The Big Fat Egg Of Solid Fuck

There's this little show called The Thick Of It that is pretty much the greatest thing in the world. For the finalé of the latest series, my friends and I had a themed party, because we're exactly that brilliant. Have a look here, about 4:40 in.



YOU WILL NEED
3 Kinder eggs
2 bars of Cadbury's Caramel
1 bag of Kiddies' Supermix Haribo


THE METHOD

# Heat a sharp knife over a lighter or gas hob or something. Probably also have a damp cloth or soggy kitchen roll handy to clean the knife every now and then. Get it hot, but for fuck's sake be careful.

# Unwrap Kinder eggs carefully. Use hot knife to slice them open. CAREFULLY. They will break if you're not careful. Remove toys.

# Put eggshell halves on a plate in the fridge. They are pathetically thin so any time you're not handling them they need to be chilled otherwise they will melt and cover your kitchen in goo.

# Finely chop Caramel bars and fifteen Haribo sweets. The best sweets to use are the ones that are jelly on top and foam on the bottom. Get a good mix of colours.

# Put chopped things in a microwavable bowl and make sure they're nicely mixed. Pop in microwave for about 30 seconds. It really doesn't take long. Much much less time than you expect. Seriously, if you do it for longer the sugar will get too hot and the chocolate will burn and it will be hell.

# Give melted things a bit of a stir, this will make a truly disgusting goop. Leave goop to cool for about five minutes. I hope you weren't too attached to that bowl. Because now the goop is.

# So something to do with gelatine means the goop should now be a mouldable putty. You will know if it is not ready because the hot sugar will melt your skin. Warm to cool what we want. Split it into three equal balls of putty.

# Fetch eggshells from fridge. CAREFULLY pop a putty ball into one half shell, then CAREFULLY place the other half shell on top. Do this quickly, three times, before the shells melt. The putty will hold the shells together, don't worry about rejoining the seam.

# BACK IN FRIDGE FUCKING QUICKLY.

# Give it about twenty minutes, then grab some aluminium foil to wrap your eggs up.

# CONGRATULATIONS you have just laid your first big fat eggs of solid fuck. I'm so proud.



This recipe is dedicated to the excellent Armando Iannucci, Jesse Armstrong, Simon Blackwell, Ian Martin, Tony Roche, Roger Drew, Sean Gray, Will Smith, and Peter Capaldi. Thanks, chaps.

Open Heart Savouries

These were devised as a tasty bit of weird for my friend Liz's birthday.

YOU WILL NEED
(makes 25 canapés)
15 cherry tomatoes
1 pack puff pastry
200g cream cheese
1 red pepper
1 egg

small pastry cutter (Doesn't have to be heart-shaped, but if it isn't you can't do the Open Heart Savouries pun, which would be a shame)


THE METHOD

# Pop on the oven and get it to a nice warm Gas 2, 149c, 300f.

# Line a baking tray with greaseproof paper. This isn't essential, but advisable unless you want to try cleaning caramel sugar off your tray. Ick.

# Slice tomatoes in half and place cut side up on the tray. Season. This bit is really up to you. I prefer a good amount of caster sugar, a touch of salt, and a good twist of black pepper. Feel free to go crazy with basil, thyme, chilli, anything really.

# Tray of tomatoes in the oven. They will take a varying amount of time, depending on your oven. They'll be fine for an hour. After that, start checking every ten minutes until they look caramelly and dried and luscious. Eat one or two. They're amazing. Make these whenever you want. They store well in a jar of olive oil to be nibbled on as sweeties. Nom.



# I used pre-rolled puff pastry because I'm a terrible cheat. If you're an honest person, roll out your pastry to about half a centimetre thick. Line another baking tray with paper.

# Cut out twenty eight little pastry hearts and arrange on the tray.

# Beat up an egg and brush the hearts with the wash.

# Cut out more hearts, but these ones need a circle cut out of the middle of them. Place each heart-ring on top of the egg-washed hearts. Then give another egg wash. Put them in the fridge for half an hour.



# While you're waiting, finely chop a red pepper and give it a quick whizz in the blender with the cream cheese. Just mix, you don't really want to purée.

