beating it down and dividing it up was easy enough, so I figure I can't have gone too far wrong. My only concern was that there was a very strong yeasty smell to what was supposed to be quite a sweet dough - or so I thought.

Frying went well, but I'm still pretty vague on hob temperature settings, particularly with large quantities of oil. Plus, the dough had a habit of developing pockets of air underneath, so some of the individual doughnut-things ended up with patches on the underside that looked undercooked. Still, they puffed up nicely, and I was pleased to find that my grid patterns looked pretty good after frying. I tried one 'bare' after letting it cool a little, and have to admit that the yeasty smell persisted after I tore it open. It was light and fluffy, though, so a coating of cinnamon sugar would probably have overpowered whatever yeastiness was left.

I was aiming slightly higher than mere cinnamon sugar, though... and my Maple Buttercream icing made for an excellent topping. However, I'd got a bit of a bee in my bonnet about the icing the day before I started making the dough. I first tried a small batch using a fraction of the necessary ingredients, and that turned out OK... But then I decided to make the full batch late in the evening, because I realised that my time in the kitchen would be interrupted by Courtney's cooking lesson, and I figured getting the icing done ahead of time would help. Storage presented a problem that I hadn't fully considered, though. I didn't want to leave it out overnight, so ended up stuffing it in the fridge. This naturally made it harder to dole out, even after stirring it thoroughly again to undo the separation that occurred, and it never quite became as smooth as one would normally expect of a buttercream icing.

I think I was a little hyperactive for a while after eating a completed Beaver Tail slathered with icing, so I didn't have a second. Later on came the sugar crash, which left me feeling a little unwell and headachy for part of the evening. The four Beaver Tails left after dinner were boxed up and stuck in the fridge, with the excess icing (because there was quite a lot!) scooped into a small plastic tub for storage in the freezer.

Not even the threat of another sugar crash was enough to deter me from having one of the remaining iced Beaver Tails for breakfast, and chilling them overnight certainly took the cloying edge off the icing, though the Beaver Tail itself had become a little dry and hard. They're definitely a dessert to be best enjoyed when fresh.

At Courtney's suggestion, I had another one - topped with three rashers of unsmoked bacon - for lunch, since the concept wasn't too far removed from some of the breakfast/brunch options I've seen available in American hotels. This, too, turned out to be delicious... and I'm not normally one to mix sweet and savoury on a single plate.

Cake Angels' TransFormers-Branded Chocolate Biscuit Kit

Knowing that I'm a bit of a fan of TransFormers, not to mention chocolate biscuits, my girlfriend bought me a boxed, TransFormers-branded kit for making my own choccie biccies with chocolate icing and printed wafer pieces featuring Optimus Prime and Bumblebee from the most recent TV show to carry the name "TransFormers: Robots In Disguise".

The kit contains two separate bags, containing a biscuit mix and an icing mix. The former requires only the addition of butter, the latter only a little water... and yet, despite how easy it would be to prepare, I put off making the biscuits for absolutely ages - one year, three months past its Best Before date, to be precise - before making a start. In all honesty, it probably would have been longer, and the box would have languished, untouched, in a cupboard for another few years, were it not for the obvious upset in Courtney's voice the last time the subject came up: "I bought it for you as a present..."

Part of the issue, I guess, is that I am a fan of TransFormers, but really not a fan of some of the random, licensed tat that bears the name... and a biscuit-making kit certainly falls under that banner. Still, there was no good reason for not making them, and I had the time today, so I finally cracked it open and had a go.

Both of the mixtures were quite strange to deal with. According to the instructions on the box, the icing only needed about 15ml water. Added slowly - effectively a half teaspoon at a time - I seemed to be stirring a small clump of powdery icing through a mass of pale brown, chocolate-scented icing sugar for ages, only for it to suddenly resolve itself into a thick, dark brown, glossy paste. Similarly, the 40g of room-temperature butter - cut up into small chunks so it'd soften quicker - seemed not to be blending with the cake mix at all until suddenly I had a lump of biscuit dough. Well, I say 'suddenly', but mixing it had taken absolutely ages, and both wrists were aching by the time it finally happened.

After chilling the dough in the fridge for 10 minutes, it needed rolling out - a thickness of 1cm was specified in the intructions, but I wasn't especially accurate with my rolling pin. Two stencils are printed on the back of the box, to cut out and keep (little stands are also included, to turn them into tiny standees once the biscuits are done), and these are simply laid on top of the rolled dough so they can be used to cut out one of two of each shape with a knife. The dough then needs to be balled up and re-rolled to cut out another round of biscuit shapes. The box says it makes six, and I ended up with slightly more than one biscuit's worth at the end, so I simply molded it into the shape of the stencil.

The instructions then recommend placing the biscuits onto a greased baking tray, but I object strongly to the washing up that requires, so I simply put some greaseproof paper on a cookie tray and laid the six slabs of dough on that before slamming them into the oven.

