Jack n Coke cupcakes

Jack Daniels. The signature tipple of the "Rock Star".

When you think of Jack Daniels and music you think Lemmy, Motley Cru, Guns n Roses?????










Picture the scene:
Backstage after a sell out gig.
Everyone screaming for more.
Security trying to hold back the fans and groupies from breaking down the dressing room door.
Singer of the band, with a flowing mane of Man Metal hair reaching down to the small of his back.
Red bandana wrapped around his strong forehead.
Slouched on the sofa, foot resting arrogantly on the table top, gulping back straight Jack Daniels from the bottle while two spandex and lace clad groupies rub his glistening sweaty hairy chest with their blood red talons. Licking their lips in anticipation of the nights carnal pleasures to come......................

Phew, maybe I should change my career.
Yeah. If this blog thing doesn't work out I'm quite good at this sexy novel writing malarky.
 My pseudoname shall be Veronica Delachase. I like the sound of that.

Tell me if i'm wrong, but every kid who listens to Heavy Metal will drink Jack Daniels at some point?
 It increases our "Metal Cred" yes?
Hell Yeah. I drank so much of it when I was 18 that I can't smell it without retching.
Regardless. The sweet caramel and spice taste of the JD goes very well in this recipe. It also makes a mean BBQ sauce ingredient, but that's for another time.

I used one of the little jack and coke in one cans for this recipe to save on pennies but you can use the same amount of Jack and Cola mixed.

Jack n Coke cupcakes

makes 12

You will need a 12 hole muffin tin, cupcake cases, large mixing bowl, electric hand mixer and a sieve. You can pipe on the icing with a piping nozzle and bag in a circular motion but if you don't have a piping bag then you can just spread the icing on with a knife.

Ingerdients

for the cakes
100g self raising flour
100g soft unsalted butter
75g caster sugar
25g dark muscavado sugar
2 large eggs
30ml Jack n Coke
Half teaspoon vanilla extract
Half teaspoon mixed spice

for the icing
250g icing sugar
125g soft unsalted butter
25ml Jack n coke
Half teaspoon vanilla extract

I small jar caramel or dulce de leche

Heat the oven to 180 degrees (160 for fan oven, gas 4)
Line the muffin tin with the cupcake cases.
Put the sugars, butter, eggs, vanilla and Jack n coke in a large mixing bowl. Sieve in the flour and mixed spice. Mix on high with an electric hand mixer for 3 minutes (2 minutes in an electric bowl mixer on medium and for about 8 minutes with a wooden spoon if mixing by hand. Good luck)
Divide between the cupcake cases and bake in the oven for about 20 minutes. Cupcakes will be ready when browned on top and springy to the touch. Don't open the oven to check the cakes while they are cooking as this will make them deflate. And you will cry at your failure.You can check if they are cooked by inserting a knife into one of the cakes. If it comes out with no mix stuck to it then it's ready. Ovens may vary. As they are pesky buggers. My first lot got burnt as my oven temperature was way higher than indicated. I ate them anyway.
Leave to cool completley.
when they are ready use a small knife to cut a little hole out of the middle of the cupcakes. Fill this with a wee spoon of the caramel then pop your wee bit of cake back into the hole.
Sieve the icing sugar into a large mixing bowl. Add the butter and Jack n coke. Mix on high for about 2 minutes. Pipe or spoon onto the cakes and serve. Yum yum yum. I like cake.

I like these guys. Good name.

Judas Feast - heavy metal cooking show demo from Christion Schnobb on Vimeo.

My job is fun

Check out what me and Lisa made. I did the head. It was kinda like CSI. I had to build the face from the muscle up. We still have the prototype staring at us every day.
If you wanna see what else we get up to then have a look at our website www.littlecakeparlour.co.uk

Hallo, I'm back. Prepare to salivate.

Hello there. Did you miss me? You did! Shucks. I missed you guys too. Well moved house got me new shiny internet set up. I'm ready to rock. Here goes.



IVOLBEAT

So I was at work, elbow deep in cake mix and I get a text message from my mucker Lesley. She tells me she's bought my Christmas present allready.

A ticket to go see VOLBEAT in December. YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAASSS!
I freakin LOVE LOVE LOVE Volbeat.
When I think of them I smile like a little child who has just been given the biggest toy ever. Y'know, that smile that you smile with your eyes?

Myself, Lesley and my twinny Arlene took a little trip last year down to London to see Volbeat live.
 I can honestly say hand on heart that it was one of the best gigs I have ever been to in my whole life.
The band were amazing, the atmosphere was electric and it was one of the best nights I've had to date.

Post gig is a whole other story.

It turned out to be something like Ferris Bullers day off, involving two dodgy taxi rides, a lesbian glam rock club (took us a while to realise there were no men in the club and what we thought was flock wallpaper was actually loads of pictures of ladies doing naughty things), unleashing Mr Bean style catastrophy on a Chnese restaurant at 2.30 in the morning, getting back to the hotel, falling between the beds and trying to get a whole class of annoying Spanish school kids thrown out the hotel.
Good times.



