ARCTIC SAUSAGE ROLL
The past, eh? What a load of shit. Everyone had diseases, died at the age of 14 after having to work in a factory from birth, and the only stuff to eat was bits of cold wood. Then things got better, but there was an inbetween period that we now refer to as 'the 1970s'. This was when folk had stopped living in potholes and probably didn't have rickets, but the food was still awful and your dog was probably still a racist (note: that was a high-concept white dog poo joke).
One of the foods that was popular in these dark times (literally: the lightbulb was only invented in about 1982) was arctic roll - a limp cake wrapped round a shaft of vanilla ice cream, usually with a light smearing of jam 'twixt the sponge and a lump of Walls' finest. Clearly, it was awful. With the appearance of some sort of dessert-based cross-section of a clogged artery, you either had to eat it so cold that the cake was hard and got wet as it defrosted, or so warm the ice cream melted - also making the cake wet. It was as stupid a concept as a tapwater sandwich.
Sausage rolls, however, are obviously great. It's a sausage, which is fabulous, with the added bonus of pastry (also fabulous). It's like a cat wearing a small bowler hat and a bow tie - what's not to like?
So here's the convoluted challenge I've set myself this week: like foxes and arctic foxes, terns and arctic terns and, er, The Monkees and The Arctic Monkeys, can I make an arctic version of an excellent thing and make that excellent too - and more excellent than the original thing it's based on? And can I avoid using the word excellent again while doing so? Let's find out, in frankly excellent (bugger) detail.
Much like Glastonbury, this week's recipe has many stages with an awful lot of unpleasant gunge and swearing going on between them. So if you want to make this icy treat, you'll need to hunter gather this little lot:
* 110 g of self-raising flour
* 110 g of caster sugar
* 4 large eggs
* a cooked sausage of your choice (I went for a hot dog)
* A jar of chilli relish or, if you're really perverse, strawberry jam
* 300 ml of double cream
* 300 ml milk (full fat works best, so if you've only got skimmed why not stir in a spoonful of cheese?)
* 3 egg yolks
* half a packet of lardons
You'll also need about the length of an adult golden retriever (nose to tail) of greaseproof paper, and an ice-cream maker. Or failing that a really, really cold bin.
DAY 1 OF 2
Before we start, be aware you'll need a couple of days for this recipe. Or in my case even longer for reasons that will become obvious as we go on (spoiler: I ballsed something up real bad).
First, let's make our bacon ice cream. I think this is a bit of a deviation from the original (admittedly I don't remember much about the 1970s, but I'm reasonably sure the ice cream didn't taste of pigs), but as I found a recipe for bacon ice cream I thought it'd go quite well in the circumstances. Or, rather, it couldn't possibly be much worse.
You'll need to fry your lardons until golden brown. Or, if you're a north American and therefore used to the bits of meaty card that pass for bacon over there, golden burnt.
Once done, leave them to cool and bung your cream, milk and egg yolks into a bowl and mix. Then, read the recipe you're following again more closely and pour all that into a saucepan, because you didn't realise you had to flippin' cook the stuff as well. Bring it to a gentle simmer for 10 mins or so and then put in your lardons.
Leave that to cool, then pour it into a bowl and put some cling film on top - as in literally on top of the surface of the liquid. This stops a well manky skin forming - and as there's bacon in there, technically it'd be pig skin. Mmmm. Anyway, this lot then goes in the fridge overnight to 'infuse'. Or as non-chefs would say, 'soak up the meat stink'.
DAY 2 Of 2
First job today is to make the sponge. This is a Genoese sponge, which means it (a) doesn't have any margarine in it and (b) you have to whisk the bejesus out of it to make it light and airy.
Put your eggs and sugar in a bowl and beat it senseless until it's pale, thick and puffed up like a fat old male Tory MP from a safe seat (little bit of 'sticking it to the man' there - don't tell me I'm not a socially responsible blogger). Then, the recipe I based this on said to sieve the flour in slowly and fold it in. But I've got a handy shortcut here - it's called 'sod that, I'm dumping the flour in straight from the bag'. The folding bit is important though, as that helps keep the air in. Specifically, the piffling amount of air that's left after you knocked the rest out being lazy with the flour. Yes I know I told you to do it, but if I told you to drink straight from the kettle when it boiled would you do that? Honestly, have some self responsibility.
Also, you should use a metal spoon for the folding. I don't know why - for all I know it could be a ruse from a spoon manufacturer wanting to sell a diverse range of goods. Everyone does it though, so who am I to argue? (Note to self: remember to buy shares in a spoon factory.)
