Maple Pecan Shortbread
Posted: February 16, 2020 Filed under: Biscuits 5 Comments
Wotchers!
Something a little more decadent this week – still biscuity, but with so much rich flavour it will have you swooning.
Beautifully crisp shortbread covered with a rich, maple syrup filling and topped with chopped pecans. It is so simple to make and so utterly delicious and moreish, you will be cursing me as you realise the entire batch is gone onna count of everyone being tempted to just one more bite.
This recipe has been adapted from sonething I found online. The original recipe was very heavy on the butter and sugar and the shortbread base, although rich, lacked crispness. Everything was over the top. However with a couple of tweaks, it has perked up no end, and is currently my bake of choice to take as a gift (provided they can be prized out of my vice-like grip).
I love the richness of the flavours in these squares. I chose to use dark muscovado sugar and Grade A maple syrup. If you think these might be a little intense for your tastes, switch to soft, light brown sugar and a milder syrup.
Another reason why I love these bars, aside from their amazing flavour, is the ease with which they come together. There’s no rolling and cutting of the shortbread – it’s not even a dough – you just press the crumb-like mixture into your tin and bake. The filling is mixed in one bowl in about five minutes, poured onto the cooked base and sprinkle on the pecans. Twenty-five minutes later and they’re done.
Come on and get your maple pecan biscuit on!
Maple Pecan Bars
Shortbread base
60g caster sugar
120g unsalted butter
150g plain flour
30g cornflour
0.5tsp salt
Filling
150g dark muscovado sugar
150g pure Grade A maple syrup (I used Clarks)
1 large egg
0.5tsp salt
30g unsalted butter – melted and cooled slightly.
100g pecans – roughly chopped.
- Heat the oven to 200°C, 180°C Fan.
- Line a baking tin with parchment paper. I used a square tin with an internal measurement of 22cm. You could use anything of similar dimensions – sligtly narrower rectangle or 20cm round cake tin – whatever you have to hand. It should be at least 3cm deep.
- Put the shortbread ingredients into a food processor and blitz until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs.
- Tip the mixture into the prepared tin and press flat.
- Bake for 20 minutes, until just starting to brown. Set aside to cool.
- Reduce the oven heat to 180°C, 160°C Fan.
- Whisk the sugar, syrup, salt and egg until light and foamy (5 minutes).
- Whisk in the butter, then pour the mixture onto the cooled shortbread.
- Scatter the pecans evenly over the top and bake for 25 minutes until the middle is just barely set (has a little wobble).
- Cool in the tin.
- To get sharp, clean slices, once cooled, chill in the fridge for one hour before slicing into portions.
- Store in an airtight container.
Chocolate Coffee Toffee Oatmeal Biscuits
Posted: February 4, 2020 Filed under: Biscuits | Tags: biscuits, chewy, chocolate, coffee, oatmeal, toffee Leave a comment
Wotchers!
Here is the second and final recipe in the sub-series Delicious Biscuits With Unusual Stuff Added To Them and boy is there a lot going on!
We have CHOCOLATE!
We have COFFEE!
We have TOFFEE!
We have ROLLED OATS!
We have ICE-CREAM CONES!
*record-scratch* Wait, what?
Yes! These fabulously crunchy, chewy treats have a bonus texture of crumbled waffle cones mixed in.
They are similar to the Chocolate Chip Cookie of a couple of years ago, but this time with rolled oats.
I have adapted this recipe from one entered into a 2004 baking competition in the US run by Quaker Oats. A winning entry as it happens, submitted by Paula Marchesi from Lenhartsville, PA. Aparrently 16 years is enough time for both Quaker Oats and the internet to forget whose recipe it is, because the number of versions ‘out there’ without attribution are numerous, and the Canadian Quaker Oats website even calls it “Our Chocolate Coffee Toffee Oatmeal Cookie recipe”.
It’s also interesting that Paula Marchesi from Lenhartsville, PA. pops up all over the place, with her recipes appearing on and in websites, bulletin boards and books, but with zero (that I can find) social media presence. So much so that now I’m wondering whether she’s a real person at all. On one of the recipes she claims to have been cooking for over 50 years, but all her recipes are rather modern. Curiouser and curiouser.