About a quarter of an hour later, the biscuits were cooked, so I took them out and let them cool briefly before battling with the icing, which preferred to stick to the spoons I was using to scoop it out of the bowl, rather than any of the biscuits. Surprisingly, there seemed to be far too much icing, and it threatened to drip over the sides of the tiny biscuits... The final touch was a case of rushing to get the wafer pieces popped out of their pre-cut sheet and slapped into the icing before it started hardening.

The end result looked like this:

Bearing in mind these were meant to be chocolate biscuits, I was a little surprised - and disappointed - to find that the flavour was more sugar than chocolate... So much sugar, in fact, that they actually left a burning sensation on my tongue and at the back of my throat. The texture left something to be desired as well - think gluten-free shortbread and you wouldn't be far off... only these were even closer to sand. There was no crunch, just crumble.

Whether this was due to being over a year past the Best Before date of the mix I'm not certain - it seems unlikely, given that such dry goods tend to last quite well. I'd say it was more due to the miniscule amout of butter, so there wasn't enough fat to properly bind the mixture and keep it moist through baking. The icing, in isolation, tasted vaguely of chocolate but, on the super-crumbly biscuit, that was all but lost. The wafers are basically puffed-up rice paper, and the print on them is very faint and faded - a shame considering the bold colours of the characters in the TV show.

I'm going to assume that these things are aimed at young kids, to give them a simple introduction to home baking (under supervision, given that a rolling pin, knife and oven are all potentially dangerous in young hands), but I can imagine a lot of kids being as disappointed as I was in the lack of chocolate flavour. I'd toyed with the idea of getting some cooking chocolate drops to add in, or maybe molding the shapes by hand, perhaps creating fewer, larger biscuits with some sculpted detail... but, in the end, I'm glad I didn't. This wasn't an especially good product, and does nothing to change my low opinion of TransFormers-branded tat... I'm sure it's reasonably lucrative, both for Hasbro and for Cake Angels... but anyone interested in making biscuits would be far better off looking up a recipe online and making them from scratch, rather than using this dry, disappointing mix.

In fact, maybe I'll do just that... I have a really good cookie recipe already, and I'm sure I could mold some vaguely TransFormer-ish shapes... Be interesting to see how they survive the baking process, though...

Fourth Anniversary Drinking

OK, I admit, I'm backdating this post because, despite setting an alarm for myself on my phone, I forgot to make this post on the day...

...But today marks the fourth year of this blog, and it's just typical of me that the day is marked (retrospectively) without a proper new posting. What I will do, however, is mention something booze-related as a kind of quasi-celebration.

Most weekends, these days, my girlfriend and I venture to our nearest branch of Morrisons for a weekly grocery shop. Morrisons have an absolutely massive section for booze (which we normally ignore), in which is nestled a tiny section of shelf devoted to frozen cocktails, including Smirnoff's distinctly underwhelming sorbets and the rather marvellous Parrot Bay 'Freeze & Squeeze' cocktails, which are essentially the same sort of thing but with rum rather than vodka.

The full range comprises five drinks - Berry Daiquiri, Citrus Daiquiri, Mojito, Passionfruit Caipirinha and Pina Colada - but my local Morrisons tends only to stock the Berry Daiquiri and the Mojito options (though we did once find a single Passionfruit Caipirinha and have yet to try it out). It's a simple concept - each plastic bag contains a ready-mixed cocktail which you stick in your freezer. Once it's ready, you squeeze the bag to crush up the ice (it's often helpful, as the directions suggest, to run the bag under warm water for a few minutes) before cutting it open and squeezing the contents into a glass for the perfect frozen cocktail.

It's a neat idea, and a pretty successful one... Just be prepared for possible brain-freeze.

On a non-alcoholic note, at least one of my properly local shops has started stocking Coke Life, a variation on the usual caffeine fix that claims to be nice and natural, as well as lower-calorie than the original. Having tried it and liked it, I thought it worthy of mention here... but I also feel the need to link to an article about it on Marketing Week because it follows a train of thought I hadn't considered. I'm not entirely sure I agree with the prophesy of doom, but I'd certainly agree with the assessment that Coke Life ain't half as 'natural' as it claims to be. The other amusing thing is that it mentions Pepsi Raw which, going by the ingredients listed, was basically a rip-off of the rather awesome Whole Earth Cola, but with cane sugar rather than agave syrup (and I'm not sure that was an ingredient when it first came out...)

True Snacks: Buzzing on a Sugar Trip ...It's Pop-Tarts!

So there I was, innocently shopping for household necessities (ahem... and a cake to take to my parents' house for dinner) in my local branch of mini-Tesco, when I found my eyes unaccountably drawn to something colourful in the breakfast aisle.

