Extermibake, extermibake...

http://cuttingsarchive.org/images/6/65/2016-09-08_Waitrose_Weekend_p7.jpg

Publication: Waitrose Weekend
Date: 2016-09-08
Author: Paul Kirkley
Page: 7
Language: English

A Doctor Who cookbook, with recipes the Time Lord would love, has just materialised - but hurry or the Daleks may get there first!

An exploded human skeleton set in jelly and a salad made from the writhing innards of a genocidal alien mutant. No, they're not Heston Blumenthal productions, but recipes from an out-of-this-world new cookery book inspired by the universe's favourite teatime telly hero.

Doctor Who: The Official Cookbook features such terrifyingly tasty creations as Zygon Pie (sausages and veg in pastry with the face of an orange alien shapeshifter), Sally Sparrow's Weeping Angel Cake (a warning of imminent attack by nightmarish killer statues rendered in sponge) and a Christmas Snowman which features a killer Mr Frosty with his mouth shaped into a vicious, fanged leer.

Universe-al appeal

But don't disappear behind the sofa just yet - there are plenty of good guys, too, including all 12 Doctors lovingly realised in gingerbread, a spectacular TARDIS complete with battery-powered lighting and the Doctor's own favourite snack, Fish Fingers And Custard. Yum.

All the recipes are by food writer and stylist Joanna Farrow, whose other books - such as Wedding Cupcakes, Decorating Cookies and 200 One Pot Meals - are notable for their absence of Time Lords, spaceships and merciless cyborg assassins.

'When they said they wanted me to do a Doctor Who cookbook, I thought 1 don't know anything about that and it doesn't really interest me,' Farrow tells Weekend. 'But I said I'd see what I could come up with, and I found myself getting really into it. I learned a lot about Doctor Who!'

Farrow has whittled 53 years of the Doctor's adventures down to 40 recipes, divided into sections such as Speed Of Light Bites, TARDISH Of The Day and Eggs-Stir-Mix-Bake (try saying it quickly).

'There are obvious ones we had to include, like the TARDIS, the Daleks and the Cybermen,' she says. 'After that, it was what would work well as recipes.'

Farrow cites the Slitheen - a family of blobby green aliens - as an example of a creature that instantly said 'baked potato', while Cassandra - the last human in the universe, reduced to a stretchy bit of skin on a metal framemakes a perfect pizza. Oh, and the fish fingers and custard? They're actually fish goujons with a cheese sauce. (I know, don't tell the Doctor.)

'Doctor Who is so wonderfully visual, it lends itself beautifully to these kinds of ideas,' says Farrow. 'But what we didn't want was for it all to be sweet stuff. We wanted to incorporate recipes that were fun but also provide good family food, like the Doctor's Blackboard (a nutritious aubergine-based tray bake).' She has even reinvented Tom Baker's trademark jelly babies using real fruit, to help young Who fans with their five-a-day.

As one of Britain's favourite family TV shows, Doctor Who is perhaps the ideal subject for a cookbook. Farrow says many of the recipes, such as Sonic Screwdri-veg (veggie kebabs shaped like the Doctor's trusty sonic gadget) and Cybermelts (deadly cheese-on-toast, basically) are simple dishes you can have fun making with the kids. Others are more complex and, like the Doctor, require time and space.

While the book may succeed in luring Whovians into that strange, alien environment called the kitchen, Farrow admits it has had the opposite effect on her - transforming a lifelong foodie into a Doctor Who fan. But which of the Time Lord's12 incarnations, wonders Weekend, would be her ideal dinner date?

'I'd be torn between Peter Capaldi and Matt Smith,' she says. 'I think I'd have to invite them both.'

Doctor Who: The Official Cookbook (BBC Books, £14.99) is out now

Caption: DOG BITE K-9 (above) in tasty gingerbread form; all 12 Time Lords are represented in the recipes, including Tom Baker's distinctive Doctor (top)

Caption: SCARY SNACKS The Daleks are back

Paul Kirkley

A saggy dog story

Joanna Farrow is an expert cook who knew next to nothing about Doctor Who. Thanks to a wasted youth spent in front of the telly instead of in the kitchen, I'm basically the opposite. But while I may be to culinary expertise what the Daleks are to Olympic hurdling, I have written two books about Doctor Who - which has to count for something, right?

Emboldened by this idea, I set myself the challenge of replicating what Farrow says is possibly the most ambitious recipe in her Doctor Who cookbook - a gingerbread facsimile of the Doctor's faithful robot dog, K-9. Just for added stress, I thought I'd ask my kids (George, eight; Thomas, four; and their friend Freya, four) to help me.

It's a chaotic scene, highlights of which include me mopping up flour (from wobbly kitchen scales) and tears (from a wobbly Freya, who fell off a chair) and refereeing a heated argument about whose turn it is to put the eggshells in the bin.

For K-9's eyes, the recipe recommends crushing a boiled sweet, which proves easier said than done. After whacking it (and, inevitably, my thumb) for some time with a rolling pin without success, I'm starting to get a sense of how the Doctor must have felt when he spent four billion years punching his way through a solid diamond wall in the most recent series.

Nonetheless, after some trial and error I manage to fashion something that appears, if not exactly as advertised, then at least vaguely dog shaped.

With some trepidation, I share the results with Joanna. 'He's fantastic!' she says, graciously. 'I'd say 10/10. If you can do that one, you can do any of them!'

Flushed with pride, we decide to take K-9 to a family celebration. But it's a sweltering day and, when we arrive, we find he's collapsed into a sad, stodgy puddle in the boot of the car. Oh K-9.

I only have myself to blame, of course: everyone knows you shouldn't leave dogs in hot cars. That goes double for robot ones made out of gingerbread.

Caption: K-9 KIDS Cook Kirkley with sons Thomas and George

Extermibake, extermibake...

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