I was watching Jamies Chirstmas with bells on and I got inspired to make some different food this Chirstmas time. So I thought I would share some of my favourites. I have already decided we are going to make the waffles for breakfast on Christmas Eve.
Griddle-pan waffles
Jamie: I'm a little bit in love with this. I was experimenting with different types of waffles, trying lots of ways of cooking them and looked at a griddle pan and thought... YES! And you know what, it works like a charm - beautifully golden, crisp waffles every time.
Serves 4 to 6
- 2 large free-range eggs
- 300ml semi-skimmed milk
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- 225g self-raising flour
- 2½ level tablespoons baking powder
- 100g unsalted butter, plus an extra knob
1. Crack the eggs into a bowl and whisk with the milk. Add the salt, sift in the flour and baking powder then whisk together until fully combined. Melt the butter, allow it to cool slightly, then gradually stir it through the mixture. After this point, it's important not to stir the mixture any more and to leave it to rest for at least 30 minutes before cooking.
2. Pop your griddle pan on a high heat so it's screaming hot, add a small knob of butter, jiggle it all around the bars and as soon as it's melted scoop in your batter and spread it around to fill the pan. You can make smaller waffles, if you prefer, by dotting the mixture into the pan.
3. Lower the heat to medium, and cook for 8 to 10 minutes, or until lightly golden on the bottom. Now, this bit's quite tricky so you need to be confident - flip the waffle over and continue to cook for another 8 to 10 minutes, or until golden and cooked through. Give the waffle an extra couple of minutes on each side to crisp up, then serve.
4. I've served mine on a board, drizzled with maple syrup and some delicious, molten hot chocolate, but you can serve your waffle with whatever you like from bacon, egg and maple syrup to berries and yoghurt, spinach and a poached egg, or just simply sprinkled with a little ground cinnamon.
2. Pop your griddle pan on a high heat so it's screaming hot, add a small knob of butter, jiggle it all around the bars and as soon as it's melted scoop in your batter and spread it around to fill the pan. You can make smaller waffles, if you prefer, by dotting the mixture into the pan.
3. Lower the heat to medium, and cook for 8 to 10 minutes, or until lightly golden on the bottom. Now, this bit's quite tricky so you need to be confident - flip the waffle over and continue to cook for another 8 to 10 minutes, or until golden and cooked through. Give the waffle an extra couple of minutes on each side to crisp up, then serve.
4. I've served mine on a board, drizzled with maple syrup and some delicious, molten hot chocolate, but you can serve your waffle with whatever you like from bacon, egg and maple syrup to berries and yoghurt, spinach and a poached egg, or just simply sprinkled with a little ground cinnamon.
Epic hot chocolate
Jamie: "This hot chocolate is off the scale. It's so simple to make and is much better than that shop-bought stuff you get, which is often full of rubbish and probably hasn't got much chocolate in it anyway. I don't want you to feel cheated, I want you to have the real thing... life's too short not to."
Serves 8 to 10
- 2 pints semi-skimmed milk
For the epic hot chocolate mix
- 2 tablespoons Horlicks
- 2 tablespoons cornflour
- 3 tablespoons icing sugar
- 4 tablespoons quality organic cocoa
- 100g quality dark chocolate (70% cocoa solids), finely grated
- a pinch of ground cinnamon
- a pinch of sea salt
1. Pour the milk into a large pan, and bring almost to the boil over a medium heat.
2. Meanwhile, add all the chocolate mix ingredients to a large jar and give it a good shake to combine. You need around 10 heaped tablespoons of the chocolate mix for this amount of milk. Simply spoon the chocolate mix into the hot milk, give it a good whisk and leave to bubble away for a few minutes before serving. You're looking for that gorgeous, thick, almost claggy, knockout texture.
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After 10 chocolates recipe
2. Meanwhile, add all the chocolate mix ingredients to a large jar and give it a good shake to combine. You need around 10 heaped tablespoons of the chocolate mix for this amount of milk. Simply spoon the chocolate mix into the hot milk, give it a good whisk and leave to bubble away for a few minutes before serving. You're looking for that gorgeous, thick, almost claggy, knockout texture.