Lo, and Behold: Pop-Tarts... and not just any Pop-Tarts - that branch of Tesco has frequently stocked them in the mundane chocolate and strawberry flavours for absolutely yonks. These were strangely re-labelled boxes, bearing either a white or a blue sticker on the front, and the entire side covered over with a large white sticker bearing laser-printed details. What sorcery was this?

A closer inspection, both of the genuine packaging and the printed label addition, revealed that they are American products, arriving at Tesco via a Slough-based importer. Also, most amusingly, those oblong labels on the front - whether by accident or design, I know not, but can certainly guess - cover up Kellogg US's claim that Pop-Tarts are a "Good source of 7 Vitamins & Minerals", which suggest that UK food standards deny such manipulations of the truth.

Here's a comparison of the laser-printed label versus the original packaging:

Absolutely no mention of such things as
vitamins and minerals, though they are
listedin the ingredients

Large, colourful pronouncements about
alleged healthy eating benefits. FOUR whole
B Vitamins? That must be good!

But, hey, this blog is called snacks & the single man, and I can't pass up an opportunity like this... Normally you'd have to go to a specialist shop to pick up sugary treats like these.

So, ignoring the laughable 'benefits' of this product, they turn out to be exactly as I expected: cloyingly sweet, sticky fillings in a crumbly substance that probably shouldn't be called 'pastry'. Neither had a clearly defined flavour because they were just so damned sweet, but they both tasted OK.

I'm not sure they could be recommended  for breakfast unless neither diabetes nor the idea of bouncing off the walls and twitching like a maniac for a few hours until the sugar buzz wears off hold any fear for you.

Also probably a good idea to keep a bottle of water handy, or you may find your teeth sticking together and your throat clogging up.

Mmm... Sugary goodness... I'm sure you can feel your heart
lurch, just looking at these things. I know mine did!

Red Onion, Feta and Olive Tart

Don't expect this to become a habit, but this is a home-made dish that I didn't even cook myself. Yep, I really can be that lazy sometimes!

Seriously, though, this was a fairly quick and light dinner for a warm spring day, which my girlfriend put together for me as a thank-you. The recipe originates in the BBC Good Food book 101 Veggie Dishes, but some minor changes were made to suit what was available in my fridge and at the local shops.

Ingredients (versus the original recipe):

• 4 Small Onions (rather than 2 large)
• Dark Muscovado Sugar (instead of the light kind)
• 130g olives (rather than 175g (correction: 130g minus one - she just had to check they were alright before putting them on the tart...))
• Approximately 150g Feta (compared to 100g)
• The puff pastry was actually the ready-rolled, reduced fat kind

Preparation Time: The original recipe in the book states 45 minutes (or 30 on the website!) but, versus the breakdown, this was quicker to prepare at some stages and longer at others... so probably still about  30-45 minutes work, in total.

Tools Required:

• Sharp Kitchen Knife, for to cut things
• Chopping Board
• Small Saucepan
• Large Baking Tray (about 26cm x 38cm)

The Process:
Without duplicating the text of the BBC version, there's sadly very little to write about here. The onions were chopped, seasoned, fried, mixed with sugar and balsamic vinegar, then cooked till an appropriately syrupy consistency was achieved. This was done during the course of an afternoon, so the resulting caramelised topping for the tart had adequate time to cool before the next stage of preparation.

With the pastry being the ready-rolled variety, it was a case of fitting it to one of my baking trays, then assembling the toppings, doing the final baking stage (five minutes longer than the original recipe, since the pastry was not the kind it called for and thus reacted differently), and finally scattering on the shredded basil leaves prior to serving.

The Results:
One of the great miracles of home cooking, I find, is that traditionally savoury ingredients can often become very sweet when cooked in a particular way. Now, granted, caramelising the onions involves some sugar, and that's always going to affect the end result, making the onions artificially sweet. In this tart, we have the perfectly-pitched sweetness of caramelised red onions with counterpoints in both the bitterness of the olives and the saltiness of the Feta. Served warm, not long out of the oven, and accompanied by a light salad (most definitely not the sharp, bitter sort recommended by the recipe in the book! Why is rocket so popular?) it made for a pleasant, delicate meal for a warm spring evening (which gives you an idea of how long this post has been waiting!). The flavours complemented each other well, and the Feta's bite was nicely mellowed both by the baking and by being mixed in with the onion.

More than that, though, the remaining half became part of my lunch for the next two days, without any need for reheating. Some of the Feta's piquancy returned when eaten cool, but it never overpowered the caramelised onion, and the bitterness of the olives remained undiminished.

It has been suggested that, perhaps, a little more onion would have improved things. Comparing this tart to the photos in the book and on the BBC website, the depth of the main topping does appear to be a little lacking, but at least part of the reason is that my baking trays are far larger than those recommended by the recipe. I'd say the content was very well-balanced, especially since it tasted just as good cold as it had when warm.

Classy! (the 'wine' is actually Fentiman's Rose Lemonade (honest!))

