Squid Ink Cupcakes and Squid Ink Grissini

                                     squid ink cupcake with fondant squid arm 

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During my absence I bet you have wondered "should I or shouldn't I bake squid ink cupcakes?"

Umm ok maybe not, but just in case next time you're savouring your squid ink risotto it crosses your mind "oh, black velvet cupcakes" you can scratch that idea out and have another glass of vino.

Guess I should mention the squid ink at this stage; squid ink is available in sachets, jars or by harvesting the ink sac from fresh squid. You can buy prepackaged squid ink from fish mongers, specialty food purveyors and online. Essential Ingredients online store has it if you are in Australia. Amazon has lots of different brands including Spanish Squid Ink Packets. Most of the prepackaged squid ink, such as the Spanish Cebesa brand I used have added salt so you will need to allow for that and reduce the salt in your recipes. 

Baking squid ink cupcakes; technically you can do it, but do you want to? 

I baked two batches of the squid ink cupcakes, batch one didn't rise, batch two with extra added baking powder had a better rise... but no doming. 

Flavour wise; in a rich dark chocolate batter no taste testers picked up any squid ink or fishy flavour at all. 

Five sachets of squid ink were needed to get a true black in a standard dozen chocolate cupcake batter. Overall, an expensive way to add colour. 

But you could make a fondant squid arm or eight. Roll a piece of fondant into a squid arm shape, then roll small balls of fondant. Using the end of a small paint brush press the balls in pairs along the squid arm to form tentacles, dampen the base of the balls with water if need be. I frilled the larger suction cups. Leave the arm/s to dry before adding markings with a food marker and colour as desired with food paint and dusts. 

                                   squid ink grissini

Baking squid ink bread dough; the addition of squid ink to your favourite dough recipe imparts a subtle seafood flavour and results in a stark black dough with no detriment to the finished bake.

Perfect for your pizza bases, loaves or grissini pictured today. Make sure you play with  the contrast of colour... a black pizza base with the white of buffalo mozzarella and roasted cherry tomatoes or perhaps open sandwiches of crab, mayo and micro greens on a slice of black sour dough. The grissini are fun as part of dressing your table and pair well with seafood pasta, antipasto, tapas, or just to nibble with drinks.

So grab your favourite bread dough recipe and make the following changes: 

• Omit the salt entirely. 
• Omit added parmasen, cheeses in recipes.
• Omit herbs, you want the squid flavour to stand alone. 
• For every three cups of flour in the recipe you will need approximately five of the 4gram squid ink sachets. 
• Remove the equivalent liquids from the recipe. I usually hold back around one tablespoon to two tablespoons of the water or milk in the recipe. 
• Instead of flouring your bench, oil your bench and oil your hands to work with your dough... you don't want white flour streaks on the finished dough. 

Your dough will look a little lighter in colour after rising, but don't worry once it's shaped it's back to looking black. 

There is no "golden brown"with the squid colour so rely on tapping/listening for a hollow sound if you're not sure your bread is done. 

Squid ink is also great to use in your homemade pasta dough using the the same proportions as above, 5 sachets to 3 cups of flour. 

That's it for today... any questions pop over to facebook for a faster reply. 

Happy Baking :) 

you might be in the mood now for eating some salt and pepper squid

or something pretty... blossum cupcake toppers

Star Wars Cookbooks and Salt and Pepper Squid

many mini wookie cookies & one mad Star Wars fan

Off the shelf

baking book reviews

Bringing you food from a galaxy far, far away today with 'Wookie Cookies and other galactic recipes: A Star Wars Cookbook' and 'The Star Wars Cookbook 2 - Darth Malt and More Galactic Recipes' 

Both these books are loads of fun and make perfect gifts for Star Wars fans from 4 to 40! Both books are hard bound spiral books with laminated pages. 

spiral bound, the food is photographed with accompanying star wars toy figures

To you and me this might look like a standard cinnamon choc chip cookie, but Star Wars fans will tell you "NO!!" it's a "WOOKIE COOKIE!!"

Nearly all the recipes in the book are standard servicable recipes for pasta, soup, brownies, shakes, cookies and the like renamed with a Star Wars theme. There is Darth Maul Dip (stencilled with the enclosed Darth Maul stencil), Anikin's Apple Crisp, Jedi Juice Pops and some even take Star Wars shapes like TIE Fighter Ties. 

TIE Fighter Ties page 45 'Wookie Cookies and other galactic recipes'

book one comes with metallic stickers to label your food gifts

book two comes with a Darth Maul hard plastic stencil

Of course you will now need something to eat your Star Wars cooking with, apparently Star Wars chopsticks, (oops sorry that should be "chop saber's") can be used with everything including cookies ;)

the tops of Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker chopsticks

Red Darth Vader blue Luke Skywalker Chop Saber's (chopsticks) also available in Darth Maul, Yoda and Mace Windu from Think Geek. 

According to my step-son Dan (pictured at top) these cookbooks are a "must have" for any Star Wars fan... so are the chopsticks, and lets face it I think we could throw any Stars Wars merchandise here and a Star Wars fan is going to list it as a "must have" ;)

Books from Amazon...

And now on to the totally unrelated post of Salt and Pepper Squid..... 

                                   salt and pepper squid

Well, there is was an upside to blackouts we have been experiencing with the storms, I had to cook up what was in the freezer over the weekend so we got to eat lots of delicious foods!! Of course we will all have to fast for 4 days to "pay for" the over indulgence, but hey we got to eat salt and pepper squid!  

There is many, many versions of salt and pepper squid available... this is ours;

I had squid tubes in the freezer, but fresh is always better so if you can get your hands on fresh squid use that instead. I'm using black pepper and Chinese five spice instead of Sichuan peppercorns. 

Ingredients

5 small or 3 three large squid tubes

1 litre (4 cups) of vegetable oil (I use grapeseed oil for it's high smoke point and mild flavour)

1 tsp coarsely ground black pepper

1 tsp sea salt

1 tsp Chinese five spice 

1/4 cup flour 

Optional; small red chilli, spring onions and shao xing wine for finishing

Method

In a medium bowl whisk flour, salt, pepper and Chinese five spice together and set to one side.

Pat your squid dry with paper towel.

split squid tube length ways and then flip over

With a sharp knife split your tubes length ways, flip the pieces over so the interior of the squid piece is facing you. Score diagonally, turn the squid and score again to create diamonds. 

Heat your oil to 180c (360F) 

Toss your squid in the seasoned flour making sure all pieces are coated. 

Dry fry in batches until golden brown... drain on paper towel. 

Serve with lemon wedges or sweet chilli sauce.

Optional; heat one tsp of oil in a small pan, add chopped chilli and sliced spring onion plus two tsps of Shao Xing wine. Sprinkle dressing over squid just before serving. Note the Shao Xing wine is salty, you may reduce salt in main recipe to 1/2 tsp if preferred. 

Variations; omit the black pepper & Chinese five spice and replace with 1 tsp each of ground black and white Sichuan peppercorns. Flour can replaced with corn-flour (corn starch) or mix of rice flour/corn flour for a gluten free salt and pepper squid.               

May the force always be with your baking :)