Hokey Pokey (honeycomb or Cinder toffee )

Ingredients:

500g granulated sugar

250g golden syrup

100ml water

2 teaspoons bicarb

Method:

Put the sugar, syrup and water into a large pan (it needs to be large for the later stage).

Melt on a medium heat, stirring occasionally. Once the sugar has all melted and turned a caramel colour, stop stirring.

Boil the sugar until it reaches 150 degrees (hard crack) on a thermometer. If you don't have a thermometer drop a little of the sugar into some water, it should set instantly.

Turn off the heat and add the bicarb. Whisk to mix the bicarb well (it will dramatically volcano and increase in size) and then pour into a lined baking tray with high sides.

Leave to set for about an hour, before breaking into bite-sized chunks.

Taken from my Eat like a Halfling! Cookbook. Available on Amazon now

Pumpkin Pie

Ingredients:

• 150g plain flour (sifted)

• 75g unsalted butter (cut into cubes)

• Water

• 300g pumpkin

• 90g dark brown sugar

• 1/4 can coconut cream

• 1 egg (whisked)

• 1/2 tsp cinnamon

• 1/2 tsp mixed spice

• 1/2 tsp ginger

• 1/4 tsp nutmeg

• Pinch of white pepper

• 1/2 tbsp cornflour

To serve;

Icing sugar

Method:

Add the butter to the flour and rub it between your fingers and into the flour. Keep rubbing until the mix resembles breadcrumbs.

Add a small drop of water and mix together. Keep adding a little water at a time, until the mixture comes together to form a stiff dough and leaves the bowl mostly clean.

On a lightly floured surface, roll the pastry out as thin as possible - 1 or 2 mm is best. Grease a tart tin and use the pastry to line the tin.

Blind bake (line the tin with greaseproof paper and baking beans) for 10 minutes at 180 degrees, remove the beans and cook for a further 10 minutes at 160 degrees.

Remove from the oven and leave to cool for 5- 10 minutes, while you prepare the filling.

Peel, de-seed and dice the pumpkin. Add it to a pan, cover with water and boil until soft (approx 10-15 minutes). Drain and mash.

Whisk in the rest of the ingredients.

Pour the pumpkin filling into your precooked pastry base and cook in the centre of a pre-heated oven at 220 degrees Celsius for 10 minutes, reduce the temperature to 180 degrees and cook for a further 10 minutes.

Leave to cool, and serve dusted with a little icing sugar.

Rosemary & Bay Beer

Before hops were common in beer brewing, herbs such as rosemary and nettles would have been used.

If you substitute the rosemary and bay for 35g of dried hops you can also make a simple hop beer.

For more authentic brewing, leave out the sugar, as this would not have been available. You could add honey instead, but this will be more like a braggot.

Without sugar the beer will be a lot weaker, maybe 1 or 2 percent, and so will not keep for long. This would have been made frequently and drunk within a few days at most.

Ingredients:

• 5 rosemary sprigs

• 10 bay leaves

• 500g amber malt extract

• 375g sugar

• 12 pints of water

• Beer yeast (or Young’s super wine yeast extract)

Method:

Put the rosemary and bay leaves into a large pan and cover with 6 pints of water, boil for 30 minutes.

Meanwhile put your sugar and malt extract into a fermentation bin. Strain the rosemary and bay water through a muslin cloth into the fermentation bin.

Stir well to dissolve all the sugar and malt extract.

Pour in 6 pints of cold water and stir. Make a note of the gravity, it should be around 1040.

Add your yeast and leave to ferment for 3 weeks. Whilst a lot of recipes state much shorter times I find the beer benefits from this extended time.

Don’t forget to check your final gravity, if you haven’t already and want to know the percentage of alcohol in your brew.

Add a level teaspoon of sugar to each beer bottle and siphon the beer into the bottles. Cap the bottles (or use swing tops) and place somewhere warm for 2 days before moving to somewhere cool.

The beer should be ready to drink in 2 weeks, 3 is better.

Elderberry & Blackberry Wine

This recipe is great if you heat, but not boil, a bottle, with a jar of honey, a few cloves, some grated nutmeg, ¼ pint of water and the juice and rind of a lemon. Add half a small bottle of brandy before serving. Drink whilst still warm.

We drink this every Christmas when family visit and we always run out!

You can also make this one with just elderberries or just blackberries.

Ingredients:

800g elderberries

800g Blackberries

4.5l water (boiled)

1.5 kg granulated sugar

1 tsp pectic enzyme

1 tsp of red wine yeast

1 tsp yeast nutrient

1 campden tablet (optional)

1 teaspoon fermentation stopper (optional)

1 teaspoon Bentonite (optional)

Method:

Put all the berries into a large bucket and crush with a rolling pin. Add the sugar, and the pectic enzyme, and cover with 4.5l boiled water. Stir well.

