SCOTCH CREME EGG
Many years ago, I had the misfortune to observe a friend of mine being sick after getting very drunk indeed. This would have been fairly unpleasant at the best of times, but on this occasion it was far worse as, prior to being sick, said friend had drunk-binge-eaten 10 creme eggs.
Now, if you've ever been sick (and if you haven't, by reading this I think you're increasing your odds of breaking your 'puke duck' by some considerable margin), you'll know that the whole process involves getting a large volume of material up and out as rapidly as possible with scant regard for where it lands - the bodily function analogue of serving soup using a miniature trebuchet. And as it turns out, thick sugary fondant and chocolate isn't the ideal form of matter for expediting this process. The only way I can describe what I witnessed is that it was like watching someone give birth to a lava lamp out of their face in slow motion while making a noise you might hear coming out of a haunted didgeridoo.
Which is all very unpleasant, but it's leading me to this: I don't like creme eggs and never have - they're just way too sickly sweet and claggy - and the above incident merely cemented this fact for me (it also cemented my friend's carpet fibres together, but that's another story). Suffice to say I'd already not be looking forward to this week even if it were just 50% of the ingredients. Talking of which, here's 100% of the ingredients...
1 creme egg
150 g of sausage meat (in imperial measurements this is about 2 sausages worth)
Some breadcrumbs
Some plain flour
A genuine 'egg' egg
A small amount of a large carrot (Note: a large amount of a small carrot won't work - you'll see why in a bit. Also, why are you questioning my recipe? I bet Jamie Oliver doesn't have to put up with this crap.)
If, like me, you were lucky enough to buy sausages with skins open at the end, this is as easy as squeezing out toothpaste. Albeit the most repellant, cold, greasy toothpaste ever. If not, you might need to snip the ends open or go for the 'pork Caesarian' approach and slit it down the side. Either way, unless you're looking for the worst possible novelty condoms ever you can discard the skins afterwards.
Pop the meat in the fridge for 30 mins or so, and by then your egg should be as hard as nails:
Then, it's just a case of moulding the meat around your egg. I started off with about half the meat as a 'bed', and then plopped the other half on top:
It'll probably need a bit of reshaping and sealing up of cracks, but eventually you should get something that looks a bit like a rancid cricket ball or a fairly important internal organ. Then, put that to one side (if you have any sense, a side as far away from you as possible) and get yourself 3 bowls. Put a tablespoon or so of flour in one, the breadcrumbs in another and crack your real egg into the last one, being sure not to get any shell in it IN EXACTLY THE WAY I FAILED TO DO.
You can probably guess what's coming, but before that get your carrot and cut a few wedge-shaped slices (bear with me). Pop these on a baking tray, and hey presto: egg chocks! This will stop your sphere of porky awfulness trundling away mid-cook, and is particularly useful if your house has appalling subsidence or you find yourself cooking during an earthquake.
Now what you need to do is roll the meaty ball in the flour, then the egg, then the breadcrumbs. Then, depending on how well covered it gets, you might want to do the egg/breadcrumb bit again. Once thoroughly coated though, you can pop it on your carrot scaffold and you're good to go! Well I say 'good', but really if it's all fallen apart at this point and you can't cook it, it's arguable you'd actually be better off.
Then it's into an oven at 200 C for about 40 mins or so, and hopefully at the end of it you'll get something like this:
Well. Well then. Well well well. Well well well wellity wellington oh OK I can't think of how to start this bit, but here's the crux of the information you're probably after: it wasn't anywhere near as awful as you'd imagine, and I didn't do a big sick. Sorry. All I've got for those of you here to see a man in considerable distress is this: despite being frozen first, and despite me leaving it to cool for a good 10 mins or so, the middle when I bit into it was still BASTARD hot. So hot, I'm surprised they don't use creme egg fondant as the filling in vacuum flasks - it clearly retains heat better than (literally) nothing does.
Much like my waistline did on eating this though, I'll expand. Specifically, on what it was like taste-wise. You may remember a Christmas episode of the much-missed sitcom Bottom, where Eddie and Ritchie - lacking both brandy and butter to make brandy butter for their xmas pud - made vodka margarine? Well this is the vodka margarine version of those burgers you get in posh hipster places where instead of a bun they put it in a glazed donut.
