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The Food Machine

Almond Coconut Macaroons

Closeup of some delicious macaroons

Served during the recording of Episode Zero: A Little Queer

Ingredients

Method

  1. Preheat oven to 170°C (150°C fan-forced).
  2. Line two baking trays with baking paper and add a small knob of butter to each. Place trays in oven.
  3. Whisk egg whites in a clean bowl using an electric mixer at high speed. Whilst the eggs are whipping, remove the trays from the oven and use a brush or spoon to spread the butter, now melted, around the baking paper.
  4. Mix the almond meal and coconut in a separate bowl.
  5. When the egg whites are stiff but still moist, switch the mixer to a slow speed and add the vanilla extract and icing sugar gradually.
  6. When the icing sugar is fully mixed into the egg whites, add the almond meal and coconut. Mix until the ingredients form a sticky dough.
  7. Using a teaspoon, scoop small balls of the dough onto the greased trays, leaving at least 2cm between each. You should get about 20 macaroons, but the more, the merrier! Press down each ball lightly with a fork.
  8. Bake in the oven for 20-25 minutes. The finished macaroons should be crisp and golden on the outside.
  9. Remove from oven, and leave to cool for 5 minutes on the trays. Gently transfer for a cooling rack.

The finished macaroons will last about a week sealed in the fridge. If no-one eats them before that, which is impossible.

If you want to add any flavourings, stick to dry things like cocoa powder or small dried fruits. Add these between Steps 5 and 6. You can also join sandwich them with chocolate ganache as a filling!

Rod’s Pecan Slice

A tastefully laid table setting with some plates of pecan slice

Served during the recording of Episode 1: Horribly Blond(e)

Ingredients

Pastry

Filling

Method

  1. Lightly grease a 23 cm loose bottomed flan pan. Or cake tin. Or square tin.
  2. Sift flour and icing sugar into a large bowl. Rub in butter using fingertips unti the mixture resembles breadcrumbs. Add eggs yolk and mix until the dough comes togther.
  3. Knead dough on a lightly floured, cool surface until smooth. Wrap in cling film and chill for 30 minutes.
  4. Roll out pastry to desired size between two sheets of baking paper. Remove paper and ease pastry into pan/tin. Trim edges and chill in pan for 20 minutes. Preheat oven to 180°C.
  5. Spread the pecans out in another oven tray, and roast for 5-10 minutes. Immediately transfer pecans to a mixing bowl.
  6. Place pan/tin on oven tray, and blind-bake pastry for 10 minutes (raw rice on top of baking paper will weigh the pastry down just fine). Remove paper and filling, and back for an extra 5 minutes. Remove from oven, and reduce oven temperature to 160°C.
  7. Combine maple syrup, eggs, flour and butter for filling in bowl with pecans. Pour mixture into pastry.
  8. Bake for 25–30 minutes until set. Set aside to cool. Slice and serve with dollops of double cream.

Robert’s Walnut and Chocolate Question Mark Podcake

A plate with a chocolate cake with a question mark made of almonds on top

Served during the recording of Episode 3: Bernard Cribbins in Vinyl

Ingredients

Method

The cake itself

  1. Set your oven on 180° and heat it up.
  2. Mix together 250g of the butter, all the caster sugar, and 2 teaspoons of the vanilla. Mix it well until its a bit fluffy.
  3. Add in the eggs, folding them in one at a time, and then mix in the milk and flour a little bit at a time.
  4. Mix in the walnuts.
  5. Grease a round cake in with butter and pour in the mixture.
  6. Bake for an hour, and let it cool down.

The icing

  1. Once the cake has cooled, boil half a saucepan of water, reduce it to a simmer and put another smaller saucepan in the water.
  2. Put the broken up bits of the block of chocolate into the smaller saucepan and let them melt.
  3. Spoon the melted chocolate onto the cake, and sprinkle chocolate hundreds and thousands on to the melted chocolate.
  4. Put the cake in the fridge to let the chocolate set.
  5. Allow the saucepan you melted the chocolate in to cool down, then use it to mix 50 g of butter, the remaining teaspoon of vanilla and the icing sugar.
  6. Pour the icing into an icing piper. (If you don’t have an icing piper, you can make a Blue Peter icing piper by snipping the corner off a small plastic bag, and squeezing the icing out of the hole.) Pipe the icing onto the top of the cake in the shape of a question mark.
  7. Arrange walnuts on the question-mark–shaped icing.
  8. Allow the cake to cool in the fridge.
  9. Enjoy cake, while listening to the fourth episode of Flight through Entirety.

Optera Larvae Scrolls

Some optera larvae scrolls being menaced by a toy Dalek

Served during the recording of Episode 4: Why Can’t I Wear Trousers?

