Recipe - Whoopie Pies

As you may or may not be aware, my girlfriend just happens to have a food blog (www.shecookssheeats.co.uk). This of course means not only do I get to eat lots fantastic food, but it's usually all cooked for me too. What people don't know is I'm not actually that bad in the kitchen myself. Not only am I a washer upper extraordinaire and an excellent coffee & tea boy but I can cook and, dare I say it, even bake.

I've been baking this week and it turned out so well I thought I'd share a recipe with you all for the best Whoopie Pies you're ever likely to try. It's based on a Simon Rimmer recipe but I've adapted it slightly to make it even more tasty.

Ingredients

125g butter
150g Chocolate, at least 70% cocoa solids (recommend Green & Blacks)
225g sugar
3 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
250g flour
30g cocoa powder
1/2 tsp baking powder

For buttercream icing

125g butter, softened
260g icing sugar
3-4 tbsp milk

First of all I'd recommend having three separate mixing bowls ready before you start or you'll end up running around and having to wash up whilst cooking. Once you're all prepared, preheat your oven to 180C and line a baking tray with greaseproof paper.

Break your chocolate into squares and place it in a bowl, along with your butter, over a pan of boiling water, making sure the base of the bowl doesn't touch the surface of the water.

 
While your chocolate and butter is melting whisk the sugar, eggs and vanilla extract in another bowl. Make sure you keep an eye on the chocolate so it doesn't burn.

Once your chocolate and butter are melted fold into the egg mix a little at a time.

With a sieve, sift together the flour, cocoa and baking powder and then fold this, again a little at a time, into the chocolate mixture. It should thicken quite quickly at this point so just keep folding until you have a sticky brown mix.

Using a tablespoon place the mixture onto your baking tray, making sure not to put them too close together or they will become one giant chocolate mess as they bake. Put them in the oven for 7-9 minutes depending on their size. At this point you may wish to take some time out to lick your bowl.

While your pies are in the oven prepare your buttercream by beating the remains of your stick of butter in a bowl with half of your icing sugar. I find using a large metal spoon works best as the mixture tends to stick to wood. Once your mixture starts to become smooth add the remaining icing sugar and your milk until you achieve your desired consistency.

 

Once your pies are cooked place them on a wire rack to cool before spreading them with the buttercream and sticking them together.

Once you've sandwiched them together you should end up with a whoopie pie that looks something like this.

This recipe should realistically make twelve or thirteen pies of a medium to large size, all you have to do is try not to eat them all yourself.

We Recommend The Young Apprentice - The Digital Fix - published 25/10/2011

If you missed the opening credits you could be forgiven the BBC were showing a Panorama special on upper middle class child exploitation, but in actual fact it's the the return of Young Apprentice, Lord Sugar's attempt to find an employee who'll work for less than minimum wage.


It's easy to see why the Junior version of the show isn't buried on the CBBC channel as the tasks are no easier just because the contestants are 16 and 17. In fact, aside from a few of the fresh-faced boys half of the candidates look and sound like they've visited Zoltar in an attempt to skip childhood and get ahead in business. 




The good news for hardcore apprentice fans is the kids are just as annoying as their counterparts from the main show. Scarily they are still so young — just imagine how much of a knob they’ll be in the future.


The teams, Kinetic and Atomic (no prizes for guessing which is the boys and which is the girls), set upon their first task of the series, making and selling ice-cream. In true Apprentice form we saw tantrums, arguments and cock-ups aplenty along the way. 


My theory is that the whole show tonight was all a big set up for when Lord Sugar quipped in the boardroom "Never mind Ben and Jerry, it's more like Tom and Jerry!". It's got everything, doesn't it — the ice cream reference, the dig at their childishness, teeth-grindingly awful wordplay...It could only have been more perfect if Nick had pulled a glacé cherry from his pocket and placed it gracefully on top of the joke, before dusting the whole thing with a generous sprinkle of hundreds and thousands.