ANYHOO…
These biscuits are wonderfully chewy and crunchy, the sweetness of the chocolate and toffee being tempered with the aromatic bitterness of the espresso coffee. Be warned, though – with all the delicious additions, they are very much in the treat category. In fact they’re just a whisker away from being individually wrapped and sold in the confectionary aisle, so approach with caution. Or at a hundred miles an hour with an open mouth. Your call.
I’d love to be able to fill you in on their keeping qualities, but in this house they keep getting eaten up in no time.
Chocolate Coffee Toffee Oatmeal Biscuits
140g large rolled oats
115g dark or light muscovado sugar
115g unsalted butter, softened
30ml strong coffee (espresso strength) – cooled
30ml beaten egg (½ a large egg)
½tsp vanilla extract
100g wholemeal flour
½tsp salt
¼ tsp bicarbonate of soda
100g butterscotch pieces[1]
100g dark chocolate chips
3 waffle ice-cream cones – crushed
- Toast the oat flakes. This is optional (the original recipe didn’t), but I think it adds a fabulous nuttiness as well as contributing to the chewiness of the finished biscuits.
- Sprinkle the oats onto a baking sheet and put into the oven.
- Turn the oven to 170°C, 150°C Fan.
- Bake for 15-20 minutes, stirring them every 5 minutes, until lightly golden.
- Set aside to cool.
- Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.
- Mix in the coffee, egg and vanilla.
- Fold in the flour, salt, soda and cooled oats.
- Stir through the remaining ingredients.
- Portion out in 30g balls and chill for at least 30 minutes.
- When firm, arrange onto parchment-lined baking sheets and press flat. To get regular-shaped cookies like in the picture, press the balls of dough inside a small, round cookie cutter to keep the edges neat. These biscuits will spread a little in the oven, so leave 3-4cm between them.
- Heat the oven to 180°C, 160°C Fan.
- Bake for 13-15 minutes.
- Allow to firm up on the baking sheets for a couple of minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely. If you want to neaten the edges of any biscuits that have spread themselves a little raggedy, do so now while they’re warm.
- If you want to sneak a ‘taster’, they are amazing when still a little warm.
- When completely cold, store in an airtight container.
[1] If you don’t have access to these, you could substitute with 100g of crushed Daim bars.
Peanut Cracker Biscuits
Posted: January 28, 2020 Filed under: Biscuits | Tags: biscuits, easy, peanut, salty, simple, sweet 2 Comments
Wotchers!
Here we are at week two of my biscuit bonanza and the first of a very short (2) sub-series of Delicious Biscuits With Unusual Stuff Added To Them (might have to work on the title).
This is also a cookie that has been adapted into a biscuit, because crisp biscuits are best. (Spoiler Alert: Tune in next time where I completely contradict myself on this.)
ANYHOO…
I like this biscuit not only for its crispness – which is mighty – but also because it is not overly sweet, and has a definite saltiness to it onna count of the aforementioned Unusual Stuff added to it.
Firstly, there’s peanuts. Roasted. Salted. Chopped into smaller pieces (a faff, I know, but necessary to avoid the biscuits becoming HUGE and UNWEILDY. And an unwieldy biscuit is not a pretty sight).
Then we have crushed up salty crackers like these (available in the supermarkets).
The lack of fat and sugar in the crackers makes for little pockets of dry, crunchy dullness – MARVEL at how I am really selling this biscuit – dull in a good way, because it is against this plain background the rich roasty flavour of the peanuts can really shine.
The peanuts are crunchy, the cracker pieces are crunchy, there’s a delicious lick of salt aftertaste: they beat biscuits made with peanut butter hands down.
They’re perfect for a little salty-sweet treat. Go on, treat yourselves.
Peanut Cracker Biscuits
I like a really crunchy biscuit, but they might not be to everyone’s tastes, so I suggest trying a test bake of just one or two at the lower baking time. Be sure to allow them to cool completely before tasting and deciding, as they will firm up as they cool. If you’re happy with the crunch, stick with the baking time. If you like something a bit crisper, bake a little longer.
60g unsalted butter, softened
45g cream cheese, softened
150g soft brown sugar
2tbs treacle
½ large egg
90g plain flour
30g cornflour
¼ tsp bicarbonate of soda
½ tsp salt
80g salted peanuts
2 x portion packets Doriano crackers
- Chop the peanuts into pieces the size of a small pea. Chop the crackers into similar sizes.
- Put the butter, cream cheese, sugar, treacle and egg into a bowl and whisk until smoothly combined.
- Sift together the flours, soda and salt and add to the butter mixture and fold in.