Now I admit I'm not a fan of such things - heck, I think maple syrup on bacon is inexplicably dreadful, and I've got Canadian relatives (or at least I did have - on reading I don't like bacon and maple syrup I've probably been excommunicated).
To me, a burger in a sugary donut is just ruining a perfectly good burger. And it's also stupidly poncy while still playing it fairly safe and not being genuinely daring - I mean, I bet the same places don't also sell 'delicious' orange and whelk cheesecakes, or raspberry and garlic milkshakes. But assuming everyone who eats them, and further the people who rave about them, aren't on some sort of culinary masochism spree where they're hell bent on upping their cholesterol and giving themselves tooth decay at the same time, there's clearly something in it. Other than the frightening levels of grease and sugar, I mean.
So then, it's not for me. But, hugely surprisingly, it might be for you. It's not horrible, just...very unusual. I certainly don't recommend the indigestion I got afterwards though, but to be fair that could have been because I ate this after my tea (arguably I could have had it beforehand, but is it a starter or a dessert? WE JUST DON'T KNOW.).
That said, I'm happy with the result even if I'm not a fan of the taste. Why? Because some cooks try for years to make a scotch egg with a runny centre. I managed it first time. Boom. Mad skills.
Now, if you've ever been sick (and if you haven't, by reading this I think you're increasing your odds of breaking your 'puke duck' by some considerable margin), you'll know that the whole process involves getting a large volume of material up and out as rapidly as possible with scant regard for where it lands - the bodily function analogue of serving soup using a miniature trebuchet. And as it turns out, thick sugary fondant and chocolate isn't the ideal form of matter for expediting this process. The only way I can describe what I witnessed is that it was like watching someone give birth to a lava lamp out of their face in slow motion while making a noise you might hear coming out of a haunted didgeridoo.
Which is all very unpleasant, but it's leading me to this: I don't like creme eggs and never have - they're just way too sickly sweet and claggy - and the above incident merely cemented this fact for me (it also cemented my friend's carpet fibres together, but that's another story). Suffice to say I'd already not be looking forward to this week even if it were just 50% of the ingredients. Talking of which, here's 100% of the ingredients...
 |
| Unintentionally, this pic makes it look like I've just crushed a pixie to death with a bowl of breadcrumbs. |
Ingredients:
If for some reason known only to yourself you'd like to make this abomination, you will need:1 creme egg
150 g of sausage meat (in imperial measurements this is about 2 sausages worth)
Some breadcrumbs
Some plain flour
A genuine 'egg' egg
A small amount of a large carrot (Note: a large amount of a small carrot won't work - you'll see why in a bit. Also, why are you questioning my recipe? I bet Jamie Oliver doesn't have to put up with this crap.)
Method:
Job no. 1 is to get your creme egg in the freezer. This will stop it from melting the instant you put the whole shebang in the oven later on. While that's chilling literally if not figuratively, grab your sausages and start extruding their meaty innards thus: |
| The juxtaposition of my daughter's happy, carefree placemat somehow makes this image 1000 times worse. |
If, like me, you were lucky enough to buy sausages with skins open at the end, this is as easy as squeezing out toothpaste. Albeit the most repellant, cold, greasy toothpaste ever. If not, you might need to snip the ends open or go for the 'pork Caesarian' approach and slit it down the side. Either way, unless you're looking for the worst possible novelty condoms ever you can discard the skins afterwards.
Pop the meat in the fridge for 30 mins or so, and by then your egg should be as hard as nails:
 |
| No word of a lie, once frozen this was so hard you could probably have cut diamonds with it. |
Then, it's just a case of moulding the meat around your egg. I started off with about half the meat as a 'bed', and then plopped the other half on top:
 |
| Why on earth I bothered taking pictures of how to do this is beyond me. I mean, it's not as if anyone else is going to be stupid enough to try it. Also, I got meat on my phone. |
It'll probably need a bit of reshaping and sealing up of cracks, but eventually you should get something that looks a bit like a rancid cricket ball or a fairly important internal organ. Then, put that to one side (if you have any sense, a side as far away from you as possible) and get yourself 3 bowls. Put a tablespoon or so of flour in one, the breadcrumbs in another and crack your real egg into the last one, being sure not to get any shell in it IN EXACTLY THE WAY I FAILED TO DO.