Turkish Delight (made in Harrow)

Wherein I opine that, while certainly decadent, home-made Turkish Delight cannot be considered self-indulgent if it's a Mothers' Day gift.

Of course since I'm only writing it up today, it's a bit late for anyone else to try for Mothers' Day but, let's face it, if you haven't already sorted out your Mothers' Day gift, you're just a bad person.

So, here we are, buoyed by the success of home-made truffles (and conveniently ignoring the dismal failure of home-made cream soda) making Turkish Delight from scratch. Like truffles, it's a very simple recipe in terms of its ingredients. The process is a rather more complicated three-stage system, where two mixtures are made up separately, then mixed together. Also like truffles, it's one of those recipes that varies wildly wherever you go looking for it. There is a great tendency, these days, to go for convenience, and use gelatin... this, however, is not the favourite option because there are those who cannot or will not eat gelatin - those who have allergies and vegetarians will tend to steer well clear.

Thankfully, mine is going to be a more old-fashioned, allergen-free (I hope! Someone please tell me I'm ignoring any!) version that should be perfectly edible to one and all.

Apart from those strange people who don't like Turkish Delight. But, being fair, there is something a little sinister about a jelly-like confectionary that tastes like roses.

Nevertheless, let us begin...

Ingredients:

• 800g Granulated/Caster Sugar 
• 120g Cornflour
• 1 Teaspoon Cream of Tartar
• 1 Tablespoon Lemon Juice (Waitrose Cooks' Ingredients 'A Dash of Sicilian Lemon Juice')
• 2 Tablespoons Rosewater (Star Kay White's)
• Vegetable Oil
• Dusting: approx 360g Icing Sugar + 90g Cornflour

Preparation Time: About 30 minutes mixing, 1 hour simmering, plus cooling/setting time (overnight - 12+ hours)

Tools Required:

• 2 Medium/Large Saucepans
• Jam-makers' Thermometer
• Large Plastic/Wooden Spoon or Spatula (for stirring)
• 20cm Baking Pan
• Grease-Proof Paper
• Medium Mixing Bowl
• Long, Sharp Knife

The Process:
Pour approx 300ml water into a medium/large saucepan and add 1 tablespoon of lemon juice and approx 800g sugar. Yes, that's a lot of sugar. I actually made the mistake of thinking "wow, 300ml isn't a lot of water... I should be able to make do with a small saucepan for this part." By the time this mixture was bubbling away, my saucepan very nearly overfloweth. Let my folly be a warning to you, gentle reader, to ensure your saucepans are larger. Stir on a medium heat until the sugar has dissolved, then reduce to a low heat and allow to simmer for about 10-15 minutes, aiming to hit a tempertature of about 120C on your thermometer. Remove from heat and set aside.

In the second saucepan, heat approximately 700ml water, again on medium. mix together about 120g cornflour and a teaspoon of cream of tartar, then add to the water gradually, stirring all the while to avoid lumps. Keeps stirring as the mixture begins to boil, only stopping when the whole lot thickens and becomes gummy.

Add the previously-prepared lemony sugar-water mixture and stir in thoroughly for about 5 minutes. Turn the heat down to its lowest setting and allow to simmer for a full hour, stirring every so often.

While that's going, prepare your baking tin by pouring in a small amount of vegetable oil and spreading it around the inner surfaces. Line the tin with grease-proof paper, and oil that in the same way.

After an hour, the mixture should become a smooth, mostly transparent golden slime, possibly with a faintly lemon scent (or maybe that was my imagination). Take off the heat and thoroughly stir in 2 tablespoons of rosewater. Pour the mixture into the lined baking tin, and allow to cool before putting into the fridge overnight.

Mix together 4 parts icing sugar to 1 part cornflour in a bowl. When it's ready, tip the brick of Turkish Delight out onto a clean surface (might be worth dusting the surface slightly with the icing sugar/cornflour mix, or just put down a fresh layer of greaseproof paper). Lightly oil a sharp knife and cut the brick into even chunks. Shake them in the icing sugar/cornstarch mixture and set aside. Serve immediately or refrigerate with layers separated by greaseproof paper, and all the remaining sugar/cornflour mix dumped in to prevent sticking.

The Results:
I must confess that I sneakily tasted the mixture after pouring it out into the tin. It's extremely sticky, and even going at it with a spoon left a fair among of the slimy stuff in the saucepan, so my tasting was actually a measure to reduce wastage. Honest.

At this stage, while still slightly warm and sort-of liquid, the rosewater flavouring was quite subtle, much like the traditionally-made Turkish Delight you can sometimes pick up in the market that operates around London's Southbank area (close to the London Eye), rather than the over-sweetened, artificially-flavoured jelly that tends to appear in the high street shops.

Once set, it came out of the oiled grease-proof paper quite easily, but cutting it to size, even with an oiled knife, was very tricky. Whether there was something off about my mixture, or perhaps it should have remained in the fridge rather longer, I'm not sure... but I know it's supposed to be pretty sticky - which is why one coats it in the sugar/cornflour mixture - so maybe it was spot on.

