Dining With The Doctor: The Unauthorized Whovian Cookbook (21 page)

2 cups/450 g unsalted butter, softened
1 cup/220 g firmly packed brown sugar
1 cup/100 g white sugar
2 large eggs
7 1/2 cups/1020 g flour
4 tsp/20 g baking powder
1 tsp/5 g salt
1/4 cup/60 ml milk
1 tbsp/15 ml vanilla extract
1/4 cup/60 g seedless raspberry jam, or seedless strawberry jam

Have you ever noticed how many episodes feature giant disembodied eyeballs? It makes me wonder about what kind of phobias lurk in the minds of the set designers

If you’re not in a mood to cook, use this episode as an excuse to deck out your table in play food. If, on the other hand, you bought this tome because you were looking for a cookbook instead of the world’s third geekiest set of decorating ideas, it’s time to sit back with some tea and biscuits (or, for the Americans, milk and cookies).

If there’s one thing people are reading for other than fish fingers and custard it has to be jammy dodgers. British readers can stop by the grocery store, but for the Americans, if they want The Doctor’s favorite cookie they’ll probably have to whip up a batch from scratch.

Start by beating your softened butter with an electric mixer until it’s nice and fluffy. Gradually add in the sugars, beating well between each addition. Or, realistically, just dump in all the sugar and keep blending for a long, long time. Once your butter and sugars are a deliciously sweet and fatty mass, add your eggs and just keep beating. Add the vanilla and milk, and once more keep beating until you have a smooth, fatty soup. In another bowl, mix your flour, baking powder, and salt. I bet you can guess what happens next. Gradually add the flour mix to the butter mix, beating enthusiastically all along the way, until the two become a single happy dough.

Divide the dough into four equal parts. Bundle up each ball of dough in plastic wrap and put it in a fridge for at least 3 hours, or overnight.

When your cookie dough is nice and chilly, mash your first lump between two pieces of parchment paper then get a rolling pin or your least favorite canned goods and roll the dough until it’s only ⅛ inch/ 0.4 centimeters thick. Cut it into circles using a two inch/5 centimeter round cutter. If you have a small heart shaped cutter, make a little hole in the middle of the cookies. If not, use whatever small circular object you have around your kitchen to cut a small hole in the middle of half the cookies.

Grease up a cookie sheet. Arrange the cookies at least two inches apart and bake them at 350F/180C for 8 - 10 minutes, or until they’re a pretty golden brown. Once you take them out of the oven, let the cookies cool completely. Spread the solid cookies with some seedless raspberry jam. Top them with the cutout cookies. Once they’re glued together, you can either eat them as they are or dust them with powdered sugar.

Since you’re reading a Doctor Who cookbook, you already know to serve the finished cookies in a red fez

Two Streams Garden Cocktail (S6E10 - The Girl Who Waited)

2 shots/90 ml pear vodka
2 tsp/10 ml simple syrup
1 tsp/5 ml fresh squeezed lime juice
1 fresh basil leaf, ripped
1 hibiscus flower
2 dashes orange bitters
soda water
1 firm, fresh pear

In honor of this tearjerker episode, I present an herbal cocktail made from things older Amy found in the Red Waterfall garden at the Two Streams facility.

Put your hibiscus flower at the bottom of a lowball glass. (You can find edible hibiscus flowers at health food stores, upscale groceries, some tea shops, and on Amazon.) Add just enough soda water to completely cover the flower. Meanwhile, add your pear vodka, fresh squeezed lime juice, simple syrup, ripped basil leaf, and orange bitters to a cocktail shaker full of ice. Pound it like you’re trying to beat down the walls of time.

Strain the contents of the shaker over your hibiscus flower. Cut a long stick of pear from one side of the fruit and use it as a swizzle stick. Garnish the glass with a curl of green peel cut from the other side of the pear.

