Unicorn Poop Cookies!

As you probably know this weekend is a bank holiday and that can mean only one thing; the Bear family is off LARPing!  LARP for the uninitiated is short for Live Action Role Play - think historical re-enactment meets amateur dramatics meets Dungeons and Dragons.  It basically means that we get to spend the weekend camping in Wales with friends (nerd alert - the site is next to sand dunes that were used in Torchwood for the planet of Boe) while dressed up in costume, pretending to use magic and getting hit with foam swords.

I asked BabyBear what if he thought that I should bake some of my famous brownies to take with us but he said no he wanted me to bake unicorn poop!  Now before you leave in disgust I should mention that unicorn poop are simply biscuits that have been dyed with food colouring.  They're known as unicorn poop cookies because if the Internet has taught us one thing it's that unicorns poop rainbows.  Oh and you can never have enough cat pictures.

I used the same basic biscuit recipe that I used to make the Dr Who biscuits a couple of weeks ago recipe.  There were however a few extra ingredients, namely the food colouring.  You can use as many different colours as you like but I like to stick with four.

Once you've made the dough separate it out into four balls.  Using a tooth prick put a tiny amount of food colouring on one of the balls and kneed it in.  Once the right colour has been achieved wrap the ball in clingfilm and refrigerate for at least half an hour.  Repeat with the other three balls.

Once they're chilled take the balls out of the freezer and split each ball four again.  This will make the shaping process a lot easier.  The balls will probably look a lot like Play Doh now and it's time to get in touch with your inner child and treat it like it!  Roll one of the the dough balls out on a lightly floured surface just like you would if you were back at school and making plasticine snakes.  Repeat with the other three colours until you have something that looks like this

Now cut your snakes into quarters and begin curling them round so that they look like snail shells.  It doesn't matter if they're not perfect or if the dough breaks while you're bending them, they're meant to
look irregular.  Squish them slightly so that the colours all mingle together.

Repeat this process with the rest of the dough balls and eventually you'll have beautifully colourful poop!  Bake in a pre-heated oven at 200C for 10 minutes.

Happy Game of Thrones day!

Today sees the return of Game of Thrones to our screens (if you haven't seen it you really should, it's awesome) and to celebrate this I'm creating main course and dessert inspired by one of the noble houses, House Stark.

The Starks come from the North of the country of Westeros which is described as being an isolated, desolate place, especially when winter hits the realm.  The Starks words or motto is 'Winter is Coming' a reminder that no matter how long and how good the summer is winter is inevitably not far behind.  As I said the meal is inspired by the book/series, not an attempt to re-create the dishes mentioned - for that you should check out the blog Inn at the Crossroads.

The main course is a hearty beef stew served on a bread trencher.  The trencher was a traditional part of the medieval meal and since A Game of Thrones is set in a fantastical medieval world seems fit with the theme nicely.  I use a good basic bread recipe for the trencher - the recipe makes enough for 6 people but if you're feeding less the uncooked dough can be frozen and used for bread rolls or even pizza bases. I've cooked my beef stew in a slow cooker but it's just as easily cooked on the hob.  If done on the hob it might need more liquid.

Beef Stew - serves 6

900g stewing steak, cubed
1 onion, chopped
1 carrot, chopped
1 swede, chopped
1 tin chopped tomatoes
1 beef stock cube

1) fry off the steak in a little oil.  Once browned transfer to a slow cooker.

2) Using the same pan fry off the onions, carrot and swede.  Add these to the slow cooker then pour in the tomatoes and crumble in the stock cube.  Top up with enough water to cover everything. Season with pepper (stock cubes can be quite salty so   it won't need any more) Put the lid on the slow cooker and leave for 5 hours on high, 8 on low.

Trencher

350g strong whole wheat flour
150g strong white flour
1 packet fast acting yeast
1 tsp salt
1 tsp sugar
300 ml warm water

1) Tip the flours into a large bowl and mix together.  Add the yeast, sugar and salt being careful not to let the salt and yeast touch.

2) Add 3/4 of the water and mix.  I find the easiest way to do this is to let your hand mimic the shape of a dough hook.  Add the rest of the water.

3) Tip the dough out on to a lightly oiled surface.  I find using oil rather than flour makes the bread much easier to knead and cuts down on the amount of mess made by the dough.  Knead for at least 10 minutes until it forms a smooth ball.  Put in an oiled bowl and allow to rise in a warm place for at least an hour.

4) After the dough has doubled to twice its size it needs to be knocked back.  Give the dough a good poke and it should all deflate.  Take it out of the bowl and knead again.  It's now ready for shaping.  Split the dough into four and shape into rough squares.  Roll them out and then use your fingers to create dimples in the surface.  Prick the middle with a fork and leave to prove for an hour.

5) Bake in a pre-heated oven at 220C/fan 200C/gas mark 7 for 30 minutes

6) To assemble put the bread on a plate and pile high with the stew.

(This recipe got 20 thumbs up from Baby Bear!)