# Turn the oven up to Gas 7, 218c, 425f. Put tray of pastries in the oven. They will take about 20 minutes to bake. Again, keep an eye out.

# When the pastry hearts are ready, remove from oven and let them cool a while. They will have little circles on the top. Cut these out and voila! Little heart pastry cases!



# Fill the cases with a little cream cheese mix. Don't throw away any leftover cream cheese. It makes lovely sandwich spread, or dip or something.

# Pop a cherry tomato on each pastry and you're done! Eat some. Marvel. I did. I'm not sure I expected this to work.



# Serve at a birthday party with excellent friends. Give them pointed looks until they tell you how amazing you are in the kitchen.

Dante's Chilli Chocolate Cookies

Chilli and chocolate has long been a flavour combination of choice for sinners and deviants everywhere. In the Special Hell, it is served in cookie form.

YOU WILL NEED
(makes 12 cookies)
100g butter
100g chocolate
75g granulated sugar
50g brown sugar
1 egg
160g plain flour
1 fresh chilli


THE METHOD

# Fire up your fiery pit of Hell (or, oven) to Gas 5, 190c, 375f.
Now would also be a good time to line up your soundtrack. I er, chose The Divine Comedy. Obviously.

# Get your butter and chocolate. Make it good chocolate, you hear? 70% cocoa at the very least. If we're going to do this, let's do it properly. Chop everything up good and proper and put in a bowl over a pan of boiling water. This is the good way of melting things. I suppose you could use a microwave. Y'know, since you're going to hell anyway.

# I took a picture of the melted butter and chocolate because it looks so good I pretty much want to dunk my head in it. I didn't though.



# Mix your two sugars in a big bowl and pour on melted stuff. Stir until mixed smooth. Really, try not to dunk your head in it. It looks amazing and I know you're going to taste it, just don't scoff the whole lot.

# Lightly beat an egg in a cup, then add that too. It gives a nice glossy sheen to your mix and binds it a bit more. STOP EATING IT.

# Sieve in the flour. Mixxy mixxy mix. YAY!! Cookie dough!

# Now for the chilli! Here is a picture of my chilli next to an egg. This should give you a rough idea of how much chilli to use.



You have two options here:

1. The Cerberus Variation
The Third Circle of Hell is home to gluttons who would rather chomp as many cookies as they like without fear of FIRE.
Cut your chilli lengthways and scrape out the seeds. Dispose of seeds. Finely slice chilli and mix into cookie dough.

2. The Minotaur Variation
Come violents, sodomites, and blasphemers of the Seventh Circle, melt your faces and feel the burn.
Cut chilli in half. Only use half a chilli. Finely chop. Leave the seeds in. Mix with dough.

# WASH YOUR HANDS DO IT NOW. It's much easier to do this now than accidentally touch your eye with chillifingers and then when your eye hurts you touch it AGAIN because you're a moron. Wash your hands.

# Roll dough into balls and shape into cookies. They don't spread, so make them the size you want them. Arrange on a baking tray lined with greaseproof paper.



# If you like, decorate the tops of the cookies with chopped chilli. Pop into the FIERY BOWELS for 15 minutes.



# Once cooked, let your cookies rest on the tray for a while before transferring to a wire rack to cool. Store in an airtight container.

# Enjoy your Hellish creations warm with a devilishly delicious cup of hot tea.

Lemonade Popcorn

A very quick one just to start off. A test run, if you will.

YOU WILL NEED
1 bag of microwave popcorn (sweet, not salt)
1 lemon
2 tablespoons of granulated sugar


THE METHOD

# Find a huge bowl.

# Juice your lemon. Juice it good.

# Follow instructions on microwave popcorn.

# Don't let your popcorn burn. A few extra kernels left at the bottom of the bag is much better than burning popcorn ruining your entire batch. If your popcorn burns you are a colossal fucktard and you probably shouldn't be allowed in a kitchen unsupervised.



# Empty bag of popcorn into huge bowl.

# Drizzle your lemon juice over the popcorn. The liquid hitting puffy corn bits makes a fizzing noise! Wheeeee!

# Sprinkle on sugar; that's a lot of lemon and we are not animals.

# Lemonade popcorn! So simple, only an idiot would fuck up any part of it. I am shamed.