Once mixed, pour it into a square sponge tin lined with some of the greaseproof paper. Ideally with a removable bottom (the tin, not you), as that will make life much easier later. Shove this into the oven for about 15 mins at gas mark 5, and you'll get this:
Unfortunately, it transpires you don't actually want 'this'. Remember earlier when I said I'd messed up? Well, when I tried to move the allegedly cooked cake to a rack to cool, this happened:
Turns out that mediocre Richard Herring lookalike and occasional celebrity chef James Martin, whose recipe I was following (sorry, bastardising), neglected to mention that he must have been working in dog minutes or something: 15 minutes was obviously nowhere near enough. And, as the shops had shut and I was out of eggs (this was a Sunday), it was on to the somewhat unexpected next day.
DAY 3 OF 2
Assuming I could get the cake to work this time (or at the very least, not be 50% liquid), I made my ice cream first. Grab your bacon-infused custard out of the fridge and splurge it into your ice cream maker. Next, pour it out of your ice cream maker while swearing profusely because you forgot to strain the bacon bits out and you've just clogged the bloody thing up so it won't work.
Put it back in the ice cream maker, and get that going. In the meantime, make up another cake mix (I won't do all the pictures again, you'll be delighted to hear), put it in to cook for 25 minutes and, lo and behold, you'll get a finished sponge this time! Get it out of its tin, pop it on a bit of greaseproof paper a bit bigger than your cake, and leave it to cool. Now we need to start putting things together.
Once your sponge is a bit less hot, grab a spoon, and smear on your 'jam'. I decided to use habanero chilli relish because after a year and a bit of doing this stupid lark, why the hell not? You could use strawberry jam though - or ketchup, which I've annoyingly only just thought of given it would have been loads cheaper than the upmarket chilli goop I bought. Arses.
Now, the tricky bit. Get your ice cream out of the ice cream maker or freezer and smoosh it round your sausage. This might need to be done really fast if your ice cream is a bit runny, or it might take sodding ages if your ice cream has set like concrete as mine annoyingly had.
In fact, it was so hard I could only scrape little bits off at a time and in the end resorted to trying to thaw it with a hairdryer. This did work, but an unexpected side effect was that it blew the tiny bits of ice cream I had managed to scrape off into the air, thus making a small bacon-flavoured snow flurry in my kitchen. It was like the start of a live action version of Frozen, albeit one sponsored by an artisan butchers.
Anyway, eventually you'll get a right mess like this:
Once your creamed sausage is in place on your cake, roll it all up using your greaseproof paper to help, and then shove the whole lot in the freezer for 30 mins or so to firm up. In my case, followed by another 30 mins because you'd accidentally not shut the door properly (as you've probably guessed by now, this really wasn't my day).
Get your roll out of the fridge and peel it out of its greaseproof shroud. Admittedly it looks a bit more like a fold than a roll, but maybe we can compromise. Arctic fol-de-rol? Arctic calzone? Anyway, all that remains is the slicing and, oh joy, the eating. Blergh.
It looks a bit better (or at least less worse) inside than the outside, but of course the proof of the pudding is in the eating. And here, what we're obviously proving is that I'm an idiot.
Hokay, this was a taste experience in much the same way accidentally swallowing a live bee probably is - exciting, but for all the wrong reasons. The ice cream was VERY bacony. In fact, it made the whole thing taste of Frazzles - so much so, I could hardly taste the hot dog at all. Which may have been a good thing, if I'm honest. The sponge was nice, but it was also a sweet sponge next to a load of meat flavoured stuff so good = bad on this occasion. The spicy jam was actually a saving grace - it was hot enough to take my mind off of the rest of it, right up to the point about 10 minutes later when I was treated to a fabulous bout of fiery indigestion. Whee.
All in all, it seems bacon ice cream might not be the best idea in the world. Which is ironic as I'm pretty sure I remember a science teacher at school telling us that Mr Softee-type ice cream is 97% pig fat. Then again, that same teacher had a blackboard rubber called chalky that he used to throw at unruly pupils, so in hindsight he probably wasn't the most reliable source of knowledge when it came to scaring kids off of something they like eating out of spite.
So is this a childhood classic reborn? Probably not, but in a retro kinda way it's certainly 'just like mother used to make'. Assuming your mother literally and figuratively hated your guts, anyway.
One of the foods that was popular in these dark times (literally: the lightbulb was only invented in about 1982) was arctic roll - a limp cake wrapped round a shaft of vanilla ice cream, usually with a light smearing of jam 'twixt the sponge and a lump of Walls' finest. Clearly, it was awful. With the appearance of some sort of dessert-based cross-section of a clogged artery, you either had to eat it so cold that the cake was hard and got wet as it defrosted, or so warm the ice cream melted - also making the cake wet. It was as stupid a concept as a tapwater sandwich.
Sausage rolls, however, are obviously great. It's a sausage, which is fabulous, with the added bonus of pastry (also fabulous). It's like a cat wearing a small bowler hat and a bow tie - what's not to like?
