Fun With Dick And Shane - Cooking with the Houseboy...Gillibran Brown

 Okay, peeps, this is a bit of an experiment.

It seems that some of you are intrigued by some of the recipes I mention from time to time. It has been suggested that I share some of them or even compile a book. However, I am not a real chef and few of the recipes I cook are original to me, though I do improvise on the odd occasion. I scour cookbooks, magazines and the Internet in my quest to keep the household Gods fed and watered.

I’ll share some of the recipes here, as and when I can be arsed to put them up. If you have a favourite recipe that you wish to share then by all means email it to me and I’ll stick it on this page along with your name if you so wish (as and when etc,)

I'll start the ball rolling with a recipe for an almond cake. With it being so snowy here recently I haven't been able to get out and about much. It needs a snow plough just to clear a path to the outside bin. Thus I have had to find things to occupy me within the walls of the quasi mansion, things like cooking and baking. I came across this recipe while trawling the net looking for ways to use up the tins of bargain chestnut puree I bought (see December 1st 2010 entry) I leapt on it because I like almonds and I already had most of the ingredients to hand and the ones I didn't have I knew I could cadge from Eileen over the road. It turned out well, in fact it was yummy. It got a growl of approval from the resident Bears and I proudly added it to my list of recipes to use again. It's quite a rich, heavy cake, so you won't want to eat too much (I found three large slices at one sitting quite enough)

First of all you'll need to wash your hands because we don't want bogey flakes or stray pubes getting into the mix now do we. Secondly you need to choose what music you want to bake to. I found Paulo Nutini was good for this recipe, especially a song called 'Pencil Full of Lead' because it has a nice arse wiggling beat to it that is perfect for creaming to - and by that I mean butter and sugar, get your minds out of the guttter. I don't advise you to mimic Paulo's unique singing style as you cream, otherwise you'll end up doubled over and face down in the cake batter. Here we go then, one recipe for almond cake:

Ingredients:

THE CAKE
250g Self Raising Flour
125g Butter
200g caster sugar
2 Eggs
½ Juice of Lemon
3 Table spoons Ground Almonds
100ml Milk
1Teaspoon baking soda (houseboy improvisation - I had no baking soda and neither did Eileen so I didn't bother and left it out and it was fine)

THE ICING
140g Butter
270g Icing Sugar
1½Tblespoons Milk
1 Teaspoon Almond Essence (houseboy improvisation - I used vanilla extract instead cos I like it better and I added two teaspoons not one) 

FINISH
Some Almond Flakes

Method:

Cream together until fluffy the sugar and butter, beat the Eggs in the Milk with the Lemon Juice and add to the mix and beat in, it will be quite sloppy and sort of curdled looking, but don't panic like I did and think fuck it's a disaster, simply cast aside your wooden spoon and get out the electric mixer, it will blend much better. Mix the Ground Almond, Baking Soda and Flour then blend into the mix. Pour the blended mix equally into 2 lined and greased20cm baking tins. Bake at 180c for about 10 to 15 minutes. (This is complete bollocks, it took far longer, just whack the tins in the oven and keep checking on them) When cooked Leave to cool and turn out on a wire tray.

Beat all the icing ingredient together using half to sandwich the 2 cakes and then spread the rest on top. I also spread a lavish amount of orgasmic raspberry preserve on the cake before sandwiching with the icing mixture. Decorate with Almond Flakes or whatever you fancy, as long as it's edible.

Serve as a dessert or with coffee or tea and good company.

The Houseboy’s Favourite Sandwich Fillings (these fascinate Dick and totally disgust Shane)

Bloodied Fingers in White Bandages:

You HAVE to use white bread for these, it’s compulsory.
Two slices of white bread
Five or six fried fish fingers (or grilled, if you insist on being healthy)
Tomato Ketchup
Salt
Kitchen paper

Lightly butter both slices of bread and then carefully line up the fish fingers on one slice, sprinkle with salt and then slather generously with ketchup. Top with other slice of bread; place both hands on top and squash. Use kitchen paper to wipe up ensuing ‘blood’ spurt. Cut in half and enjoy.

Warning: serve with caution to lunch guests, as not everyone will share such refined tastes.

Banoffi Toast: makes an excellent supper snack

Two slices of wholemeal bread
One banana
One Mars Bar

Thinly slice the mars bar.
Lightly toast the bread and put the sliced up mars bar onto one slice and place under a hot grill until melted. Meanwhile mash the banana onto the other slice of toast and then place it (banana side down) onto the choccy toast. I further wind up Shane by drizzling golden syrup over the top of this before eating.

Cinnamon Toast: This is dead old fashioned, but nice. Eileen tipped me off to it. Dick quite likes this, but Shane won’t touch it with a barge pole, he's not one of life's sweet men. 

Toast your bread, white or brown as you prefer, and then generously butter it. Lavishly sprinkle a mixture of cinnamon powder and caste sugar onto the buttered toast and then slam it back under the grill until it bubbles.