- Fold in the peanuts and the cracker pieces.
- Lay out heaped teaspoons (15g or so) of the mixture onto some baking parchment and put into the freezer for 30-45 minutes to firm up.
- When firm, roll into balls (about the size of a large grape/cherry tomato) and lay onto Silpat/parchment-lined baking sheets. These will spread a little, but not as much as the Scotch Cookies, so you can lay them with about a 5cm gap inbetween.
- Wrap the base of a tumbler in cling film and lightly grease it with a little butter. Press the tumbler base onto the balls of dough to flatten.
- Heat the oven to 180°C, 160°C Fan.
- Bake for 13-15 minutes until nicely browned.
- Allow to cool on the baking sheets for a couple of minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.
- Store in an airtight container.
Scotch Cookies
Posted: January 22, 2020 Filed under: Biscuits 11 Comments
Wotchers!
We’re going to start 2020 with a bang – and also biscuits.
OK, so I lied about the bang, but… BISCUITS!
I have been obsessing a little over biscuits of late, and how they are possibly, unjustly, a little under-appreciated in the world of baking.
They have so much going for them! Unlike cakes, tarts, pies and desserts, they have relatively few ingredients, they bake quickly, they small and self-contained – no-one ever had to cut a portion of biscuits. They bake is a short amount of time, they keep well, and you can easily customise them to your own tastes.
“These walnut biscuits are amazing! You should try them.”
“Walnuts? WALNUTS?? What are you saying!?!? I can’t STAND walnuts! Walnuts are an ABOMINATION! I can’t believe you’d even bring the subject up! Walnuts are DEAD to me! YOU are dead to me! Why I oughtta….”
“You could make them with hazelnuts instead?”
“Oh ok – cool. Thanks.”
And there are so many varieties, plain, sandwiches, iced, with fruit, with nuts, with vanilla, citrus, spices… There is one aspect, however, which in my book is NOT up for discussion, and that is a biscuit is CRISP. Non-negotiable. So I’ve gathered together some new and exciting (to me, and hopefully to you too) biscuit recipes to try over the coming weeks.
ANYHOO….
So I’m browsing t’Internet and I find an American article about a Madeleine Moment. Now, if I love anything to do with food, it’s a Recipe With A Backstory™. The recipe was called Scotch Cookies, and originated online in an article about food and memory from 2009, which had found the recipe in Chebeague Island Cooking published in 1986 by Chebeague Parents Association. The Cushman Bakery in Portland, Maine had made these cookies, but since the bakery had closed in the 1960s, the recipe was sourced for the cookbook by Jean Dyer, who took the initiative to contact the Harris Baking Company (who had bought Cushman’s and along with it, the Scotch Cookie recipe).
*draws breath* But I digress….
I have my doubts about these having any link to Scotland at all, since cookies in Scotland are actually sweet buns (at least according to the 19th/20thC bakery books I’ve consulted – friends north of the border please correct me if I’m wrong), but I decided to give them a go, not least because they are lightly spiced with mace and cinnamon. Mace used to be extremely popular, as did caraway, but both have fallen out of fashion over the last couple of centuries, so this recipe piqued my interest because firstly, the majority of recipes I’ve read pair it with nutmeg, and secondly, use it very sparingly. So to see it paired here with cinnamon and also a full teaspoon of each at that, had me wondering what it would taste like.
The answer is – like nothing I’ve tasted before. In a very, very good way. It is as if the combination of cinnamon, mace and treacle produce something much greater than the sum of it’s parts. Thin and crisp with a delicious flavour and (eventually) a very satisfying crunch. Very moreish.
The texture needed work, especially since I changed the fat from shortening (I’m just not a fan) to butter. As you might have noticed with, for example, an all-butter pastry, the texture loses it’s crispness, so to counterbalance this, replacing a small proportion of flour with cornflour brings the crispness back. Other tweaks included substituting treacle for molasses, and halving both the biscuit size and the recipe as a whole (seriously, who needs so many ginormous cookies in one batch?) but keeping the spice quantities. This resulted in the unfortunate (in my opinion) ingredient of half an egg. I am mitigating this with having a recipe later that also uses half an egg, to prevent waste. Don’t keep the other half an egg ’till then, though – obvs.
After a few more experimental batches I also had to add adding cooking times and temperatures, since the original recipe’s “Bake, but do not overbake.” has to rank as one of the most useless recipe comments I’ve ever read.