The process of coating each piece didn't go very smoothly either. I couldn't quite tell if it was falling off or just soaking in to the surface of the sweet, but the power dusting seemed to fade after a few minutes. I tried re-coating a couple of pieces, but it wasn't particularly effective. The only way to keep them nice and dusted seems to be to make far more of the dusting that you need simply to coat them, and store the pieces in the dusting. Airtight containment shouldn't be an issue, because these things seem to sweat rather a lot and, as previously noted, proper Turkish Delight can be found in open-air markets.

Flavour-wise, they're still pretty subtle, but they definitely taste like Turkish Delight the rosewater is far more prominent than it was in slime-form. Perhaps it needed to 'breathe' for a while, but they turned out tasting just right (if I do say so myself). They do perhaps taste a little heavy on the sugar, so my next batch may cut down on that slightly...

The word from the folks was generally positive, though my father queried the lack of pink (believing the rosewater to be responsible for the 'usual' colour) and pointed out that I may have made a small error of judgement at the 'simmer for one hour' stage, because I put the lid on the saucepan. The point of simmering, he reckoned, is to boil away some of the water... and it seems likely that's why my Turkish Delight was sweating.

Home Brewed Cream Soda (First Recipe)

Yes, you read that right: Home Brewed. Because there's yeast in them thar ingredients.

On one of my whims, I decided to ascertain if it would be possible for me to make my own cream soda. I like cream soda. It's one of those drinks that doesn't tend to last long when I buy a bottle... Whatever size of bottle I find, it's generally empty in a couple of days, and that's when I'm struggling to ration it. Cream soda is lovely. Cream soda is moreish.

So, obviously, drinking any significant amount would be a rather expensive proposition, particularly where the good stuff is concerned..

The internet, thankfully, has a large number of recipes for making this stuff at home. Most of them seems to employ soda water or soda syphons, and the recipe is actually for a syrup concentrate rather than a full bottle of drink. That sounds like the easy/cheaty way out and, for whatever reason, I didn't feel like taking the easy/cheaty way out on this one. A bit more research turned up some recipes that can be adapted for all kinds of fizz, from Ginger Beer to Root Beer (another favourite of mine - I got addicted to the stuff when I first went to the States!) with plenty of room to manoeuvre in between. The trick seems to be in the use of a small amount of yeast...

Ingredients:

• Sugar (I used Waitrose Light Brown Muscovado Raw Cane Sugar)
• Vanilla extract (Ndali's - previously used on my Off-Key Lime Pie meringues)
• Yeast (a pack of 8 sachets weighed in at 82p at Tesco, but you only need a tiny bit!)
• Cream of Tartar (optional)
• Water

Tools Required:

• 750ml bottle (must have a good seal!)
• Funnel
• Teaspoon
• Tablespoon

Preparation Time: Less than 5 minutes to mix... but then at least two days to ferment!

The Process:
Stick your funnel into the neck of your bottle and dump in six tablespoons of the sugar of your choice. Yes, that's a lot of sugar. What did you expect? Turned out that my choice of sugar wasn't ideal because it tended to just clump and block the funnel. My solution? A bigger funnel. Processed sugar would be less inclined to clump, and would result in a clearer drink as an end result but, whatever kind you use, it should be as fine as possible.

Next add a tablespoon of your vanilla extract, and a tiny fraction of a teaspoon of yeast. Because such a small amount is used, it might be better to buy a tub or tin of yeast. It tends to be incredibly cheap, so the little used by this recipe will go an awfully long way. Hey, maybe I'll make some bread from scratch. At this stage you could also add some cream of tartar - approximately double the quantity of yeast - which. Finally, fill up the bottle with water.

At this point, I should make a point about what type of water to use. Tapwater should be fine, but the varying levels of hardness, the chlorination and flouridation all add up to make a bizarre chemical concoction which isn't necessarily ideal for this kind of thing. You could boil your water beforehand, or you could just use bottled water, though that tends to be just as high - if not higher - in mineral content as tapwater. Any amount of research into Coca Cola will show that the flavour varies quite considerably depending on where in the world it was manufactured/bottled, so the importance of your choice of water should not come as a surprise. I used bottled water this time, just to see how it would turn out.

Put the cap back on the bottle and shake the mixture up to dissolve the sugar, etc. Leave the bottle in a warm environment, out of direct sunlight, for at least two days. You may want to decant the resultant drink into a new bottle, hopefully leaving the yeast behind as a sediment.

The Results:
Well, after producing so much win with my truffles and minty-truffly tart, the universe clearly required that I deliver some fail.

Y'know, just for a change.

I'm not sure how much alcohol is produced by this method, but this first batch definitely had a slightly yeasty mustiness to it and the odour is, to be perfectly honest, more than a little beery.