So here's the convoluted challenge I've set myself this week: like foxes and arctic foxes, terns and arctic terns and, er, The Monkees and The Arctic Monkeys, can I make an arctic version of an excellent thing and make that excellent too - and more excellent than the original thing it's based on? And can I avoid using the word excellent again while doing so? Let's find out, in frankly excellent (bugger) detail.
Ingredients:
Much like Glastonbury, this week's recipe has many stages with an awful lot of unpleasant gunge and swearing going on between them. So if you want to make this icy treat, you'll need to hunter gather this little lot:
* 110 g of self-raising flour
* 110 g of caster sugar
* 4 large eggs
* a cooked sausage of your choice (I went for a hot dog)
* A jar of chilli relish or, if you're really perverse, strawberry jam
* 300 ml of double cream
* 300 ml milk (full fat works best, so if you've only got skimmed why not stir in a spoonful of cheese?)
* 3 egg yolks
* half a packet of lardons
You'll also need about the length of an adult golden retriever (nose to tail) of greaseproof paper, and an ice-cream maker. Or failing that a really, really cold bin.
Method:
DAY 1 OF 2
Before we start, be aware you'll need a couple of days for this recipe. Or in my case even longer for reasons that will become obvious as we go on (spoiler: I ballsed something up real bad).
First, let's make our bacon ice cream. I think this is a bit of a deviation from the original (admittedly I don't remember much about the 1970s, but I'm reasonably sure the ice cream didn't taste of pigs), but as I found a recipe for bacon ice cream I thought it'd go quite well in the circumstances. Or, rather, it couldn't possibly be much worse.
You'll need to fry your lardons until golden brown. Or, if you're a north American and therefore used to the bits of meaty card that pass for bacon over there, golden burnt.
 |
| Yes, I've still got that rubbish cooker. But if you think that's bad, the bloody kitchen ceiling started leaking in the crappy weather we had the other week and now has brown stains all over the place as if I've been throwing used teabags at it. |
Once done, leave them to cool and bung your cream, milk and egg yolks into a bowl and mix. Then, read the recipe you're following again more closely and pour all that into a saucepan, because you didn't realise you had to flippin' cook the stuff as well. Bring it to a gentle simmer for 10 mins or so and then put in your lardons.
 |
| Funnily enough, Birds don't do instant bacon custard so you'll have to make your own. Can't think why. |
Leave that to cool, then pour it into a bowl and put some cling film on top - as in literally on top of the surface of the liquid. This stops a well manky skin forming - and as there's bacon in there, technically it'd be pig skin. Mmmm. Anyway, this lot then goes in the fridge overnight to 'infuse'. Or as non-chefs would say, 'soak up the meat stink'.
DAY 2 Of 2
First job today is to make the sponge. This is a Genoese sponge, which means it (a) doesn't have any margarine in it and (b) you have to whisk the bejesus out of it to make it light and airy.
 |
| I started with a hand whisk, but after half an hour of sodall happening packed it in and got the electric one out. So my tip here (other than not doing this at all, of course) is skip straight to the kitchen gadgets, unless you're after some sort of asymmetric upper body workout that'd make you look like half a Popeye. |
Put your eggs and sugar in a bowl and beat it senseless until it's pale, thick and puffed up like a fat old male Tory MP from a safe seat (little bit of 'sticking it to the man' there - don't tell me I'm not a socially responsible blogger). Then, the recipe I based this on said to sieve the flour in slowly and fold it in. But I've got a handy shortcut here - it's called 'sod that, I'm dumping the flour in straight from the bag'. The folding bit is important though, as that helps keep the air in. Specifically, the piffling amount of air that's left after you knocked the rest out being lazy with the flour. Yes I know I told you to do it, but if I told you to drink straight from the kettle when it boiled would you do that? Honestly, have some self responsibility.
Also, you should use a metal spoon for the folding. I don't know why - for all I know it could be a ruse from a spoon manufacturer wanting to sell a diverse range of goods. Everyone does it though, so who am I to argue? (Note to self: remember to buy shares in a spoon factory.)
 |
| More folded than when they had a massive sheet of paper on 'Record Breakers' that they tried to break the world record for most folds with. Or was it Blue Peter? Anyway: folded. |
Once mixed, pour it into a square sponge tin lined with some of the greaseproof paper. Ideally with a removable bottom (the tin, not you), as that will make life much easier later. Shove this into the oven for about 15 mins at gas mark 5, and you'll get this:
 |
| Now come on. This looks pretty professional, doesn't it? Well brace yourself - that impression is going out the window in 3...2...1... |
Unfortunately, it transpires you don't actually want 'this'. Remember earlier when I said I'd messed up? Well, when I tried to move the allegedly cooked cake to a rack to cool, this happened:
 |
| ...FFFUUUUUUUUCK. |
Turns out that mediocre Richard Herring lookalike and occasional celebrity chef James Martin, whose recipe I was following (sorry, bastardising), neglected to mention that he must have been working in dog minutes or something: 15 minutes was obviously nowhere near enough. And, as the shops had shut and I was out of eggs (this was a Sunday), it was on to the somewhat unexpected next day.