Praise His Cheeseball (S6E11 - The God Complex)

10 oz/285 g cream cheese
3 tbsp/45 g sugar
zest of 1 large lemon
4 tsp/20 ml freshly squeezed lemon juice
8 graham crackers

Oh, Rory. You’re right. Every time The Doctor gets chummy with someone you really should notify their next of kin. Rita would’ve made a great companion. After all, she successfully guessed that The Doctor has experience as a professional cheesemaker.

A cheesy 80’s hotel would have a cheese and crackers tray sitting outside the restaurant as an enticement to lure diners in. You can whip up a spreadable cheese ball worthy of his praise in less than ten minutes, with no cooking.

Start by mixing the cream cheese and sugar until they’re a smooth, uniform paste. Next mix in the lemon juice and lemon zest. Give them an enthusiastic beating until the praising stops. Shape the whole thing into a ball, flatten it slightly on top, and wrap it in plastic wrap. Put it in the fridge for at least three hours, though overnight works just as well.

Before you take it out, put the graham crackers (I like using the cinnamon flavored ones, but you can pick whatever type you like) into a plastic bag and mercilessly beat them with your least favorite canned goods until you have a bag of coarse graham cracker crumbs.

Unwrap your cheese ball. Take a little care re-shaping it if necessary. Now roll it around in the graham crackers until it’s well coated. Finish it off by using a mix of cake decorating letters and a couple different colors of icing to write “Praise Him” on top. Refrigerate the whole thing until you’re ready to serve it.

Surround the cheese ball with graham crackers, vanilla wafers, and shortbread cookies.

Serve with strong milky tea, because, as Rita says, if you’re British, tea how you deal with trauma.

Stormageddon’s Cybermat (S6E12- Closing Time)

2 packages refrigerated crescent roll dough
8 tbsp/120 g Nutella
4 tsp/20 g cinnamon
4 tsp/20 g sugar
seedless raspberry jam
edible silver spray paint
1 pair of plastic vampire teeth
aluminum foil
black cake icing

Craig is back! And The Doctor is “here to help.” Stormageddon, dark lord of all, wants to put everything he sees in his mouth, including Bitey the Cybermat. In order to keep the Cybermat from eating his face, I’ve concocted a perfectly safe version that will taste great with all that milk the boys kept buying throughout the episode.

Mix your cinnamon and sugar together in a small bowl. Now put your Nutella in the microwave and nuke it for 15-20 seconds to soften it up for easy spreading.

You’ll make your Cybermat in two main parts - the body and the head.

For the body, simply spread a tablespoon of Nutella inside a crescent roll. Sprinkle it with a teaspoon of the cinnamon-sugar mix. Roll the back of the body into a long, tapered, Cybermat tail. To make the head, once more spread a triangle of dough with Nutella and sprinkle it with a teaspoon of cinnamon sugar. Mash up a piece of aluminum foil about the same size as your plastic teeth. Carefully wrap the second crescent around the teeth, leaving the mouth open, in order to form the big, rounded head. Tuck the tail in the back of the head and pinch the dough together.

You should end up with 8 Cybermats. Grease up a cookie sheet and bake the crescents according to their package directions. When they come out, coat the Cybermats with your edible silver spray paint. Work fast, because you want to remove the aluminum foil plug and replace it with the plastic vampire teeth while the dough is still warm and malleable.

Once the teeth are in place, touch up the edible silver spray paint, then let the Cybermats cool. When they’re room temperature, put a few tablespoons of seedless red raspberry jelly in a microwave for a few seconds to soften it. Use a paintbrush, pastry brush, or your very careful fingers to paint on three red stripes along each side of the tail to symbolize the glowing red interior we could see when the Cybermat moved. Use icing to paint a big, black eye on either side of the head, taking care to give it the characteristic Cyberman eye teardrop.

These are best served ominously peering at the world from inside a dollar store cowboy hat.