Anyway. From what we saw of the potential apprentices tonight we should be in for an interesting and somewhat tempestuous few tasks. Of the candidates that stood out we have James, who is essentially Jim Jr., but instead of the gift of the gab he just spews a steady stream of crap, public school boys Harry H and Harry M who are so posh they'll probably end up firing Lord Sugar, Hayley who thinks she's bossy but I suspect we'll see in tears...a lot, super-bitch Gbemi who is going to step on everyone and enjoy it and Lewis the cheeky scouser. 


The rest of the job hunting gaggle were all fairly generic aside from good old Mahamed who, along with his bling, was fired tonight after practically flinging himself into traffic to sell ice cream like some sort of extrovert dairy pusher and then claiming he had thought of everything. At one point I was sure he was going to claim he invented ice cream itself. Mahamed does win the award for the most supervillain-like exit from a TV show ever, for vowing that Lord Sugar would one day regret firing him whilst being driven away in the back of a Bentley stroking a cat and cackling maniacally.






We definitely recommend tuning into this if you get the chance, we know it's reality TV but it's the Harrods of the reality TV world. Nobody has to sing, and watching young people get fired before they even have the job is at least topical, right?


You can catch up on the first episode of Young Apprentice on iPlayer here.

Top Ten TV Robots - The Digital Fix published 19/08/2011

As a young boy, there was very little that I thought was better than an awesome robot. And now I'm a grown man with a job and a car and serious commitments? Well...I still think there's little better than an awesome robot.

After some extensive research, I can confidently say that there are some pretty damn awesome robots on TV. Narrowing it down to ten was difficult — it involved many strenuous hours of watching TV. But I put in all this hard work so you don't have to. Your welcome.

10: Alpha 5 — Power RangersBet you didn’t see this one coming! Back in the 90’s Alpha 5 would spend his day’s in a blind robotic panic shouting “Aye-yi-yi-yi-yi” while a bunch of teenagers in crash helmets and lycra beat people up.

Alpha lives with his big headed boss (and possibly lover) Zordon in a command centre where he makes works as a technician and arms dealer for the power rangers. There’s a childlike innocence about Alpha and while he may not be the coolest TV robot ever he gets extra points for making C3P0 look butch. 



9: Sheriff Andy — A Town Called EurekaPossibly the most human-like robot on our list Andy is here because he’s just lovely. 

I couldn't decide which of the Eureka robots to put on this list. The one that flies around GD putting out cigarettes by squirting water on them almost won out, but in the end it had to be Andy. He's just such a nice guy. Robot. Machine. Thing. 

Loyal, hardworking, incredibly intelligent (he is a computer) and with a charming smile that makes my girlfriend's knees go weak, he's the kind of nice guy you'd want your sister to marry so you could have a sneaky pint with him whilst she goes shopping. But what makes Andy cool in my book though is the fact he is obviously a fan of the fuller figured woman, with his romantic interest being...a house. I kid you not.

8: Twiki — Buck Rogers in the 25th CenturyThink robot and you’ll no doubt think of Peter Crouch, think robot sounds and you’ll no doubt think ‘Bidi-Bidi-Bidi’ and that’s all thanks to Twiki. 

Twiki is cool on several levels firstly being voiced by Mel Blanc who is, of course, the voice behind so many classic cartoon characters. Second is the fact that Buck Rogers is heavily influenced by Star Wars and there are definitely some R2/3P0 parallels to be made between Twiki and his chest-hugging companion Dr. Theopolis.

The main reason Twiki makes the list though is because this pint-sized robot is a feisty little bugger. Classic quotes include “Eat lead, sucker!” and “You ever had TWO broken arms, buster?”

7: The Robot – Lost In SpaceWarning! Known formally as a (deep breath) ‘Class M-3 Model B9, General Utility Non-Theorising Environmental Control Robot’ we’ll call it ‘The Robot’ for short.

It has classic 1950’s B movie looks, a good old fashioned monotone voice to warn Will Robinson of danger and a plethora of good old-fashioned robo-skills which included scanners for sensing danger, robotic strength and an array of fantastic weaponry. Quite handily it could also produce exact duplicates of small objects, meaning you’d hardly ever have to pop out to the shop again. If that’s not enough for you it even plays the guitar! 