Well. Volbeat are from Denmark so the recipe today is for Smørrebrød.
Which is a Danish version of an open sandwich which is traditionally eaten at lunch time and can have many different toppings but I've gone for a traditional pickled herring version.
Yes, this is a wee cheeky easy recipe.


Herring on rye bread with pickled cucumber and sour cream

serves 2

4 slices dark rye bread
tub of pickled herring (Orkney herring in dill is very good)
Small tub sour cream
Few snipped chives
1 cucumber
100ml white wine vinegar
2 teaspoons caster sugar
1 teaspoon salt
Few stalks fresh dill chopped
Pinch ground white pepper
2 Tuborg beers

You can make the piclked cucumbers the day before and they will last for about 5 days.

To make the pickled cucumber:
Cut the top and bottom off the cucumber and slice finely. Lay in a single layer in a non metallic dish. Sprinkle with the salt and leave for 20 minutes.
Put the sugar, pepper, dill and vinegar into a pan and bring to the boil. Leave to cool.
Squeeze the excess water from the cucumbers and place into a jar or bowl. Pour over the sugar and vinegar mix, seal and leave overnight.


To make the sandwich:
Place your juicey herring fillets onto the rye bread, scatter over some of your pickled cucumber. Plop on a dollop of sour cream and scatter over the snipped chives.

Have a nice cold Tuborg beer while you nibble.

That's Danish.

Bow down to me. I am the "Lemmyington"

Lamington : a sponge cake dipped in chocolate icing and coconut.



Lamington, Lemmy, Lemmyington. See what I did there?

Well, I can't take credit for this one.
I love food puns and this particular one was thought up by my buddy Pauline while we were lying on the couch, slightly hungover. Thanks Polly.x



If you guys wanna learn how to bake, I'm your gal.
Stick with me kids and I'll teach you all the dirty little secrets of a baker. 
And baking aint just for girls. Guy's, you can make "man cake" too.
I would recommend for anyone who wants to take baking seriously that you invest in an electric hand mixer. You can get cheapo ones for about £5.
Unless you think you can handle the burn of whisking by hand. Good luck to ya.

Lemmyntons

For the sponge

3 large eggs
100g caster sugar
100g self raising flour
half teaspoon vanilla extract
20g butter melted

raspberry jam

For the icing

250g icing sugar
50g good quality dark chocolate
50g good quality milk chocolate
15g butter
65ml milk
200g DESICRATED (desicated har har) coconut

To makey the cakey

Pre heat your oven to 180 degrees or equivalent
Grease a baking tin (about 20cm x 30cm) or what ever you have lying around in your kitchen and line with baking paper.
Put the eggs and sugar in a large mixing bowl and using your electric hand mixer whisk on high for about 5-6 minutes until light and very thick. Kinda like cream.
Sieve in your flour and fold in with a spatula or metal spoon. Be gentle as you don't want to knock out the air.
Pour in the vanilla and melted butter and fold in gently until incorporated.
Pour into your tin and bake in the oven for 20 minutes. The cake should be slightly springy on top. Check by inserting a knife, if it comes out with no mix stuck to it then the cake is ready.
Leave to cool for 5 minutes then take out of the tin and place onto a wire rack. Cool completely.

I like my Lemmyingtons with jam. So slice the sponge through the middle and spread with jam. Sandwich together then cut into 12 equal sized squares.

To make the icing bung all the ingredients EXCEPT the coconut into a heat proof bowl.
Put your coconut onto a large plate or tray. Put a saucepan filled with one third of water on to simmer. Place the bowl on top making sure the water does not touch the bottom of it. Mix until butter, chocolate and icing sugar has melted and the icing is smooth and runny. Take off the heat. Place one spongy square at a time into the icing to coat all over, shake the excess off and coat in the coconut. Place onto a piece of baking paper to dry.
The Lemmyingtons will keep for about 3 days in an airtight container but if you are anything like me (greedy) then they will be gone within 20 minutes.

All hail the "LEMMYINGTON"

So, while I was sitting waiting on my sponge cooling I was watching Kerrang and a 30 seconds to Mars video came on (No I shall not desecrate the pages of my blog with that Emo pap. Attractive as Mr Leto is, his band just does not cut the Heavy Metal mustard). I was wondering weather I thought Jared Leto looked hot with a Mohawk? Couldn't decide. I was also wondering that when a singer in a band has a stylist to make him "look" Rawk! is it time to give up???????
Thank God for bands like "Hellyeah".



P.S. I will start putting pictures up when I figure out how to use my camera. XXXXXX

I couldn't resist

This has nothing to do with food but Savatage are one of my guilty little pleasures.
Soo cheesy. I love them. I fancied the guitarist.
I just can't resist a bit of rain soaked, heavy metal man totty.
Hee hee.

Ronnie James Dio, you made my thighs hurt. RIP

Salutations my Lords and gentile fair maidens,
this morns document of foodly wonders are here by dedicated to our most Noble fallen hero Ronnie James Dio, whomst sadly departed the land of living to go hense forth to the etherial plane, Valhalla or to an other worldly existence where buxom wenches serve the finest of feasts and strong mead all day long.