DAY 3 OF 2
Assuming I could get the cake to work this time (or at the very least, not be 50% liquid), I made my ice cream first. Grab your bacon-infused custard out of the fridge and splurge it into your ice cream maker. Next, pour it out of your ice cream maker while swearing profusely because you forgot to strain the bacon bits out and you've just clogged the bloody thing up so it won't work.
 |
| Turns out this bit was important. Cock. |
Put it back in the ice cream maker, and get that going. In the meantime, make up another cake mix (I won't do all the pictures again, you'll be delighted to hear), put it in to cook for 25 minutes and, lo and behold, you'll get a finished sponge this time! Get it out of its tin, pop it on a bit of greaseproof paper a bit bigger than your cake, and leave it to cool. Now we need to start putting things together.
Once your sponge is a bit less hot, grab a spoon, and smear on your 'jam'. I decided to use habanero chilli relish because after a year and a bit of doing this stupid lark, why the hell not? You could use strawberry jam though - or ketchup, which I've annoyingly only just thought of given it would have been loads cheaper than the upmarket chilli goop I bought. Arses.
 |
| Don't worry, the sponge is just really pale - I'm not actually smearing it onto a faded antique map. |
Now, the tricky bit. Get your ice cream out of the ice cream maker or freezer and smoosh it round your sausage. This might need to be done really fast if your ice cream is a bit runny, or it might take sodding ages if your ice cream has set like concrete as mine annoyingly had.
In fact, it was so hard I could only scrape little bits off at a time and in the end resorted to trying to thaw it with a hairdryer. This did work, but an unexpected side effect was that it blew the tiny bits of ice cream I had managed to scrape off into the air, thus making a small bacon-flavoured snow flurry in my kitchen. It was like the start of a live action version of Frozen, albeit one sponsored by an artisan butchers.
Anyway, eventually you'll get a right mess like this:
 |
| There's a sausage in there somewhere, honest. |
Once your creamed sausage is in place on your cake, roll it all up using your greaseproof paper to help, and then shove the whole lot in the freezer for 30 mins or so to firm up. In my case, followed by another 30 mins because you'd accidentally not shut the door properly (as you've probably guessed by now, this really wasn't my day).
Results:
 |
| OK, I admit there are a few cracks and fissures here and there. And there. And there. Oh, and indeed there as well. |
Get your roll out of the fridge and peel it out of its greaseproof shroud. Admittedly it looks a bit more like a fold than a roll, but maybe we can compromise. Arctic fol-de-rol? Arctic calzone? Anyway, all that remains is the slicing and, oh joy, the eating. Blergh.
 |
| I'm not looking - is it still staring at me? |
It looks a bit better (or at least less worse) inside than the outside, but of course the proof of the pudding is in the eating. And here, what we're obviously proving is that I'm an idiot.
 |
| I see the Eye of Sauron has got conjunctivitis again... |
Hokay, this was a taste experience in much the same way accidentally swallowing a live bee probably is - exciting, but for all the wrong reasons. The ice cream was VERY bacony. In fact, it made the whole thing taste of Frazzles - so much so, I could hardly taste the hot dog at all. Which may have been a good thing, if I'm honest. The sponge was nice, but it was also a sweet sponge next to a load of meat flavoured stuff so good = bad on this occasion. The spicy jam was actually a saving grace - it was hot enough to take my mind off of the rest of it, right up to the point about 10 minutes later when I was treated to a fabulous bout of fiery indigestion. Whee.
All in all, it seems bacon ice cream might not be the best idea in the world. Which is ironic as I'm pretty sure I remember a science teacher at school telling us that Mr Softee-type ice cream is 97% pig fat. Then again, that same teacher had a blackboard rubber called chalky that he used to throw at unruly pupils, so in hindsight he probably wasn't the most reliable source of knowledge when it came to scaring kids off of something they like eating out of spite.
So is this a childhood classic reborn? Probably not, but in a retro kinda way it's certainly 'just like mother used to make'. Assuming your mother literally and figuratively hated your guts, anyway.
Next time: CHEESE TRIFLE
PS with thanks to Mr Biffo in the guise of MemoryAssistant, who sort of came up with this idea, only with an egg in the middle. Which I'm pleased I didn't attempt if only because smearing an egg in ice cream would have been even more horrible.
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