Foodie Gifts

Isn't this just so pretty? What do you think it might contain?

Chocolate-coated Honeycomb!



I love giving and I love receiving food gifts. They don't have to be home-made, I'm always delighted with a box of chocolate or a few buns lifted from the giver's local bakery. Home-made ones do have an edge, of course. But homemade or not I think it's the thought process that goes into food gifts that make them such a delight to receive.

Like the Raspberry and White Chocolate scones that my mum nearly always brings when she comes to visit because she knows I love them. Or the bag of coffee beans a friend brought a couple of months ago because she knows I'm fanatical about good coffee. Or the time my sister brought a pot of chilli because my baby had just been born and she knew that my OH isn't a great cook (sorry honey)! I could go on and on but you get the point, each of these gifts had a thought process behind them that conveyed the givers efforts to please.

I think my favourtie to date has been the box of macarons that my friend brought one Sunday we were having her and her husband for dinner. She knew I had been tackling macarons and that I was a bit obsessed with them. So she arrived with these:



What a delight! And the box really finished it off. What a lovely way to present them. I'm always giving food away in tupperware boxes or tins and it kind of bugs me. They just don't do the food justice. And then there's the awkwardness of having to ask for your box back because you know if you don't you won't see them for months and it'll be forgotten about. So recently, I've made more effort in the presentation department. I went to my local bakery and they sold me a few plain white boxes which already look so much better. And then I started making boxes from some fancy papers I have in the house. As a Maths Teacher I've been making cube and cuboid nets for years but this is even less complicated than those. I literally cut out a square/rectangle (size determined by prospective contents) and score it 1" from each edge then fold the edges up and stick in place to form the base. Repeat with another piece of card to form the top and voila - a very pretty box. You can adorn it as you fancy (ribbon, diamante etc) or just leave it plain. Despite looking very fashionable and expensive it actually works out cheaper than buying a gift bag. Of course you don't need fancy papers you could just use two contrasting or complementary sheets of plain card (e.g. pink and brown). Or you could even just cover a box you have. And the next time you see some cheap tissue paper - buy it and throw a bit in your box before you put in the food.



Last night we were out at friends for tea. I knew that the host would go to a great deal of effort to make at least one (probably two) desserts and she wouldn't want to see me arriving with a third as there is only her and her husband to eat the leftovers (there's that thought process). So, I opted for chocolate-coated honeycomb that I knew they could nibble at over the next few days. And guess what? - I made a box to make it look special.

So go and glam up your foodie gifts!

P.S. Chocolate -coated Honeycomb is simply half the quantity of hokey-pokey dipped in 200g milk chocolate (use whatever chocolate you think the recipients will like).

Hokey Pokey Ice-cream

I may never buy ice-cream again. Well, honeycomb ice-cream anyway. This is gorgeous. So rich and loaded with honeycomb in every mouthful.

I'm not a huge ice-cream fan. Yes, I always have it in the freezer but its always relatively inexpensive stuff to accompany dessert. I would never dream of sitting down to a bowl of ice-cream as dessert. For that reason I have always skimmed over ice-cream recipes in books. Most of them require copious amounts of egg yolks and a lot of time and effort. So for someone who wasn't a big fan it was too expensive and energy-consuming given that I don't have an ice-cream maker.

However, in my latest edition of delicious the Hokey-Pokey ice-cream caught my eye and I logged it into the might-give-it-a-go catalogue in the back of my mind. And that was that. Then a week or two later I made a recipe that require 6 egg whites. And since I had put all the yolks into the same bowl they had sort of merged into one big orange gloop. What on earth would I do with six egg yolks? And then that little flash bulb lit up and I ran to check the ingredients for the Hokey Pokey ice-cream. Guess what - 6 egg yolks!

Like most terrifying culinary activities, this did not live up to my expected level of difficulty. The hokey pokey (what I call honeycomb but it is NOT comb honey nor even made with honey) can be made in advance and stored in an airtight container (which is what I did). Then you take 15mins out of your day to make the custard which sits in the fridge until the next day. On the day you freeze it the only real difficulty is that you are about (which is what I usually am) to give it a stir every hour or so.

Hokey Pokey Ice-cream

Ingredients:

Ice-cream:
750ml whole milk
450ml whipping cream
6 large free-range egg yolks
100g caster sugar
Hokey-Pokey
butter, for greasing
250g caster sugar
125g golden syrup
1tbsp bicarbonate of soda

Method:

For the Honeycomb (Hokey Pokey):
Note: I made this 2 days in advance but you could make it the same day as the ice-cream in between setting stages.

1. Line a shallow baking try with baking paper and butter it well. Set aside.

2. Put the caster sugar and the golden syrup into a large, shallow pan, and heat gently stirring as you go, until everything is dissolved. Turn up the heat and bring to the boil, then reduce the heat and let it simmer for 5 minutes until it starts to turn a light caramel colour. Stir in the bicarbonate of soda. The mixture will bubble and slowly rise to the top of the pan.

3. Pour the honeycomb onto the baking tray and allow it to cool completely and harden. This will take an hour or so. At this point, bash the honeycomb carefully into chunks with a rolling pin. Put it into an airtight container until needed.

For the ice-cream:

1. Heat the milk and cream in a pan to just below boiling point. Remove and set aside.

2. In a bowl, beat the egg yolks with the sugar. Add the warm milk, stirring, and return the custard to a clean pan. Heat gently, stirring all the time, until it begins to thicken and coat the back of a spoon. You should be able to run your finger down the spoon and leave a track. DO NOT LET IT BOIL - the eggs will scramble.

3. Turn off the heat and continue whisking the custard for a few minutes to remove some heat, then transfer to a container, and place in an ice bath (or a sink of very cold water as in my case), in order to cool the custard as quickly as possible.

4. Once the custard is cool, cover the top of it with cling film (to prevent a skin forming) and chill it for a minimum of 4 hours or overnight.

5. Churn the custard in an ice-cream machine*, if you're lucky enough to have one, until almost firm.

6. When the ice-cream is almost firm, add the honeycomb, and keep churning until it is firm (or if you're not using an ice-cream maker, add the honeycomb, stir to mix and return to the freezer.

7. Store in a sealed container, covered with baking parchment in the freezer. Freeze until needed

*If you don't have an ice-cream machine (like me) place the ice-cream mixture into a sealed container and put it into the coldest part of the freezer (if you know where that is). After 1-1.5 hrs, remove the container and beat with a fork or electric whisk (WARNING: this can be messy - I learned the hard way) to make a uniform slush. Return to the freezer and repeat this proces twice, at intervals of 1-1.5hrs. After it has been beaten 3 times, return to the freezer for a further hour and it should then be ready. Mine actually took longer than this but I reckon it had something to do with my tightly packed freezer.