What a tragedy to have lost such a character as Ronnie. He was one of the pioneers of Heavy Metal. Without him there would be NO Heavy Metal. NO throwing of the Horns.
From his beginnings in Elf and Rainbow, to Black Sabbath,Heaven and Hell and DIO, Ronnie has contributed vastly to the Heavy Metal scene.

Ronnie died on 14th May after battling stomach cancer.

I think that it's only fitting that Ronnie should be honoured with a Medieval feast.
Not being born in Medieval times myself I had to nick the recipe from a very good archive site called "Gode cookery".
They translate old authentic Medieval recipes and adapt them to work in the modern day kitchen.

So put on some tights, get your plastic swords out and speak in Ye olde English, get some mead down you and pump up some Classic DIO.

This ones for you big guy. We shall feast in your honour.

(incase you are wondering what the "you made my thighs hurt" comment was all about, I ran the cancer research race for life yesterday and did it in honour of Ronnie as well as my my Uncle Tommy who died of pancreatic cancer a few years back and for both of my very brave Grans who are battling cancer just now. You can donate to Ronnie's "Stand up and shout cancer fund" through his official web site and through the official "Cancer research" website).



Beef y stywyd

GODE COOKERY TRANSLATION:

Stewed Beef. Take fair beef of the ribs of the fore quarters, and smite in fair pieces, and wash the beef into a fair pot; then take the water that the beef was washed in, and strain it through a strainer, and boil the same water and beef in a pot, and let them boil together; then take cinnamon, cloves, mace, grains of paradise, cubebs, and minced onions, parsley, and sage, and cast there-to, and let it boil together; then take a loaf of bread, an steep it with broth and vinegar, and then draw it through a strainer, and let it be still; and when it is nearly done, add the liquid there-to, but not to much, and then let boil once, and add saffron there-to a quantity; then take salt and vinegar, and add there-to, and look that it taste poynaunt enough, & serve forth.

INGREDIENTS:

* Beef ribs
* Cinnamon Sticks
* Cloves (powder)
* Mace
* Grains of Paradise (or substitute Cardamom)
* Cubeb (or substitute Black Pepper)
* Onions, minced
* Parsley, chopped
* Sage
* Unseasoned Bread Crumbs
* Red Wine Vinegar
* Saffron or a few drops of yellow food coloring
* Salt

DIRECTIONS:

Place the ribs in a large pot; cover with water. Bring to a boil; add all spices except saffron & salt & reduce heat to a simmer. Continue simmering until the beef is completely cooked. Remove some of the broth; with a wire whisk, thoroughly blend the broth , red wine vinegar, & bread crumbs into a smooth gravy-like consistency. When the beef has cooked, add some of this mixture to the pot, just enough to slightly thicken the broth. Be sure that this thickening agent has thoroughly blended with the broth. Return to a boil and cook for several more minutes. Reduce heat, add salt to taste and enough additional vinegar to give it a slightly sharp taste - it needs to be "poynaunt." Remove the cinnamon sticks. Serve forth!

Caudell


DESCRIPTION: A frothy wine or ale-based drink

ORIGINAL RECEIPT:

Caudell. ¶ Take faire tryed yolkes of eyren, and cast in a potte; and take good ale, or elles good wyn, a quantite, and sette it ouer þe fire / And whan hit is at boyling, take it fro the fire, and caste þere-to saffron, salt, Sugur; and ceson hit vppe, and serue hit forth hote.

- Austin, Thomas. Two Fifteenth-Century Cookery-Books. Harleian MS. 279 & Harl. MS. 4016, with extracts from Ashmole MS. 1429, Laud MS. 553, & Douce MS 55. London: for The Early English Text Society by N. Trübner & Co., 1888.

GODE COOKERY TRANSLATION:

Take fair tried yolks of eggs, and cast in a pot; and take good ale, or else good wine, a quantity, and set it over the fire / And when it is boiling, take it from the fire, and cast there-to saffron, salt, Sugar; and season it up, and serve it forth hot.

INGREDIENTS:

* Egg yolks - "faire tryed yolkes" means yolks separated from the whites.
* Ale or wine - use fresh ale (not flat) or a slightly sweet red or white wine.
* Saffron
* Salt
* Sugar

DIRECTIONS:

Beat together the egg yolks and wine/ale; place in a pot over medium to high heat. Bring to a boil while continually stirring with a wire whisk. As the mixture heats up, it will begin to become thick & frothy. (Add more egg yolks if needed - the more egg, the thicker & frothier the result. You want the consistency of a well-whipped milkshake.) As soon as it comes to a boil, reduce heat. Beat in sugar to taste, saffron, and a dash of salt. Taste for seasoning and adjust as needed. Serve at once in small bowls or as a drink in glasses.

I've snuck this little video in too as I think it is a fantastic piece o 80's film making. Bloody funny.