Scotch Cookies
Makes about 40 thin biscuits.
140g soft, light brown sugar
115g unsalted butter – softened
80g treacle
½ large egg
150g plain flour
60g cornflour
½ tsp salt
¾ tsp bicarbonate of soda
1tsp cinnamon
1tsp mace
2tbs milk
- Put the sugar, butter, treacle and egg into a bowl and whisk until smoothly combined.
- Sift together the flours, salt, soda and spices and add to the butter mixture and fold in.
- Add the milk and stir to combine.
- Lay out heaped teaspoons (15g or so) of the mixture onto some baking parchment and put into the freezer for 30-45 minutes to firm up.
- When firm, roll into balls (about the size of a large grape/cherry tomato) and lay onto Silpat/parchment-lined baking sheets. NB These will spread quite substantially whilst baking, so space them well apart. I use the inbuilt oven shelves and a Silpat to bake them on, and have just 14 (in a 4-3-4-3 formation) per sheet. I bake 2 batches of 2 trays.
- Wrap the base of a tumbler in cling film and lightly grease it with a little butter. Press the tumbler base onto the balls of dough to flatten.
- Heat the oven to 180°C, 160°C Fan.
- Baking the biscuits: Now I appreciate that people’s tastes differ, and some of you might like a biscuit that is chewy in the middle and crisp on the edges. No problem. Just bake them for the shorter cooking time. If you’re unsure which you might like best, bake a small test batch of one or two biscuits on separate pieces of parchment (so you can remove the shorter-baked ones easily), allow them to cool and then taste to decide.
- For crisp biscuits, bake for 12-13 minutes, for chewy biscuits, bake for 10-11 minutes.
- These biscuits will be thin and very soft when they come out of the oven, so you will need to let them cool on the sheets for 2-3 minutes before transferring them to a wire rack to cool completely.
- When completely cool, store in an airtight container.
Updated Christmas Food Ideas
Posted: December 23, 2019 Filed under: Uncategorized Leave a commentWotchers!
Here is your 2014 2019 Festive Food Ready Reference page for all your holiday menus!
Click on the text to go to the recipe page.
I hope you all have a fab time and let’s meet up again in 2015 2020 to do it all over again!
M-A 😀
Last-Minute Essentials
Christmas Day
Nibbles & Starters
Breads & Side Dishes
Something Sweet
Boxing Day Buffet
Puff Pastry Angels
Posted: December 9, 2019 Filed under: Christmas, Pastry, Puff Pastry Leave a comment
Wotchers!
Time, this week, for some festive baking!
If the mincemeat popcorn wasn’t enough to get you in the mood, these delightful pastry angels are sure to have you decking the halls with boughs of wossname and tra-la-la-la-laaa-ing about. Not least because with these, you’ll have oodles of time for decking and tra-la-la-ing because they have maximum impact with minimal effort and fuss.
All they require is a sheet of puff pastry and a little jam (or filling of your choice). If you’re feeling especially flamboyant, you can gild the lily as it were with some royal icing, but they’re equally delicious unadorned and minimalistic.
You can whip them up for breakfast or even offer them as a lighter, vegetarian alternative to mince pies but still with that festive feel. Or swap the jam for my vegetarian/vegan mincemeat and be as jolly as can be!
There’s real joy in these pastries, as much the speed with which they can be assembled as with the simplicity of flavours and contrasts in textures.
Puff Pastry Angels
For 6-8 angels
1 sheet ready rolled puff pastry – treat yourself with a butter version
100g apricot jam
egg-white for glazing
royal icing (optional)
- Unroll your puff pastry onto a chopping board and pop it into the freezer for ten minutes to firm up.
- Remove it from the freezer and cut into squares. Depending on the size of your sheet and the size of your squares, you might get as many as eight squares from the one sheet.
- Heat the oven to 200°C, 180°C Fan.
- For each square, follow the method displayed in the images below. Text instructions also below.
- Make diagonal cuts in the pastry from the corners halfway towards the middle.
- With a pastry brush, dab a little water in the middle and then spoon/pipe a circle of jam.
- Take the top right corner of the pastry and fold it down and into the middle. Make sure it’s firmly pressed, to keep it from coming free during baking.
- Repeat for the left side, thus making the hood/face of the angel.
- Take the bottom right corner of the pastry and fold it up and towards the middle. Press firmly.