If only he’d been able to send email he could have saved the Robinisons so much trouble, and the world from the 1998 movie remake.


6: K9 — Doctor WhoMan's best friend is a dog. Geek's best friend is a robot. K9 is the perfect companion!

K-9 may not be cute and fluffy and he may prefer a nice game of chess to fetching a stick but he does have computer intelligence, the ability to speak, a laser in his nose and he’s very unlikely to be afraid of the vacuum cleaner (although he may try to hump it).



5: Optimus Prime — TransformersAs a child of the 80’s robots didn’t get much cooler than robots that could disguise themselves as everyday vehicles (if after that sentence Go-Bots popped into your mind please hang your head in shame and leave the room).

I’m of course talking about transformers and as we all know when it comes to Transformers Optimus Prime is the mac daddy. 

You might be fooled into thinking that Prime isn’t the best Transformer because he turns into a truck rather than a fighter jet, sports car or a massive 80’s boom box but you’d be wrong.

Prime is cool because he’s the ultimate good guy. He’s a pacifist at heart and is just striving for peace, kinda like a giant robotic Ghandi only not as shiny and with a sword and Ion blaster...


4: Lieutenant Commander Data — Star Trek: The Next GenerationWhat list of robots would be complete without your one of a kind sentient 24th century android with a desire to become more human. 

Data started his TV life with a straight-laced childlike naivety, by the time The Next Generation came to an end he had emotions, made bad jokes, experienced love and even sacrificed himself to save the crew.

Data is what most robots can only dream of becoming, well if robots could could dream. He’s played poker with Stephen Hawking, writes poetry, plays the violin and oboe, has a cat called spot and even has a fully functioning wang. 

3: Cameron - Terminator: The Sarah Connor ChroniclesHer Robo-skills include infiltrating the human race, killing and being irresistible. 

Do I really need to say anything more about this robot? You want one don’t you! 

Every geek wishes they had their very own robot and if you got to choose the design then there’s a very good chance said robot will look like Cameron. Obviously that’s just because she’d be slightly more discreet and easier to store than something that looked like Arnie you understand. Ahem.









2: Bender Bending Rodriguez - FuturamaBender is perhaps the most versatile robot on our list as his talents don’t stop at bending, oh no. He can be a water boiler, vacuum, projector, card shuffler, fridge, popcorn maker, flame thrower and yes even a toilet. 

Bender is the robot that would have Asimov turning in his grave. He’s thief, a liar and an insensitive, selfish, chain-smoking, gambling alcoholic. In fact he’s just about everything a robot shouldn’t be but he does it all with a ‘loveable rogue’ quality that prevents him from being a complete robo-shit. This is why Bender is one of the coolest robots not only on TV but of all time.



1: Kryten – Red DwarfNumber one TV robot of all time, as voted for by me without so much as consulting you because you’re bound to be wrong, is…… Kryten. 

Imagine C3P0 had grown a pair, but then that pair had shrunk slightly and Kryten is what you’re left with. He’s everything you could want from a robot – He’ll do your washing, hoover your house with his groin and cook dinner too. 

There’s no denying Kryten looks like an action figure that’s been chewed by a bulldog and then left on the rug after a six hour trip through it’s digestive system but that’s what every geek wants! What’s the point in having a robot that looks human? We want angles and a built in TV screen.

Kryten is defective, he’s bad tempered, neurotic and needy, but instead of giving him the Pinocchio complex some of our other robots suffer with this only serves to give him personality. 
Basically he’ll be your favourite gadget, your best friend and he’ll iron your underpants.

Superheroes of Suburbia review - The Digital Fix published 10/08/2011

Last Friday evening, I happened across one of the strangest bits of telly I’ve seen in a long time; a Channel 4 documentary called Superheroes of Suburbia. While I enjoy a good documentary as much as the next person, I do tend to shy away from the usual tat that’s on Channel 4, usually as it has a name like “The Boy With A Fish For A Penis” or “The World’s Fattest Leper”

As the title suggests, this documentary is about superheroes and therefore appealed to my inner geek. I felt compelled to watch out of intrigue. Up and coming director Christian Watt follows three individuals who don costumes and patrol the streets Kick Ass style. It sounds quite cool at first, but at times it bordered on disturbing. Here’s why.