 |
| FFS. Well at least it was easy to fish out. |
You can probably guess what's coming, but before that get your carrot and cut a few wedge-shaped slices (bear with me). Pop these on a baking tray, and hey presto: egg chocks! This will stop your sphere of porky awfulness trundling away mid-cook, and is particularly useful if your house has appalling subsidence or you find yourself cooking during an earthquake.
 |
| "So, what did you get up to at the weekend?" "Oh, you know - washed the car. Took the kids swimming. You?" "I made supports for a fondant-filled meatball out of vegetables." "Cool. OK, I must be off now and also I've suddenly gone deaf and can't speak so I'm afraid I can't talk to you again thanks bye." |
Now what you need to do is roll the meaty ball in the flour, then the egg, then the breadcrumbs. Then, depending on how well covered it gets, you might want to do the egg/breadcrumb bit again. Once thoroughly coated though, you can pop it on your carrot scaffold and you're good to go! Well I say 'good', but really if it's all fallen apart at this point and you can't cook it, it's arguable you'd actually be better off.
 |
| No, I didn't cook a baby albino hedgehog wearing orange shoes. |
Then it's into an oven at 200 C for about 40 mins or so, and hopefully at the end of it you'll get something like this:
 |
| If nothing else, I'm good at disguising the evil that lurks within. Maybe I should be a Conservative MP? |
The results
 |
| So, half each yeah? Yeah? Hey, come back! |
Well. Well then. Well well well. Well well well wellity wellington oh OK I can't think of how to start this bit, but here's the crux of the information you're probably after: it wasn't anywhere near as awful as you'd imagine, and I didn't do a big sick. Sorry. All I've got for those of you here to see a man in considerable distress is this: despite being frozen first, and despite me leaving it to cool for a good 10 mins or so, the middle when I bit into it was still BASTARD hot. So hot, I'm surprised they don't use creme egg fondant as the filling in vacuum flasks - it clearly retains heat better than (literally) nothing does.
Much like my waistline did on eating this though, I'll expand. Specifically, on what it was like taste-wise. You may remember a Christmas episode of the much-missed sitcom Bottom, where Eddie and Ritchie - lacking both brandy and butter to make brandy butter for their xmas pud - made vodka margarine? Well this is the vodka margarine version of those burgers you get in posh hipster places where instead of a bun they put it in a glazed donut.
 |
| I'll be honest. It didn't photograph well. Or rather, it photographed perfectly well but just looked pretty bloody minging. |
Now I admit I'm not a fan of such things - heck, I think maple syrup on bacon is inexplicably dreadful, and I've got Canadian relatives (or at least I did have - on reading I don't like bacon and maple syrup I've probably been excommunicated).
To me, a burger in a sugary donut is just ruining a perfectly good burger. And it's also stupidly poncy while still playing it fairly safe and not being genuinely daring - I mean, I bet the same places don't also sell 'delicious' orange and whelk cheesecakes, or raspberry and garlic milkshakes. But assuming everyone who eats them, and further the people who rave about them, aren't on some sort of culinary masochism spree where they're hell bent on upping their cholesterol and giving themselves tooth decay at the same time, there's clearly something in it. Other than the frightening levels of grease and sugar, I mean.
 |
| Mmmmmmmmppphhhhhhh (this was followed by much hopping about and wailing due to the temperature of the innards being considerably higher than the temperature of my innards). |
So then, it's not for me. But, hugely surprisingly, it might be for you. It's not horrible, just...very unusual. I certainly don't recommend the indigestion I got afterwards though, but to be fair that could have been because I ate this after my tea (arguably I could have had it beforehand, but is it a starter or a dessert? WE JUST DON'T KNOW.).
That said, I'm happy with the result even if I'm not a fan of the taste. Why? Because some cooks try for years to make a scotch egg with a runny centre. I managed it first time. Boom. Mad skills.
Next week: I was going to do them this week, but thought potentially giving myself what I'll politely refer to as a 'spicy tummy' the same time as eating this might not be the best idea ever. But they're still coming for Easter - it's SUPERHOT CROSS BUNS.
 |
| Turns out the H in "Jesus H. Christ" stands for Hhhhhhhhhhooooottttttt!!!!!! |
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