Once cool, make a note of your gravity.

Add your yeast and nutrient and cover loosely for 1 week before straining into a demijohn with an airlock.

When fermentation ends (once bubbles pass through the airlock at less than one a minute) add a crushed campden tablet and fermentation stopper, if using, as per the instructions on the packet.

Nows the time to check your final gravity, if you haven’t already, and want to know the percentage of alcohol in your brew.

After 3 days clear the wine by adding bentonite, if using, as per the instructions on the packet. Alternatively you can wait until it clears naturally.

Finally, syphon the wine into bottles and cork.

Age for a minimum of 3 months before drinking, but a year is better

Thors wedding

Thor’s hammer was lost. Well, when I say lost, I mean Loki had ‘misplaced’ it - with a giant.

In order to get it back, Loki promised the giant Thrym that he would give him the beautiful Freya’s hand in marriage.

‘She’ll never agree to that’ said Thor, as Loki explained his plan.

‘She won’t need to’ replied Loki ‘put on this dress….and this lipstick’

And that’s how Thor ends up married to Thrym, spending the reception of the wedding eating all the food and drinking all the mead. I’d like to say they lived happily ever after, but, well, there was still the issue of Thor’s ‘misplaced’ hammer.

Thrym was looking concerned. ‘Freya really does eat and drink a lot!’

‘It’s fine’ said Loki. Freya has been sooo sick with nerves over marrying you, she hasn’t eaten all week!’

‘Of course!’ Said Thrym ‘That makes sense. I am rather handsome. Are her eyes usually that red?’

Er...no It’s just, well. Erm…. she hasn’t been able to sleep with all the preparations for the wedding.

Ah yes, of course!

Listen Thrym, I can call you Thrym, can’t I? We are friends after all? What Freja really wants to see - as YOUR wife, is something really special. Maybe a rarity, a jewel, a certain ...mjolnir?’

‘Well, of course. Anything for my darling’ said Thrym.

And this is how Thor got within range of his hammer. And that's all he needed. Swiftly he drew the mighty mjolnir upwards, striking Thrym cleanly on the chin. Before bringing it down, crushing his skull.

He looked around the room at the Wedding guests and grinned. ‘who’s next?’

Apple & Mead cake

Ingredients:

• 150g Butter

• 150g honey

• 2 eggs

• 225g plain flour (sifted)

• 1 level tsp baking powder (sifted)

• ½ tsp salt

• 70 ml mead

• ½ a dessert apple, sliced into thin wedges

• 1 ½ tsp of demerara sugar

• ½ tsp of cinnamon

Method:

Preheat the oven to 170 degrees Celsius.

Beat the butter, honey & eggs together in a bowl. Add the flour, baking powder, salt & mead. Mix well.

Spoon into a 7½ inch round cake tin and arrange the apple slices in a circle on top of the cake. Mix the sugar and cinnamon and sprinkle over the top of the cake mix.

Cook for 40 - 45 minutes in the centre of the oven. Cover with greaseproof paper if it starts to brown too quickly.

Drizzle with a little honey and leave to cool for 15 minutes before slicing. The cake will continue to cook during this time.

Sourdough starter

A sourdough starter is a simple way of making bread without using shop bought yeast, instead you rely on naturally occurring yeasts.

This is great for making Rye bread and Sourdough. It gives an amazing flavour to the bread.

You can use any flour to make your starter.

One way to get a starter is to acquire a bit from somebody you know that already has some and just maintain the feeding cycle. Its easy to make your own starter, using naturally occurring yeast from the air in your Kitchen. You will need a large container, I use a container designed for holding a bag of flour, but have also used large kilner jars.

You will also need flour and warm water. I don’t tend to measure what I add but you are looking for a thick batter, so around 50/50 works well. Give it a good whisk, cover loosely and set it aside – Don’t forget it is going to be fermenting so don’t clip your lid on.

After a couple of days you should see signs of fermentation, tiny bubbles, like the image at the top of the page. If you smell it, it should be taking on a sharp, almost vinegary smell.

Add some more flour and water, whisk and set it aside again. Remember that your starter is now a living thing, so, like you, it needs feeding and watering regularly, I do it every couple of days.

You can remove some of your starter, as you wish, which makes a great opportunity to bake some bread with it! Wait a week to 10 days for the starter to establish properly before trying to bake with it. If you are unable to feed your starter for a period of time, stick it in the fridge. It should keep without being fed for about a week.

Taken from my book ‘Eat like a Viking!’ Available now on Amazon