The flavour of cream soda is in there somewhere, but I can quite honestly call this version a failure. Either there was just not enough sugar and vanilla extract, or I somehow managed to put in too much yeast... But then, after about 48 hours of fermentation, the only bubbles I got were in the initial fizz when I first opened the bottle, and the - admittedly very satisfying - head of foam I saw when I decanted the drink into a new bottle. On the tongue, it's about as effervescent as slightly flat beer. Does that suggest too little yeast, or simply the need for a longer fermentation period?

Further experimentation is needed... And the results are in on batches 2 and 3...

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.

Last Course: Off-Key Lime Pie

As previously mentioned, there is a vast gulf of difference between 'Key Lime Pie' and the things that are sold as 'Key Lime Pie' in supermarkets across the United Kingdom. Quite how cream ever became involved, I may never know (other than because we like our cream over here... Mmmmm, that full fat goodness!)... so why some insist on turning it into a cheesecake is, frankly, beyond baffling and into the realms of the frighteningly abstract. If Salvador Dali had been a chef, he'd have had nightmares about Key Lime Cheesecake.

What I aimed to do with this was recreate something akin to the traditional, Florida Keys recipe. Naturally, proper Key Limes were out of the question - they're hard enough to come by at the best of times but, right now, it's the middle of winter! Since I like my puns almost as much as I like my snacks, I figured calling it 'Off-Key Lime Pie' was a fun way to admit that it wasn't going to be quite right.

I decided to cut some serious corners with this first iteration, the idea being that I'd see how it turns out using bottled lime juice this time, and then revisit the recipe at a later date, and make it fresh. Also, Waitrose's ready-made Sweet Pastry Case was an absolute Godsend, because it meant no faffing about with rolling out pastry and finding a suitable tin to bake it in. The base actually has to be partly cooked ('Blind Baked' is the term) before the fillings go in anyway, so lots of time and effort were saved there.

Just to make this more fun, I made this while visiting my folks. There was no way I'd be able to eat the whole thing myself (no, really... 'Two-Puds' I may be... this is six, easily), and I figured it'd be easier to transport the ingredients than a finished pie... so I was working in a kitchen I'm not as used to as my own, and with both parents to-ing and fro-ing all the while.

Ingredients:

• Waitrose Sweet Pastry Case
• Condensed Milk (approx 325g to be used, so try to get a container of about that size. Carnation make one of 450g, which is what I used... but shop around!)
• 4 Eggs - to be separated!
• Essential Waitrose Lime Juice (1x 125ml bottle)
• 1 Fresh Lime (for the zest)
• Cream of Tartar
• Vanilla Extract (I used Ndali's 'Intense')
• Icing Sugar

Preparation Time: Approx 1hr 20minutes (before chilling in fridge), or 40minutes if using an electric whisk

Tools Required:

• 2 Medium Bowls - one for the pie filling, one for the meringue
• Whisk (this is one of those times when an electric whisk is helpful - it makes the meringue far easier!)
• Grater (for the lime zest)
• Measuring Implements - Condensed Milk is a liquid that is measured by weight, not volume, so scales are handy... US-style 'cups' can be quite helpful for some things: a half cup is the perfect size for the amount of lime juice and icing sugar used by this recipe.
• Baking Tray or Cookie Tray

The Process:
Preheat the oven to 160C (140C for fan assisted). Carefully separate the eggs so you have the yolks in one bowl and the whites in another. A little white in with the yolks won't be too important, but yolk in with the whites will be troublesome!

Add 325g of condensed milk into the bowl with the yolks and lightly whisk. The simplest method for gauging how much to put in is to weigh the container full, then pour some condensed milk into the bowl and weigh the container again. Once the container is approximately 325g lighter, you're done. Grate in some of the lime zest and add the lime juice (gradually, so as to avoid separation), stirring in well. Leave this for about 10 minutes, as the interaction between these ingredients will 'cook' the mixture to some extent, and it should thicken up. Pour the thickened mixture into the pastry case.

Next up comes the meringue, which is basically a case of whisking the egg whites. A lot. Once it really starts frothing up, add about a quarter of a teaspoon of cream of tartar, which should help things along. Once you have a soft, light foam, add about 6-8 tablespoons of icing sugar, one spoon at a time, while you continue to mix. The rule of thumb seems to be that the meringue ready if pulling the whisk out results in a fairly firm 'peak'. As the foam begins to firm up, add one teaspoon of vanilla extract.

The meringue takes absolutely ages to make and requires a lot of elbow grease. I would like to mention (read: boast) that I did mine entirely by hand (OK, I let my father do some whisking when my arms started to ache, but I did lots at the beginning and lots at the end). While whisking vigorously, I noticed that making meringue could be turned into an almost-full-body exercise, as I found my legs were moving slightly some of the time... If you're not using an electric whisk, one useful trick is to roll the whisk handle between your palms, back and forth (anyone who's ever been in Cubs or Scouts will recognise this as the traditional technique for making fire, using two sticks of wood), as this gives you something close to the effect of an electric whisk.