For dessert I'm taking inspiration from Sansa's love of lemon cakes.  I thought about making mini lemon drizzle cakes but decided in the end to go instead for a warm lemon pudding.  I'd never cooked anything like this before and was surprised by how easy and delicious it was.  The mixture was very liquid before cooking and I wasn't sure if I'd done something wrong but it turned out beautifully.  The sponge creates its own lemon curd like sauce underneath and it was lovely on an unexpectedly cold evening (seriously weather, it's April, stop being so rubbish!)


Warm lemon pudding - serves 6

50g butter
200g caster sugar
zest of 1 lemon
juice of 2 lemons
3 eggs, separated
50g plain flour
250ml milk

1) Cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.  Add the zest, lemon, egg yolks, flour and milk and beat well.

2) In a separate bowl whisk the egg whites until they stiffen.  Stir into the other bowl being careful not to beat all the air out of the mix.

3) Spoon the mix into ramekins and put the ramekins into a deep baking dish.  Boil the kettle and fill the baking half full with water (I find the easiest way to do this is to pull out the oven shelf, put the baking dish on the shelf then pour in the water)  Put in a pre-heated oven at 180C/160C fan/gas mark 4 for 25 minutes.

Enjoy!  And always remember, Winter is Coming.

Dr Who biscuits

The Easter weekend is fast approaching and in the geek calendar that means two awesome programs will be returning to the small screen - Dr Who and Game of Thrones.

In honour of this I plan on putting up two posts this weekend; this first one is Dr Who themed and the second on Monday will feature two Game of Thrones inspired dishes.

For Dr Who I decided to do some very special iced biscuits. My baking contribution towards last years New Years Eve buffet with friends was a gingerbread TARDIS complete with it’s own little Doctor. It was only my second attempt at doing something like this, my first being a gingerbread cottage at Halloween, and I was very pleased with the results. 

(please excuse the slightly rubbish phone picture)

 However I’ve decided against using gingerbread for this recipe seeing as Baby Bear is going to be off school I want to do something much quicker and gingerbread while not hard is time consuming. My favourite recipe involves melting treacle and butter together so is not really suitable for little hands to help with. This recipe on the other hand is one that I’ve done on multiple occasions and has never gone wrong. It’s a fairly basic recipe but one that can be perked with by adding whatever flavorings you might have to hand such as chocolate chips or raisins, and it freezes well so can be shaped into a roll and frozen ready to be cut into slices and baked should an emergency biscuit be required!

I decided that to make the biscuits in a few different shapes. I made a template in the shape of a TARDIS and a second shaped like a fez ('I wear a fez now, fez's are cool') The third is a bow tie and for the fourth type I just used a gingerbread man cutter.  I made the templates using paint, printed them out and stuck them to an old cereal box.  I then cut around them to make the biscuits.

Vanilla Biscuits

70g icing sugar

1 egg, beaten

125g softened, unsalted butter

1/2 tsp vanilla paste (this should be readily available at any large supermarket)

180g plain flour

Icing

140g royal icing

60ml cold water

food colouring

1) Beat together the icing sugar, butter and vanilla paste then add half the beaten egg.  Add the flour and beat again.  If the mixture is too stiff then add more of the egg although you might not need it all.  The mixture should be of a rollable consistancy.  Put in the fridge to firm up for at least 20 minutes.

2) After chilling roll out the dough to about 5mm thick.  Cut out the shapes with the template and put in an oven pre-heated at 190C/180Cfan/gas mark 5 for 10-12 minutes.  You need to keep an eye on them as they burn fairly easily.  Once cooked allow to cool completely.

3) Once the biscuits were cooled I mixed up the royal icing.   Put the royal icing in a bowl and add the water a tablespoon at a time.  Mix together by hand with a wooden spoon at first until smooth then switch to using a hand mixer.  I find that doing it this way saves me being covered in icing sugar as inevitably happens when I try to use an electric mixer straight away!  The mix should be fairly thick in texture as it will be used to pipe an outline onto the biscuits.

4) Seperate the icing into bowls and colour it how you want it to be - in this case I’ll be using blue for the TARDIS (naturally) with details picked out in white, red and black for the fez and bow tie, . I like to use gel colours as they’re stronger so you only need a small amount to give really vibrant results and while are more expensive initially than the bottles of food colouring they last ages so are more economical in the long term. You can get them from specialist baking shops, online and I’ve noticed them turning up more and more in big supermarkets; I live in a fairly small commuter town and I’ve seen them in our Morrisons so they are becoming more easy to get hold of.

Scoop a small amount of each icing into icing bags - I find that propping the bag up in a tall glass makes this particular job much easier. Snipe off the end of the blue bag and use to draw an outline of the TARDIS.  Use the white to add the windows.  Pop any air bubbles that might be made with a tooth pick and leave to dry.  Repeat with the other colours on the bowtie and the fez, using the black to draw a tassel on the fez.

5) Once the outline is dry it’s time to flood the biscuits. Mix a little more water into the icing so that it’s of a fairly runny consistansy then pipe on to the biscuits, moving the bag from side to side while piping so that it floods the biscuit with icing. Leave to dry. 

So did you watch the episode?  What did you think and any theories about Clara?