Radio Recipes - 22nd January, 2018

As promised here are the recipes and the bits and pieces mentioned during my chat with Bernie Keith, on his Radio Show, The Bernie Keith Show, BBC Radio Northampton on Monday 22^nd January, 2018 at 10.10am. If you fancy a listen after its aired have a look for the 22/01/2018 show on this link.

If you liked the idea of the “muddle” here's the “recipe” and a couple of photos too.

The Muddle

Choose a dish or bowl that's not too large

Warm the chocolate pudding, one large dessert spoon

in each bowl

One scoop of vanilla ice cream

3 or 4 pieces of Rocky Road

or Chocolate Hokey Pokey

Drizzle with a small ladle of compote

Then there's the chocolate pudding :

Marianne's Chocolate Pudding

from The Little Book of Chocolat by Joanne Harris and Fran Warde

Takes 1 hour/ serves 6-8

unsalted butter for greasing dish

75g caster sugar

40g unsalted butter, soft

1 egg

40g cocoa powder

150g self raising flour

120ml semi skimmed milk

Sauce

180g soft dark brown sugar

200ml water

40g cocoa powder

1 tsp vanilla extract or vanilla bean paste

Heat oven to 160fan/180c/Gas 4. Rub the inside of a 1 litre ovenproof dish with a little butter.

In a bowl, place the sugar, butter and egg and whisk until blended. Add the cocoa powder and flour along with a little milk and blend until smooth. Add the remaining milk and mix in, then transfer to the buttered baking dish.

To make the sauce, place the sugar, water and cocoa in a small saucepan. Heat gently and mix until dissolved. Add the vanilla extract, pour over the top of the cake mixture, place in the middle of the oven and cook for 30 minutes. Serve with vanilla ice cream.

In a perfect world you'd make this and serve it immediately – it's my preference to be able to prep a pudding ahead but the downside here is that the sauce is absorbed more than one would want. It's the gooey consistency that's crucial.

Here are my suggestions on both counts.

I made the dessert ahead and froze it – the result was good but you might want to add more “goo”.

Defrost the pudding and then warm in a pre-heated oven 180fan/200c/Gas 6 for 15 minutes.

Make an additional quantity of the sauce – it only takes minutes and then divide it equally between the foil containers – you've created a triple chocolate pudding.

Try single cream instead of vanilla ice cream.

The recipe states it serves 6-8 – I'd be inclined to say 4-6 but of course it depends on how greedy your chocoholics are.

Cherry and Raspberry Compote

350g cherries, stoned – can use frozen

150g caster sugar

juice of 1 lemon

150g raspberries – can use frozen

4 tbsp water or juice from defrosted fruit

Pour the water into a pan and add the cherries, sugar and lemon juice. Place the on a medium heat and stir until the sugar dissolves. Cook the cherries over a low heat for 5-10 minutes until they have released some juice but are not overcooked. If you are using frozen cherries you will have the fruit juices when defrosted – use this juice instead of the water.

Add the raspberries to the pan and cook for a further 1-2 minutes until they start to soften. Remove the pan from the heat and leave the mixture to cool, then chill it well before serving.

You can keep the compote as is or blitz in a processor and pass through a sieve – purely a matter of personal preference – some people aren't fond of raspberry pips.

Sticky Toffee Sauce

110g/4oz unsalted butter

225g/8oz soft dark brown sugar

50g/2oz chopped stem ginger (optional)

10 fl oz double cream (heavy USA)

Heat the butter, sugar and ginger – gently. When dissolved add the cream.

Simmer for 15 minutes, stirring.

One batch of the recipe produces 540g of sauce, or, over two portions – one to fold through a batch of home-made vanilla ice cream – based on the ice cream recipe which is on the blog.

It freezes too!

This is an excellent recipe and I'd wager that you'll not be buying a ready-made version once you've sampled this one.

Hmm – another element you could add to the “muddle”?

Chocolate Hokey Pokey

75g unsalted butter

100g pecan nuts roughly chopped

pinch of sea salt flakes

200g dark chocolate

100g milk chocolate

2 tbsps golden syrup

4 x 32g Crunchie bars

Heat a small knob of butter (from the 75g) in a medium frying pan and when it foams tip in the pecans with the sea salt flakes. Stir them over a medium heat for 3-4 minutes until toasted – you'll be able to smell them when they are ready. Tip the nuts into a bowl and leave to cool.

This element can be made ahead.

Break the chocolate into small pieces and melt, in a medium saucepan with the rest of the butter and the syrup, stirring. Once the chocolate mixture is smooth take the pan off the heat. Bash the Crunchie bars (keep them in the wrappers – less messy!). Add the Crunchie pieces, along with the toasted pecans, to the chocolate mixture. Gently mix together before transferring to an 18cm round or square foil tray 24x24cms (or cake tin if you prefer to wash up!). You could also use a standard foil tray bake.

Leave to set in the fridge. When set cut in half and then continue to cut each half into 2cm strips and cut each strip so that you have 2cm squares. This will give you 80 pieces of hokey pokey.

If you feel that it's too much like hard work to assemble ingredients then when you've a spare ten minutes do your “mise en place” - French as you may have guessed – literally “put in place”. In other words get yourself organised – ahead of the game. You're far more likely to make the hokey pokey if you've toasted and salted the pecan nuts and weighed out the chocolate. You'll enjoy bashing the Crunchie bars.

You could if you felt so inclined make your own honeycomb – since I'm suggesting a treat I'm not sure that by adding another element and making it a smidge more faffy you'll appreciate my efforts!

To those who say “I don't like dark chocolate” and therefore wouldn't make the hokey pokey do me a favour – try it. I've never been a fan of dark chocolate and so have compromised the two to one ratio. Make sure your plain chocolate is between 50 -70% cocoa solids in other words not so strong and bitter that it'll make your teeth itch – if you know what I mean.

You have the sweetness too in the Crunchie bars and the balance is just right.

Have a glance at the photos below.

If you liked the thought of the “muddle” then you might like the “Hodgepodge”. There are three different versions of a “Hodgepodge” - Easter Emergencies A Hodgepodge, Hodgepodge – take 2 and Hodgepodge … again. The Compote Compilation will give you the recipe for a Blueberry Compote.

Happy days – hope you're inspired to try.

www.miammiamcookery.com