Ingredients

Method

  1. Combine flour and butter in large bowl, and knead with fingers until mixture resembles bread crumbs.
  2. Stir in milk, and knead lightly to a dough.
  3. Flour a cold work surface, and form dough into a rectangle about 1 cm thick.
  4. Spread with jam on top of dough, to taste.
  5. Roll up dough from long end to long end, creating a scroll log.
  6. Slice log into 12 rolls
  7. Lay scrolls on flat side in greased oven tray, and brush with milk.
  8. Bake at 200°C for 12–15 minutes, until pastry is golden brown.
  9. Serve with double cream and more jam.

Chocolate and Butter Chumbley Victoria Sponge

A multilayer cake shaped like a Chumbley on a table next to a microphone

Served during the recording of Episode 6: Nipples, Dear Listener

Ingredients

The Butter Sponge

The Chocolate Sponge

Bowls and ingredients at the ready

The Buttercream Icing

You’ll need two mixing bowls (including the bowl of the electric mixer), three oven–safe bowls of decreasing sizes (please refer to picture), and two 20cm cake tins. Remove the butter from the fridge about 20 mins before you start.

Method

The Butter Sponge

(You may want to do this in two batches: just use half the ingredients at a time)

  1. Preheat oven to Fan 170°C.
  2. Crack eggs into mixer bowl, add sugar, and beat on high setting for about six minutes (you want them to double or triple in volume).
  3. While the eggs are beating, chop the butter into small cubes, about 1 cm in dimension (in space).
  4. Sift the flour and baking powder together. Sift again to aerate the flour.
  5. When the eggs have increased in volume, reduce to a low speed and add the butter.
  6. Add the flour a half cup at a time. Scrape the sides of the bowl as necessary, and mix until smooth. It will seem lumpy for a bit — just keep mixing!
  7. Grease your three oven safe bowls with butter, and dust with flour.
  8. Divide the cake batter between the three bowls, leaving 1-2 cm at the top to allow for rising.
  9. Place bowls in the middle of the oven. Bake for 20–40 minutes. The time depends on the size of your bowls.
  10. Use a skewer or knife to test the smallest sponge after 20 minutes. When it comes out clean, it’s ready. If it isn’t ready, check again in 5 minutes.
  11. Remove the sponges as they cook, and place them on a heat resistant surface to cool. When the smallest one is ready, the middle one will still need another 5-10 minutes; when the middle one is ready, the large will still ned another 5-10 minutes.
  12. When all three are out of the oven, leave them to cool for 10 minutes, then turn them out onto a cooling rack.
  13. If your sponges have ballooned out of the bowl, feel free to trim them flat. It will help with the cooling process.

The Chocolate Sponge

  1. Follow steps 1–6 above, adding the cocoa spoon by spoon in step 6. Taste: if it’s not chocolatey enough for you, add more cocoa, because you’ve already come this far with that much butter.
  2. Grease the two cake tins with butter and dust with cocoa.
  3. Place in oven for 20 minutes. These ones should be ready at that time as they’re shallower, but test with a knife or skewer and adjust time as needed.
  4. Turn oven off, remove cakes, and leave them to cool slightly before turning them out onto wire racks.
  5. When all the sponges are cool, place them on plates, loosely cover them with cling film and put in the fridge, preferably overnight. The wrap helps to keep them moist, and the chilling firms them for assembly. It is important that the cakes are cool before covering, so that steam is not trapped inside, making the cake soggy.

The Buttercream Icing

(When you are to assemble your Chumbley, make the buttercream.)

  1. Chop the butter into cubes again, and beat in mixer at a high speed until butter is creamy.
  2. With the mixer still running, add the icing sugar gradually, followed by the vanilla extract.
  3. Beat until very pale yellow in colour, and like whipped cream in consistency. Set aside at room temperature.

Assembly

The assemled chumbly cake

  1. If you haven’t trimmed the bowl sponges yet, now is the time. Arrange your bowl sponges in a stack, taking note of the overhangs. The top of each section of a Chumbley is roughly the same circumference as the bottom of the section above it, so depending on your bowls, you may want to trim the tops off the lower two cakes. When finished trimming, put the bowl sponges to one side.
  2. Cut three circles of the chocolate sponge to form the Chumbley’s supports. Each circle should be smaller than the bowl sponge that will go above it.
  3. Assemble the cake roughly: large chocolate sponge circle, large bowl sponge, medium chocolate sponge circle, medium sponge, small chocolate sponge circle, small sponge.
  4. Trim any cakes which are uneven, in order to level out the layers.
  5. When you are happy with the levels, assemble cake on your serving plate. Use a spoon of jam to secure the bottom layer, then build up. Use a small amount of jam and butter cream between each layer to cement the layers together.
  6. Using two spoons, smooth the remainder of the buttercream over the bowl sponge sections of the Chumbley. If the spoons get sticky, warm them with hot water. When you are happy with your coverage of buttercream, lightly rake a fork down the side to achieve that distinctive texturing effect that Chumblies have.
  7. Decorate with three antennae of your choosing.