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After 10 chocolates recipe
Serves 16-20
Ingredients
- 8 tablespoons demarara sugar
- 1 tablespoon almond extract
- 1 tablespoon orange or lemon extract
- 1 tablespoon peppermint extract
- 1 tablespoon natural rose oil or rose water
- 1-2 teaspoons Maldon sea salt
- 1-2 teaspoons coffee beans, bashed up finely
- 600g quality dark chocolate (70% cocoa solids), broken into pieces
- optional: 1-2 tablespoons cocoa powder, for dusting
Method
1. Find yourself 4 small bowls and add 2 tablespoons of sugar to each. Add the almond, orange or lemon, and peppermint extract to separate bowls and add the rose oil or water to the last. Give each one a good stir to evenly distribute the flavours.
2. Lay out a large piece of greaseproof paper (roughly 1 metre in length), on a flat, even surface. Sprinkle over the various sugars so you end up with stripes of flavour, widthways across the paper. Add a stripe of sea salt and bashed-up coffee beans too, then leave for 20 to 30 minutes, or until the sugars dry out completely.
3. Meanwhile, add the chocolate to a heatproof bowl over a pan of simmering water, making sure the bowl doesn’t touch the water. Once the chocolate is smooth and melted, remove the bowl from the heat. Drizzle it all over the flavourings, making a covering of beautiful lacy patterns. Smooth some of the areas over with the back of a spoon so you get a mixture of textures, then leave overnight in a cool room to set.
4. The following morning, snap it up into shards and dust with cocoa powder, if you like. You can keep all the flavours separate, or mix things up for a bit of a chocolate Russian roulette. Pile them up on a plate or in a bowl, or make some cute little paper sleeves (like in the picture).
Tip: A sprinkling of chilli flakes, a few pinches of cinnamon, the seeds from a vanilla pod or some very finely chopped crystallised ginger also add great bursts of flavour.
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Marathan semifarro recipe
2. Lay out a large piece of greaseproof paper (roughly 1 metre in length), on a flat, even surface. Sprinkle over the various sugars so you end up with stripes of flavour, widthways across the paper. Add a stripe of sea salt and bashed-up coffee beans too, then leave for 20 to 30 minutes, or until the sugars dry out completely.
3. Meanwhile, add the chocolate to a heatproof bowl over a pan of simmering water, making sure the bowl doesn’t touch the water. Once the chocolate is smooth and melted, remove the bowl from the heat. Drizzle it all over the flavourings, making a covering of beautiful lacy patterns. Smooth some of the areas over with the back of a spoon so you get a mixture of textures, then leave overnight in a cool room to set.
4. The following morning, snap it up into shards and dust with cocoa powder, if you like. You can keep all the flavours separate, or mix things up for a bit of a chocolate Russian roulette. Pile them up on a plate or in a bowl, or make some cute little paper sleeves (like in the picture).
Tip: A sprinkling of chilli flakes, a few pinches of cinnamon, the seeds from a vanilla pod or some very finely chopped crystallised ginger also add great bursts of flavour.
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Marathan semifarro recipe
Jamie: "I've gone back to one of my first loves - the Marathon bar (aka Snickers) for this ridiculously heavenly ice cream. I don't care what it says on the wrapper, in my mind this chocolate bar will always start with an 'M'. Clearly I have issues left over from childhood. And look, I know you've seen me do programmes and heard me say 70% chocolate is the best, and it’s true. But I think every now and then, if something brings back memories or makes you smile, a little bit of the cheap stuff isn't necessarily a bad thing."
Serves 12
Ingredients
- 1 vanilla pod
- 55g golden caster sugar
- 4 large free-range eggs, separated
- 500ml double cream
- sea salt
- 3 bars of Snickers, finely chopped
- 50g dark chocolate (70% cocoa solids), broken into pieces
Method
- Pop a large earthenware dish in the freezer to get nice and cold.
- Halve the vanilla pod lengthways and scrape out the seeds. In a large bowl, whisk the sugar with the vanilla seeds and egg yolks until pale. In another bowl, whisk the cream until it forms soft peaks, making sure you don't over-whip it. In a third bowl, whisk the egg whites with a pinch of salt until they form very firm peaks. At this point, put most of the Snickers and all of the dark chocolate into a heatproof bowl and set it over a pan of simmering water on a really low heat, making sure the water doesn’t touch the base of the bowl. Leave it to soften slightly.
- Meanwhile, gently fold the cream into the egg yolk mixture, then fold in the egg whites with a large metal spoon. Scoop half the mixture into the chilled earthenware dish. Fold the softened chocolate pieces through the other half, making sure you don't knock any of the air out of it. Swirl the two mixtures together in the dish, sprinkle with the reserved Snickers pieces then cover with cling film and freeze. Take it out of the freezer half an hour before you want to eat it, and serve in ice cream cones to save on washing up.
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