Scoop the meringue onto the lime mixture in the pie case, then scatter over the remaining lime zest. Put the pie onto a baking tray or cookie tray and bake for about 10 minutes. Note that, if you're not using a fan-assisted oven, you may need to turn the pie round halfway through to ensure an even cook. Cool slightly before chilling in the fridge, then serve chilled.

The Results:
As is traditional with this blog, I shall discuss the things I got wrong on this first attempt:
While I have noted temperatures of 160C/140C above, when I went researching Key Lime Pie, temperatures of 200C were recommended, and so that's more or less what I used. The end result was that the pie filling wasn't as well-set as it should have been and the meringue was rather more than 'golden brown'. Also, since the oven I used this time is not fan-assisted, there was a visible graduation in browning from the back (very brown) to the front (basically still white) of the oven, because I did not turn the pie halfway through.

Also, the quantities listed, while good, are perhaps a little excessive for the Waitrose Sweet Pastry Case I used. The lime filling was damn near overflowing before the meringue went on! There was also rather too much meringue but this 'problem' was solved by dolloping the excess onto a sheet of greaseproof paper, and baking some small meringues. I suspect that 3 eggs with a correspondingly reduced amount of condensed milk (and lime juice?) would have been preferable.

But, of course, the proof of the pudding is in the eating...

And I have to say, despite setting the oven too high and having too much of everything, this turned out to be an amazing home-made dessert. One 125ml bottle of lime juice seemed to be the perfect quantity - the filling was smooth, but with a subtle citrus sharpness and a good lime flavour, and the meringue softened it nicely. I will say that Waitrose bottled juice (from concentrate) probably didn't work as well as freshly squeezed lime juice would, so I'm very keen to revisit this and do it 'properly' sometime soon. The lime zest in the pie adds a nice bit of texture and extra little hits of lime flavour, but the overall experience was smooth.

I don't think vanilla extract was traditionally an ingredient in the meringues my family used to make, but it really does boost the flavour, so I shall certainly remember it for my future efforts. It gives it almost a toffee-like hint - a single teaspoon really goes a long way. Also, I believe that electric whisks, while convenient, never quite manage the light, fluffy consistency you get from putting in the time and effort with a hand whisk.

Some other, similar recipes (such as Lemon Meringue Pie) tend to suggest baking the pie briefly before adding the meringue, then reducing the temperature for a final round of baking. I think I'll give that a shot next time: 10 minutes at 160C (140C fan-assisted), then cool and chill, then add the meringue and cook for another 10 minutes at 140C (120C fan-assisted).

For a first attempt at something quite daring (for me!), this really was quite amazing. I was very worried about separating the eggs - never having done it before - but it turned out to be reasonably easy, even with my mother watching over my shoulder for the first couple of eggs. In retrospect, I think I'd like to have taken advantage of the electric whisk, but making this entirely by hand was a very rewarding experience, even if it did leave my arms aching!

And, since I am so proud of this... Have some photos!

Note that the pie filling is yellow, not green... then compare and contrast with any alleged 'Key Lime Pie' you find in the shops. Home made pie wins.

Addendum 9/1/2012:
Remade this using only 3 eggs, 245g of condensed milk, the juice (and pulp!) from 3 fresh limes and the grated zest from 2. The end result was better, not least because I actually used the settings detailed above, rather than those I initially found in my research. The filling was rather more solid... or jelly-like, rather. The meringue was perhaps a little underdone, but was soft and light. Flavour-wise, it wasn't much different from the original... perhaps a touch less acid. I'm not sure the addition of actual lime pulp made much of a difference to the pie but, overall, I have to recommend the fresh version over the one made with 'lime juice from concentrate'.

No surprises there, I guess...

Pictures, you ask? Why, certainly...

It's obvious that the filling has worked better this time round, but whether this is due to the lower cooking temperature or the use of fresh juice, I don't know... Probably a mixture of both.

Volume-wise, it's nowhere near overflowing the case, like the first one. I'm honestly not sure that's an improvement. Also, even with only three eggs, there was still far too much meringue. I tried using the remainder to make some separate meringues but, again the times and temperatures I found online were utterly wrong, and the results were still soft and sticky.

I still ate them all, though...

Come on, what kind of fool do you take me for?

Baking Special - Halloween Surprise Cookies

OK, here's something a bit more interesting and challenging... Every so often, my boss bakes a round of what she calls 'Cardiac Cookies' (so called because the quantity of sugars involved in making them means they're liable to induce cardiac arrest if consumed to excess). Since starting this li'l ol' blog, I've been thinking about baking... I've got the makings of brownies, but in a box bought from a shop, so the next most interesting option was to attempt to bake my own Cardiac Cookies.

...Or my own version.