Dalek Sugar Puff Treats

A plate of sugar puff treats next to the Dr Who Peter Cushing fannual

Served during the recording of Episode 10: Jill Curzon—Inspired Wallpaper

Ingredients

Method

  1. Preheat oven to 150°C fan (170°C regular).
  2. Line 12-hole muffin pan with paper cases.
  3. Melt butter, sugar and honey together in a saucepan until frothy.
  4. Add your chosen cross-promoted breakfast cereal and mix well.
  5. Working quickly, spoon into paper patty cases.
  6. Top each case with a few cachous. If you have coloured ones, feel free to use the colours decoratively for different ranks of Dalek.
  7. Bake in the 150°C oven for 10 minutes.
  8. Cool.

Store in an airtight container for up to a week. Do not refrigerate as they will go soggy.

Ginger Yeti Cake with Lime Drizzle

Top view of an iced cake with a yeti made of ginger pieces on top

Served during the recording of Episode 14: Hauling a Couple of Prize Marrows

Ingredients

Method

  1. Preheat the oven to 150°C / fan 130°C / gas 2. Grease and base-line a deep 20cm round springform cake tin or use a cake liner, if you like.
  2. Put the butter, sugar and syrup in a saucepan and gently melt, stirring all the time. Stir in the milk, then tip into a wide bowl to cool. Stir in the egg.
  3. Sift the flour, bicarbonate of soda and spices into a large bowl and make a well in the centre. Stir in the syrup mixture and prunes. Pour into the tin and bake for 50-55 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. Cool in the tin, then turn out onto a cooling rack over a plate.
  4. While the cake is baking, slice ginger into thin batons.
  5. Sieve the icing sugar into a bowl and mix to a smooth consistency with lime juice. Pour over the cake. Leave to set for 10 mins and pour residual icing over again.
  6. Arrange ginger pieces in the shape of a Yeti on the cake, and pour over residual icing again. Rearrange any disrupted ginger pieces. Leave or put in fridge to set; serve.

Green Death Tea and Pistachio Cupcakes

Closeup of a green iced cupcake being menaced by a puppet maggot

Served during the recording of Episode 28: You’re Not Katharine Hepburn.

These delicious cupcakes originally appeared on the Spoonful of Flavor website, without the putrid giant maggot theme. You can find the original version of the recipe here.

Ingredients

Cupcakes

Frosting

Method

Cupcakes

  1. Preheat oven to 180°C (160° fan forced), and line a 12-cup standard muffin tin with paper liners.
  2. In a large bowl, sift and whisk together the flours, corn starch, green tea powder, baking powder, and salt.
  3. In the bowl of a stand mixer or with a handheld mixer beat the butter and greek yogurt on medium high speed until thoroughly combined, about 3 minutes.
  4. Add in the sugar and beat again for another 2 minutes.
  5. Add in the egg, vanilla and almond extract and beat until combined.
  6. Add in a third of the dry mixture and beat just until combined, then add in half of the milk.
  7. Repeat the process ending with the dry mixture.
  8. Add in the chopped pistachios and mix just until combined.
  9. Fill the paper cupcake liners ¾ full with the batter.
  10. Bake the cupcakes on the middle rack of the oven for 16–20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.
  11. Cool the cupcakes completely on a wire cooling rack before frosting them.

Frosting

  1. In the bowl of a stand mixer or with a handheld mixer add all of the frosting ingredients.
  2. Beat the frosting starting on low speed until the powdered sugar is incorporated, then scrape down the sides of the bowl.
  3. Turn up the speed of the mixer to high and beat until the frosting is light and fluffy.

Assembling

  1. Pipe the frosting onto the cooled cupcakes with a pastry bag and tip or spread it on with a knife.
  2. Sprinkle the tops with more chopped pistachios if desired.

Alien Quarry Samples

A tray of a slice made of rice bubbles with some Third-Doctor era character figures on top

Served during the recording of Episode 30: Evil Buddhists

This delicious slice first appeared on the Kidspot website. You can find the original recipe here.

Ingredients

Method

  1. Grease a 16cm × 26cm slice tray and set aside.
  2. Chop 1 cup marshmallows and combine in a bowl with Rice Bubbles.
  3. Melt remaining marshmallows in a heatproof bowl in the microwave (on high for 15–20 seconds). Add melted marshmallows and melted butter to the Rice Bubble mixture. Stir well to combine.
  4. Transfer mixture into tray and press down with the back of a metal spoon. Refrigerate until set, then cut into 16 bars. Store in an airtight container in the fridge.