Our first ‘superhero’ is Will, AKA 'The Dark Spartan' (pictured far right if you don’t know what a Spartan looks like), a 27-year-old father of two who aims to smash the drug syndicates in Torquay. At weekends he patrols his hometown of Torbay dressed as Spartan warrior, a costume made from police riot gear. 

We see Will out on patrol and attempting to talk to drunks. Can you imagine being slightly worse for wear and seeing this guy?! You’d either think you’d travelled back in time or your drink had been spiked. Unfortunately we don’t get to see The Dark Spartan in action because the police sort out any real trouble, while all the time ignoring our vigilante with the furry hemet. The riot gear and shield do get him noticed by the drunks, though, who are quite helpful in pointing out that being as he can’t legally use violence he’s actually powerless to do anything.

Will’s wife is worried about his safety and thinks (you think I’m gonna say he should stop being a dick right? nope) he should get backup. Ideally Will wants somebody with SAS training or a high ranking martial arts expert to be his partner in crime fighting, so he does what any good superhero would do and finds another local hero on Facebook. 

The prospective sidekick ‘Dark Void’ turns up for his interview and....... well just look!

From this point in I have no other choice but to refer to ‘Dark Void’ as Spider Gimp.

Spider Gimp, a comic book store employee, is asked if he has any martial arts skills. He promptly makes his way out into the garden to show of his skills twirling a weapon. When Will’s wife questions the legality of whacking someone with a stick, our colourful Gimp explains he actually needs the cane as a walking aid due to his IBS. Lets just hope he put a zip in the seam of that S&M ensemble.

Now we’re all getting the impression that these guys are just complete nutters. We may be right, but prepare to feel bad about it.

Since suffer a head injury 5 years ago, Will’s wife has been on a cocktail of drugs and unable to work. This means that as well as being the ultimate weekend warrior and holding down a job in finance, Will has to do pretty much everything at home. We also find out that all of this pressure has got to Will in the past causing him to have a breakdown and disappear..... 

Suddenly we go from thinking ‘what a twat’ to feeling bad that we’ve been mocking a guy with some serious mental health issues.

Hero number 2 is former soldier Ken, AKA ‘The Shadow’, who is just your average borderline psychotic Somerset ninja. Ken likes to dress as a ninja to fight crime because he believes the police are failing to do their jobs and he’s not afraid to do it for them. If necessary he’s prepared to use violence — oh, and did I mention Ken’s trained in martial arts and has a garage full of weaponry? 

Ken’s current mission is to rid one Yeovil car park of the boy racers there that disturb local residents. He stalks the gang for 5 weeks and plans his assault with military precision, albeit using chalk and an action figure, and then we’re ready to see him in action.

The Shadow turns up at the car park only to find it deserted — so, he does what any superhero/ninja would and hides in a bush, talking us through the fact that if necessary he is prepared to piss himself while he waits. Somehow, I can’t see a superhero movie where the protagonist has a Somerset accent and the distinct scent of a nursing home making it to the big screen anytime soon. I wonder if Alec Baldwin would be interested?

Anyway the boy racers don’t turn up and the camera crew inform Ken that they’re calling it a night. Ken agrees but vows he will return and vanquish the Yeovil yobs. He also offers to give us a demonstration of what he would have done.

He tosses a smoke grenade out of his bush and pounces out after it. Then he runs up to the van, which is providing the light for the nighttime shoot, and suggests they leave in a raised voice before running off. I’d genuinely hope that’s the worst he’d do, but it’s hard to believe it when the guy carries a fricking sword!

Once more we find out Ken has had issues ever since school, where he was put in a special needs class and bullied for having learning difficulties. Once he beefed up and learned to fight he responded with violence. Now he’s making up for it by fighting other peoples’ battles too, which leaves me with the feeling he may not have quite integrated back into civilian life.