Texting and Scones (S6E13 - The Wedding of River Song)

Orange Blueberry Scones:
2 cups/260 g fresh blueberries
2 cups/276 g flour, plus more for rolling berries
1 tbsp/15 g baking powder
1 tsp/5 g salt
1/3 cup/67 g sugar
1/4 cup/58 g unsalted butter
3/4 cup/178 ml heavy cream
1 egg
Orange Glaze:
2 tbsp/30 g unsalted butter
2 cups/180 g powdered sugar, sifted
2 oranges, juiced and zested

I keep trying to write a recipe with the Silents, but every time I look away from my computer I forget all the ingredients. Instead, I consent and gladly give you this recipe for orange blueberry scones. they’re full of Tardissy colors to keep your taste buds interested while you nervously text your date.

Preheat oven to 400F/205C.

In one bowl, mix your flour, baking powder, salt, and sugar until they’re well blended. Cut your butter into cubes and crumble it into the dry mix until you have something that looks like buttery crumbs.

If you’re a good person, you’ll whisk your heavy cream and egg together in another bowl before dumping them into the flour mixture Realistically, we know you’re not going to do that. Try to mix everything in pretty well, but don’t go crazy with it. If you overwork the dough, you’ll end up with a tough, rubbery, uncooperative final product.

In yet another bowl, roll your blueberries around in flour. The flour should hopefully keep your berries from all sinking straight to the bottom of the scone while baking. If you’re using fresh blueberries, they might not stick as well. If you’re using frozen, make sure to drain them thoroughly in a colander before adding them to the flour. The flour will stick better, but the berries will be a lot more fragile.

Once your berries are floured, gently fold them into the scone dough. Try not to bruise them too much.

Get a baking sheet nice and greasy. Go ahead and grease up your hands with a little extra butter. Now scoop out a couple tablespoons of dough and shape it into a rough triangle before putting it on the sheet. Try to arrange your scones at least a couple inches apart. Bake the scones for 15 to 20 minutes, or until they turn a nice golden brown. You’ll want to shove one right in your mouth, but they’re best off if you let them cool before dousing them in tasty orange glaze.

The orange glaze is pretty quick and easy to make. Some people use a double boiler, but honestly, I just throw the butter, sugar, and orange juice into a microwave safe bowl. Cook for 30 seconds, stir heartily, cook another 30 seconds, and stir again. Keep it up until the butter and sugar are melted together and the mix has thickened up into a syruppy goodness. When your glaze is ready, stir in the orange zest.

Generously douse the scones with glaze. Now once more, leave them alone. Walk away while they harden. In an hour, they’ll be as firm as your resolve. If you’ve been looking for just the right way to ask a Whovian out on a date, hand them one of these and ask if they’re interested in texting and scones. If they don’t get the reference, keep looking. If they do, you’re about to have a very good night.

Wartime Christmas Fruit Cake (S6E14 - The Doctor, The Widow and the Wardrobe)

1 ¼ cups/170 g flour
3 tsp/15 g of baking powder
1 tsp/5 g baking soda
1/2 tsp/2.5 g allspice
½ tsp/2.5 g cinnamon
pinch salt
1 cup/240 ml very strong tea
6 tbsp/90 g margarine or butter
6 tbsp/90 g sugar
6 tbsp/90 g dried fruit

This is the sort of Christmas cake a good British mom like Madge would’ve made her family during the war. Due to rationing, it was made without eggs. You can add one now to act as an extra bit of food glue, or you can make it as-is and surprise your vegan friends with a dessert they can actually eat.

As an added bonus, if you bake it in a couple of large, round cans instead of in a loaf pan you even get some nice, alien tree shaped heads which are easy enough to sculpt into the face of a tree king and queen when you’re finished.

Put a kettle on. You’re going to want half a pint (1 cup, for Americans) of good, strong, black tea. Have a cup of tea for yourself and pour another one in a sauce pan. Add the sugar, margarine (butter was rare and expensive during the war) and dried fruit of your choice to the pot. Simmer it all together for about 3 minutes, or until the sugar is completely melted.