- Repeat with the left corner, to make the angels arms.
- Cut a ‘book’ from the pastry trimmings and dab the underside with water, then press firmly over the joins.
- Arrange the finished angels on a baking sheet covered with parchment.
- Brush the surfaces of the pastry with egg-white to glaze. Avoid getting the egg-white on the cut surfaces, as this will prevent them fanning out during baking.
- Bake for 20-25 minutes, turning the baking sheet around after 12 minutes, to help with even colouring. During baking, the layers of pastry will puff up and add a very real sense of feathered wings and billowy robes.
- Cool on a wire rack.
- When cold, ice with royal icing if liked, picking out the details of face, book, wings and robe.
Caramel Popcorn II
Posted: November 29, 2019 Filed under: Uncategorized Leave a comment
Wotchers!
Welcome back to Part II of Caramel Popcorn, (Part I can be found here), in which we learn about zhuzhing our base caramel popcorn into glittering jewels for gifting and treats.
There are, as I see it, three ways to add even more flavours to your popcorn:
- Bits and Bobs
- Alcohol
- Spices
Bits and Bobs
This catch-all term covers just about anything you can think of. Purely decorative options include: hard sugar sprinkles, chocolate sprinkles, gold and silver balls, gold stars, coloured sugar. These can be added to the popcorn after baking, when the caramel is still slightly tacky, and left to cool. Larger additions can include dried fruit, candied peels, preserved ginger, etc which can be added during the baking process since, being more substantial, they require more stickiness to ensure they adhere well to the caramel. You could also drizzle over melted, tempered chocolate, once the caramel has cooled, but to be honest, that seems a little over the top to me, given the amount of sugar already in the caramel, but whatever jingles your bells.
Alcohol
Nothing too outrageous, just a little something right at the end of cooking the caramel to give it a little flavour boost. Two tablespoons is my recommendation: any less and it won’t be noticable, and any more and you risk your caramel not setting. Between the hot caramel and the oven baking, there won’t be any actual alcohol left by the time the popcorn is done, but the flavour will add a wonderful touch to your popcorn.
Spices
Whether you pick just a single spice, or go for a riotous mix of several, spices are a simple way to zhuzh up your popcorn batches. There are two opportunities to add spices: in the oil you pop the corn or afterwards as a dusting over the cooked corn. In experimenting for this post, I had also tried adding them to the caramel, just before the bicarbonate of soda, but found the extreme heat of the caramel just scorched the spices and thus reduced their flavour. The oil the popcorn is cooked in doesn’t get as hot, and the lower heat can actually encourage the spices to become more aromatic. For an even richer flavour, use clarified butter or ghee to pop your corn.
Coverage
Before presenting any glammed-up recipe ideas, I want to pause for a moment and talk a little more about coverage. Previously, I spoke about varying the quantity of popcorn to get the coverage of your preference, from a light smattering to full-on candy clumps. Now, I like a light covering to my popcorn, as, usually, the heavily-coated popcorn is too sweet, but here I’m going to recommend a change. When trialling these recipes I found that they actually suit a heavier coverage because, and here’s the odd bit, it leads to one eating less. I mean, the whole batch still gets eaten – obvs! – but the additional ingredients provide a pop of such intense flavour, one or two pieces at a time is enough. Rather like a mint, or piece of fudge with a coffee at the end of a meal. In fact, why not serve your glammed up popcorn that way anyways!
And now – On to some recipe suggestions!
To avoid repetition and making this post a mile long, I’ll only be listing the additions to the base recipe/methods covered in the previous post.
Malt Caramel Popcorn
This popcorn has a gloriously rich colour and flavour. Caveat: you need to like the flavour of malt extract (obvs), otherwise this isn’t the popcorn for you. I described it to my daughter as tasting like strong Maltesers. She tried it, but wasn’t a fan. I, on the other hand, love it. It’s not overly sweet, which is a big plus, and the caramel sets to a wonderful crispness.
Use the Maple Syrup method, using 200g of soft brown sugar and 125g/ml of malt extract for the liquid sugar. Bake for 20 minutes, stirring it after 10.
Maple Bacon Popcorn
A wonderfully aromatic sweet/salty mix that is sure to appeal to everyone. Bonus: only requires two extra ingredients!
Bacon
Maple syrup
A word or two about the bacon. And those two words are ‘dry cure’.
