Who can take a sunrise? Epic Hot Chocolate Jamie Oliver style

Who can take a sunrise
Sprinkle it in dew
Cover it in chocolate
and a miracle or two?

Well, apparently Jamie Oliver can. He's my man of the moment, after the stunning success of the Get ahead gravy, his was the original inspiration for the Leftover turkey surprise pie, and now this. Epic Hot Chocolate.

All being well M and I are planning on heading out tomorrow night, and following our trip to Cologne earlier this month I wanted to recreate some of that magic with flasks of hot drinks; Gluwhein mit amaretto for me, and Cocoa for Mark. However, I wanted to make his hot chocolate more akin to what we were drinking in Cologne. Thick, creamy and luscious. My mum originally dissuaded me from having a bash at this hot chocolate by daring me to "think of the calories!" and truly it's not something I'd recommend drinking every day. But it's New Years Eve, it's going to be flipping freezing and we're going to be outside for a fair old while. So hang the calories (it'll be made with skimmed milk too)

The recipe is so simple, and would be a perfect gift for a chocolate lover, if done up in a kilner jar, with the instructions added on a luggage label, tied with ribbon or string. Mine is in an old nutella jar, so has been hastily prettied up with some spare gingham fabric and a bit of ribbon.

We'll be taking around half a pint of cocoa with us tomorrow, so the quantities below make plenty, that we'll be able to dip into again should the need arise. We'll only be using 5 tablespoons of mix at the most.

Epic Hot Chocolate a la Mr Oliver - my alternative (equally epic) suggestions below

2 tablespoons Horlicks
2 tablespoons cornflour
3 tablespoons icing sugar
4 tablespoons quality organic cocoa
100g quality dark chocolate (70% cocoa solids), finely grated OK, Pantry admission here - I had no dark chocolate in the house, so grated 100g of a chocolate santa one of the Guides gave me for Christmas. Oops.
a pinch of ground cinnamon
a pinch of sea salt     

Penelope's Pantry amendments...

• I've added  the leftover pieces of nutmeg as well as grating half a nutmeg into my mix as I love the way it tastes in anything with milk.
• Why not try with grated dark chocolate that has chilli in? Or you could add whole, dried chillis to the mix - to infuse their flavour
• Cardamom would make this amazingly scented and much more grown up
• On a grown up theme, a shot of rum, Baileys or brandy would give this one hell of a kick!
• Of course if serving to littlies, squirty cream and marshmallows are must haves
• Green and Blacks' flavoured chocolates would all add a little something extra; Butterscotch, the Mayan Gold - all yummy in this.
• These are just suggestions I've thought of since making it about an hour ago... why not do whatever you like and suits you the best... the world really is your oyster with this. And as I say, it has amazing gift potential!

Put all of these in a jar, put the lid on and shake to mix.

Warm up the amount of milk you need (250ml milk is a rough measurement for a mug) and before it boils, turn the heat down to low and whisk in 5 tablespoons of mixture per pint of milk until it's smooth and thick.

We'll be decanting into warmed thermos flasks and enjoying (fingers crossed) under the London fireworks. So with that I bid you a Happy New Year! I hope it brings you everything you wish and hope for.

Make of our hands one hand: Let's make Christmas

I was so very excited when Vanessa Kimbell announced Let's Make Christmas, I had allsorts of ideas for my contributions, and had planned to spend some time making things over the last week. Then I got a cold, which was uncomfortable, and annoying, but ultimately not the end of the world. Then I had a fit and broke my wrist, which was also uncomfortable and annoying and felt like the end of the world. I wasn't sure I was going to be able to participate as I had planned to utlise Fourth Friern Barnet Guide power (TM) at the sleepover we had planned this weekend as I was planning to contribute things to make with your children. And not having children, Guides are the next best thing.

So Plan A was, to put not to fine a point on it, stuffed. Some tears and a small tantrum were had, before Mark and his mum came to the rescue. I'm not submitting the planned liebkuchen, but we put our heads together and thought, well what can you do with a borked wrist and a stinking cold if you are planning to Make Christmas? And then we realised - raid  your cupboard of jam. Having spent a large part of this year practicing preserving I thought instead of struggle to make something and be dissapointed in it. I would do exactly what I will do if I'm still splinted/ casted up come Christmas, and that is use the things I've been putting by. But prettify them for Christmas.


So my first submission (yes, there's more than one!) for Let's make Christmas is a terrific trio:


My first jam, jelly & marmalade.


Seville Orange & whiskey marmalade


Strawberry jam


Crabapple jelly - the recipe for which I haven't blogged, so will add it here when I'm back home <watch this space> as I'm currently being looked after by Mark.