Our final hero is 17 year old Kieran AKA ‘Noir’, the ginger kid with the conspicuous haircut. Kieran finds his first case in the local paper; he reads about a girl who’s been mugged and he sets out to track down the mugger. By sets out, of course, I mean he gets on his bicycle to look for clues in the local park.(The Dark Spartan, Noir and Spider Gimp waiting for the busmobile)

It’s at this point that my conscience interjects. I just can’t bring myself to sit and mock Kieran; he is just a kid with a disability. Kieran has Aspergers and is obsessed with comic books. In comic books he sees a simpler world it’s all black and white, right and wrong, good and evil. It’s just easier for him to understand. 

Kieran describes himself as shy and awkward, but says that his alter-ego Noir is strong and brave. It’s with this we begin to see why he has invented a character to become; it’s an understandable form of escapism.

As Noir he sets out to investigate the mugging by asking residents of his Yorkshire hometown questions, but his real self takes over. He has a panic attack and asks for filming to stop, before eventually plucking up the courage to ask an old lady and the local butcher. When they are unable to help, though, Noir becomes disheartened and turns into Kieran again; he contemplates hanging up his mask for good, saying he’s not cut out to be a superhero and is obviously just someone who should stick to reading comics in his room.

With what was most likely some production-team-influenced luck, Noir gets a lead on the mugging and is able to find out the identity of the girl who was mugged. Understandably, she is too traumatised/sane to meet with someone who claims to be a superhero. The show then takes an unexpected and heartwarming turn when Kieran writes to the girl reassuring her that the world is full of good people and saying “If you need any help or errands run, don’t hesitate to ask. After all, what kind of superhero would I be if I didn’t help?”

This show isn’t at all what I expected, I’m not even sure what I expected from this. Maybe something in between thinking “Wow, cool!” and ‘Ha! look at that weirdo”, but with the exception of Spider Gimp I was unable to do either. It plays much more like a Mockumentary as it fails to even scrape the surface of any of the real life moral or legal issues that are involved in being a real-life superhero, instead offering the viewer either caricatures or people in desperate need of professional help.

You can make up your own mind and check it out on 4OD now.

We Recommend Dragons' Den - The Digital Fix - published 01/08/2011

Dragons' Den has returned to our screens and this season it’s bought us a brand new dragon. Replacing James Caan (you know, the nice one who left the den after publicly trying to buy a baby off a flood victim and a row with fellow dragon Duncan Bannatyne over tax) is Hilary Devay and judging by her photo alone, boy does she look mean!



Doing a little bit of research you learn she’s a smart, strong independent business woman who, after being turned down for a bank loan in 1995, decided to sell her house and car in order to start up her business. Of course, this worked out for the best and is now a multi-million pound business empire. She’s no stranger to TV either — the eagle eyed among you may recognise her from Channel 4’s Secret Millionaire where she donated more than £250,000 to a music project.


What we’ve all been waiting too find out though is just how does Hilary stand up next to the other dragons?


When the first entrepreneur of the new series forgets how to talk about eight seconds into her pitch, new dragon Hilary offers some reassuring words and even some encouragement to carry on while the other dragons just sit and practice shooting a money fuelled combination of boredom and hated from their eyeballs.





Don’t be fooled into thinking she’s some kind of pussy cat thrown into the den, though; in this first episode alone she manages to prove that she’s as sharp edged as her Judge Dredd-esque shoulder pads. She asks smart, relevant and tech savvy questions, and if you don’t know the answer then our new dragon will eat you alive. Even Duncan Bannatyne started to back away and shrink into his chair while Hilary was ripping some ill prepared businessman a new one.


Other than Devay the series remains unchanged from eight previous seasons. To ensure nobody leaves untraumatised, Shrek-alike Evan Davis still lives under the stairs. Theo Paphitis and Peter Jones jostle for alpha male in a constant game of ‘mines bigger than yours’. Duncan Bannatyne manages to simultaneously radiate misery at every opportunity and have a constant look of ‘I used to be poor but now I’m not, so dance for me peasant’ Deborah Meaden continues to remind me of my old boss and quite frankly it scares the hell out of me.


Dragons' Den looks set to continue its winning formula this series with more of what we all know and love, and it’s good to see that the new dragon has a bite as bad her bark.