Dry cure is a method of bacon production that does not involve liquid. Spices, salts and sugars are rubbed over the meat for several days until the meat is cured. Liquid is drawn out of the meat, leaving it compact and firm. Wet brined bacon absorbs moisture as well as the curing salts. The difference is obvious when you cook it – wet brined bacon frequently oozes moisture and milky solids in the pan, whereas dry cure bacon merely becomes crisp in it’s own rendered fat.
You can choose between streaky or back bacon, smoked or unsmoked. I chose 200g of smoked, dry cured, streaky bacon, initially intending to use just some for the popcorn, but I ended up using it all on a single batch.
Yes, I too was surprised. But anything less and there was too little bacon to make any impression. You need to cook/glaze your bacon first, before popping the corn or making the caramel.
- Cook your bacon in a dry pan (if using streaky bacon) or by adding a little oil if using leaner back bacon, until just cooked and starting to brown a little. The later grilling will crisp it up, so you want it to be just barely cooked at this stage. Overcook it now and by the time it is grilled, it will be brittle and tasteless.
- Remove from the pan and blot with kitchen paper.
- Lay the cooked bacon on a parchment-lined pan and drizzle with the maple syrup.
- Grill for 2-3 minutes, then turn over and grill for a further 2 minutes to caramelise the sugars.
- Taste, and if the sweet/salt combination isn’t balanced, sprinkle a little salt onto the still-warm bacon.
- Set aside to cool, then snip into small pieces with a pair of scissors.
Adding the bacon
There are two options – before or after the caramel. I have tried both and, whilst neither is ideal, my recommendation is to add the bacon to the hot popcorn as soon as it is popped. The stickiness of the maple syrup helps it adhere, and if it is a little clumpy (and it probably will be) the motion of mixing/coating the popcorn with the caramel will help even the distribution.
Parkin Popcorn
This flavour combination is based on a luxury parkin recipe I found in an otherwise unremarkable household compendium from 1870. In addition to treacle and ginger, the recipe also boasted lashings of rum, which cemented it’s place in my heart.
Use the regular caramel popcorn ingredients/method with the following adjustments:
- Solid sugar: Either 200g soft brown, or 100g each of light & dark muscovado.
- Liquid sugar: 125ml treacle – heat the opened tin gently in a saucepan of water to make it more manageable to pour.
- Oil for popping: Oil is fine, but clarified butter is also a luxurious alternative
- New Ingredients
- ground ginger: Add 1 rounded teaspoon to the oil/butter used for popping the corn to ensure even coverage of kernels
- dark rum: Add 2tbs into the caramel just before adding the bicarbonate of soda.
- Optional Extra
- preserved stem ginger: I just thought of this recently, but didn’t want to delay this post further by waiting for a sunny day to take more photos. Drain from the syrup and chop finely. Sprinkle over the popped corn while hot. I suggest 80-100g, or to your personal taste.
Mince Pie Popcorn
I must admit, this version is my favourite of the glammed-up recipes, because it’s literally bursting with flavour. Not surprisingly, given the number of extra ingredients thrown in, but this guarantees that each piece is a fantastic mix of Christmassy flavours and the perfect gluten-free alternative to pastry pies. If your fruit is too clumped together, tease it apart before the baking stage.
Use the regular caramel popcorn ingredients/method with the following adjustments:
- Solid sugar: Either 200g soft brown, or 100g each of light & dark muscovado. This will depend on the liquid sugar combo you choose. I used treacle/soft brown.
- Liquid sugar: 125ml treacle or for a less intense flavour without losing the rich colour, try 60ml each of golden syrup and treacle. As above, heat the opened tin gently in a saucepan of water to make it more manageable to pour.
- Oil for popping: clarified butter
- New Ingredients
- Mince pie spices. Add to the butter used for popping the corn to ensure even coverage of kernels
- ½tsp ground ginger
- 1tsp ground nutmeg
- 1tsp ground cinnamon
- 1tsp of ground mixed spice
- ½tsp ground cloves
- Alcohol – 1tbs each of cream sherry & brandy. Add into the caramel just before adding the bicarbonate of soda.
- Candied peel: 75g each of candied orange and lemon peel, cut into small (5mm) dice. Toss through the popcorn before coating the caramel.
- Cranberries: 80g cranberries, cut into halves. Toss through the popcorn before coating the caramel.
- Mince pie spices. Add to the butter used for popping the corn to ensure even coverage of kernels