2 3/4 lb Crab Apples
3 Cloves
1 lb sugar per pint of extract

Cut the crab apples into quarters. Don't bother to try and peel them, they are far too small and will be straining anyway so will lose the skin, pips etc.
Put the fruit in a pan, with cloves and 1 1/2 pints of water.
Bring to the boil and simmer gently for about an hour until soft and pulpy. Stir from time to time to make sure it doesn't catch on the bottom of your pan.
Spoon the pulp into your incredibly effective, purpose built pillowcase filtration device or jelly bag if you use one. Personally the swearing and bulldog clips involved in getting a pillowcase to stay on an upturned chair on my kitchen table and not fall in to the mixing bowl just adds to the experience for me. No, really.
Strain for at least 12 hours, DO NOT STIR. What you want is a gloriously clear jelly and giving in to the temptation to push the pulp through will make your jelly cloudy.
Measure your extract, and for each pint weigh out 1 lb of sugar (when you get to half pints, find someone friendly who can do maths if you are anything like me).
Stir and heat gently until the sugar is disolved.
Turn up the heat and boil rapidly until setting point is reached. This took about 10 minutes, but will depend on how wet your fruit is.

I only got 3 jars of jelly from these quantities, like quinces, crab apples clearly don't like giving up their wares. That said, this is lovely, slightly tart jelly that goes really well with a ploughmans or pork dishes.

The blacker the berry the sweeter the juice: elderberry cordial

This post is fairly long awaited for which I'm sorry, but hopefully it's worth it. Preserving has been an amazing new skill to learn this year, and I am loving my jams and jellies, but as the autumn rolled in I started to think about casting my net wider, towards foraging and alcohol.

I haven't done any foraging before, and Mark's parents actually did this for me because of my unpredictable health, much like the sloe gin I still have to post about the elderberries were something I had wanted to try for a long time, I'd originally planned to make this last year but Essex seemed to suffer some kind of freakish cold snap where we went from there being an abundance of berries in the hedgerows to there being none overnight. It's been less sudden this year, but the fruit has seemed to be around a little longer (there were still crabapples on the trees whe I started this post)


Elderberries are more interesting to me that their blossomy overblown precedent, elderflowers. I find cooking with those odd, their floral aroma overpowering most other flavours. That said, I do want to try making cordial, as that in a gin based cocktail I can manage. Actually I suspect I could manage aubergine in a gin based cocktail.


Elderberries however, the aura of mystery that surrounds their poisonousness, like blackcurrants the juice that runs deep red, their beauty as the last rays of summer sun leave us and the leaves start to turn. And they're free. Who doesn't love free stuff.


Importantly though, elderberries are poisonous, the calyx - or little stem at the top of the berry contains cyanide, and as such it's vital that you either pick these over incredibly carefully before starting this recipe, or strain it trhough a pillow case so that none of the calyxes get through (if you have a proper jelly bag that would work too).


A friend of mine who blogs at The new Mrs P recommended her recipe, but as things are of late I felt obligated to tweak it. I don't know when I turned this corner but I never seem to cook exactly what's prescribed any longer, I'm always tweaking and adapting recipes to suit either my current tastes or whims, or what's in the fridge so I don't have to supplement my beloved Riverford veg box unless absolutely necessary.


The fantastic thing about this cordial is that it is so versatile, you can make it into a tea and drink whenfeeling poorly or just in need of a pick me up. Also you could take a tablespoon of this daily as a traditional way of warding off winter coughs and colds. I say this having bottled most of what I made up for gifts, and now suffering from the end of a rotten cold and regretting making it for gifts.


This is my second gift for Let's Make Christmas, and Mark's mum helped me to prettify up the bottle with a festive necker!


Elderberry cordial

Take all  your berries, rinse in a seive or colanderand then put in a big pan
Cover with water and add some cloves, cinammon sticks and star anise
Bring to the boil and simmer for about an hour
Leave overnight, and strain in a highly technically suspended (on an unpturned kitchen chair) pillow case or jelly bag

I ended up with about 3 pints of juice at this point (the next day)
Return to pan with around 450g sugar per pint of juice - I used slightly less, partly to taste, and partly because that was what I had inthe house.
I added another handful of cloves as I'd strained out the spices I had boiled up the fruit with earlier
Bring back to the boil and simmer gently until all the sugar is dissolved. Again I'm highly technical with this and wait until I can't hear the sugar on the preserving pan any longer.
Then strain into sterilised bottles, adding around 4-5 more cloves per bottle.


The wonders of the interwebs tell me that this will last for roughly 2 years, but as someone who's only keeping the spare bits, I've enjoyed it so much that I've finished the cordial I had kept for myself, and not earmarked for gifts!