I considered what could be used in place of the Snickers chunks used in the original recipe, and ended up with After Eight mints... after all, how often do you get mint choc cookies? So... here we jolly well go...

Apologies for the use of American cup sizes for measurements... The recipe is technically American, but I shall endeavor to update with coherent UK measures once I have them figured out. Please note that these measures do not equate to a teacup... though I'd imagine that, as long as the proportions remain the same, you'd just end up with loads more cookie dough if you used teacups.

Ingredients

• 1 cup white sugar
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 1 cup softened butter
• 1/2 cup Golden Syrup
• 2 eggs
• 3 cups flour (preferably self-raising, or add a tablespoon each of baking powder and baking soda if using plain)
• 1 box After Eight mints

Preparation Time: About 20 minutes for the dough, then about 10-15 minutes per batch to bake

Tools Required:

• Large mixing bowl
• Measuring cups
• Bowl or jug for beating the eggs
• Fork or whisk for beating the eggs
• Spoon or somesuch stirring implement for mixing the dough (but see personal note below)
• Baking tray
• Foil
• Oven for baking cookies
• Rack for cooling cookies
• Microwave for softening butter (or patience, if waiting for it to happen naturally)

Process:
To begin with, soften the butter by chopping it up into manageable chunks, placing in the measuring cup, and sticking the whole thing in the microwave on the lowest setting for about 30 seconds. Mix together the two kinds of sugar, butter and golden syrup. Beat the eggs then add them to the bowl and mix thoroughly. Add in the flour and mix some more, until you're dealing with a sticky mass of sugary, cookie dough goodness. Due to the way I measured out my ingredients, I got this bit hopelessly wrong, and consequently had a very hard time mixing it all up. My bowl received three cups of self-raising flour first, followed by the sugars, butter and syrup. I may have given myself RSI trying to beat that stuff into submission so, once I'd added the eggs and mixed them in to a certain degree, I cast aside my spoon and got to mixing the old-fashioned way.

Meaning 'By Hand'.

Oh yes, I did.

This automatically makes my cookies sexier, not to mention more sensual and intimate... Or something. Certainly more personal than carrying on with the spoon and, frankly, more comfortable.

And, yes, I washed my damned hands. Several times, in fact. Messy work, making cookies, and I can get a little obsessive about keeping my hands clean when dealing with food.

Anyway, once the dough was ready, it was placed in the fridge for a while, just to give me a bit of a rest. Cooling the dough does make it easier to handle, also. It is very, very sticky, and will end up sticking to your hands better than the fillin' once it's warmed up. Theoretically, this fridge time was also when I should have made myself some dinner.

Ahem.

Once the dough is cooled, yank it back out of the fridge, and grab a heaped tablespoonful. Grab an After Eight mint, pretending it's nowhere near 8pm so you're not obliged to eat it, and wrap the dough around it. Try to ensure it's all even and nicely sealed. My first round of cookies used rather too much dough, and ended up swelling to virtually fill the baking tray. These things expand a hell of a lot in the oven, so be sparing. There should be sufficient dough should make about 20-30 cookies in total.

Lay out on foil on the baking tray (this makes extracting the baked cookies far easier) and bake in an oven pre-heated to 200C (350F) for 10-15 minutes (closer to the low end, if using a fan-assisted oven like mine). The cookies should be golden brown when done. Transfer the foil sheet to a rack, allow the cookies to cool for a couple of minutes, then remove them from the foil to allow them to cool more fully without going sweaty. As long as they're not overdone, they should remain reasonably soft.

Once the baking is complete, scoff any remaining After Eight mints. Go on, you deserve them.

The Results:
Y'know, I have to say I'm pretty happy with the way these turned out. As mentioned, the first batch turned out pretty massive... four of them almost becoming one megacookie... but, other than that, they were probably the most successful. Subsequent batches suffered slightly (none burnt, but they were more than 'golden' brown) through mistiming and leakages where the corners of the mints protruded from the dough. The original recipe suggests 12-18 minutes baking time, which must be for ovens that are not fan-assisted (or possibly the Snickers bar, and the addition of Peanut Butter, change the composition of the dough to the extent that it takes longer to bake), so I had to dial back the time for each batch. Even ten minutes turned out to be a bit too long once I'd got the correct amount of dough per cookie.

I must further confess that the later batches suffered from a loss of attention as my inherent laziness kicked in. Making up the cookies to be baked is a very fiddly process, made worse by the stickiness of the dough as it warms in the hand. Possibly rolling it out might have been a better idea, but I don't have a rolling pin, and I didn't have space to do the rolling anyway. I ended up washing my hands a lot.

I ended up with about 28, 8 of which were the oversized initial batch, and two of those were used for sampling purposes (the first one was pretty good... but I just needed to be sure, darn it!). The remaining six oversized cookies will be given to my sister tomorrow, and the 20 'normal' sized cookies will accompany me to the office. Not enough for a full house but, being Friday, I don't expect there to be a full house.