Superhero Snacks: Beer Dough Pretzels

I have to admit, I'm having fun coming up with hero related snacks, but probably not as much fun as  Phil and John have had coming up with some pretty awesome add ons like t-shirts (sweat shop free - woot!), a playmat, activity book, badge, and of course the amazing action figures. To check them out head on over to their Kickstarter campaign, but they only have two weeks left so if you think these two are as awesome as I do for their creation please consider a pledge!

Enough of the shameless plug...on to business!

I've made pretzels quite a few times, but I wanted something a bit different for Herr Pretzel from Pack of Heroes. Pretzels are an obvious choice, but what could make them more pretzelly (is that even a word? it is now!) than making them with beer dough using a German beer! I'll be honest, I was just going to use whatever beer I could find in the Beloved's homebrew, but spied the German bottle sitting on the shelf. Perfect! (As a side note the Beloved says the beer pictured is rubbish, even if it is gluten free). It did make a cracking good dough however, the texture was quite light when they were baked. I will probably make more of them using a different beer next time to give a different flavour.

Ingredients

3 1/2 - 4 cups bakers flour

1 tsp yeast

1 bottle beer

1/4 cup vegetable oil

1/2 cup warm water

2 tsp fine salt for the dough, plus rock salt or flakes for the top

1/4 cup bicarb soda

Method

1. Heat the water until lukewarm. Add the oil, salt, and yeast, stir, and leave aside until mixture bubbles. Add beer.

2. Make a well in the centre of 3 1/2 cups of the flour, pour in the yeast mixture, and with a wooden spoon, bring in flour to centre and mix. 

3. Turn out onto floured surface, and oil your hands (this prevents the dough sticking to you, plus drying out your skin!)

4. Knead for about 10 minutes, or until dough is smooth and elastic. You may need to add a bit more flour if it is too sticky - I used nearly 4 cups this time, humidity was high as per usual when I make these!

5. Put into an oiled bowl, cover, and set aside until doubled in size. This may take 1-2 hours depending on the temperature. I set mine next to our fire. (You can put the oven on for five minutes, turn off, and then leave the door ajar with the dough inside to speed things up).

6. Punch down and knead for a couple of minutes. Divide dough into 12 portions and roll into long sausages , about 40cm long. Loop into a pretzel shape. Place on a lined tray, and allow to rise again until double. 

7. Turn on oven to 190C to preheat, and set a large saucepan of water on the stove to boil. Fill the saucepan about 2/3 full.

8. When water is boiling, drop in salt and bicarb - watch out it froths!

9. Carefully drop the prerzels in one at a time to poach, about a minute and a half on each side. Remove carefully and set on greaseproof lined baking trays, a few centimetres apart. 

10. Sprinkle the top with salt crystals or flakes.

11. Place in the oven to bake for approximately 20 minutes, until dark brown, and set on a wire rack to cool.

Superhero Snacks: Rainbow Whoop-Ass Pies

Who is next? What hero would eat these somewhat girly but totally scrumptious multi hued whoop-ass pies (that's whoopie pies to the rest of us)? Rainbow Sprinkle, the totally manly action movie star unicorn (who is obviously in touch with his feminine side). I imagine Mr. Sprinkle would power up on anything brightly coloured, I would love these guys in mini form on a skewer while playing Pack of Heroes of course, but Rainbow would skewer it on his horn and eat on the run, or mid kick, or...whatever. These aren't regular whoopie pies, they're whoop -ass pies!

Although I would normally colour with fruit I basically couldn't be bothered and used the totally bad for you food colour gel. But hey, if you're loading up on white flour and sugar you may as well go the whole way!

To make these I used a basic vanilla cupcake recipe, my weapon of choice is from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World.  These got me 12 regular sized whoopie pie sides, but if you were going mini you could get double that. I took a 1/4 cup of plain batter and coloured each lot separately in a jug, which got me two of the same colour. A word of warning here. I used gel colouring which is much more vibrant and doesn't effect the batter like a liquid would, so you may have to experiment with the batter consistency if you can't find them. Once baked I allowed to cool and sandwiched it with whipped vegan cream cheese because I can't stand buttercream. You could also fill them with choc ganache if you wanted to.

And once again guys, if you want to support this totally fun project please head over here!

Superhero Snacks: Pink Flamingade

Who's snack is next from Pack of Heroes? One of my favourites, pink power Flamingal! What would she have  to power up her game? With a throat as long as hers you would need a big drink to keep hydrated. Ordinary humans would drink powerade, but she has Flamingade!  Of course, us mere mortals can drink it too. The pink colour comes from iced tea syrup made with strawberry tea and earl grey. Drink it mixed with soda  for a fizzy fix, or plain iced water. The flamingo straw is optional, but without would certainly be less fun!And once again, to check out the game and give some support to this fun project go here.

Ingredients

T2 Strawberries & Cream tea (if you don't consume dairy another strawberry tea brand will do)

Earl Grey tea

1 litre water

1 kg sugar

Method

Make up 1 litre of tea at triple strength, 3 parts strawberry leaves to 1 part earl grey leaves (remember this is a syrup concentrate, you will water in down, not like regular tea) and leave to steep for half an hour.

Strain, and put back into a saucepan with the sugar.

Bring the pan to the boil and turn down to a simmer for 10 minutes. Allow to cool, and bottle. Keep in the fridge.

I make mine up one part syrup to three parts soda, but you may like it stronger or weaker.

Superhero Snacks: Hawaiian Mayan Trail Bar

Image from John D-C

First to fire up his superpowers on a super snack is Scarlet Macaw, aka the "Hawaiian Mayan." Being part bird I imagine one of his fave snacks would be a trail bar, full of his favourite nuts and seeds. But being part human and a nod to the Mayan part of his persona we would have to smother it in dark chocolate! Admittedly they aren't the most good looking snack, but they are yummy!



Ingredients

For the bottom layer
2/3 cup hazelnut meal
1/3 cup almond meal
1/2 cup melted coconut oil

For the top layer
2 cups soaked pitted dates
1/4 cup pepitas
1/4 cup sunflower seeds
1/4 cup chopped walnuts
1/4 cup chopped pecans
1 tablespoon quinoa flakes
1 tablespoon sesame seeds
1 tablespoon chia seeds
2 tablespoons desiccated coconut

and approximately 1 1/2 cups melted dark chocolate bits

Method
Soak the dates in hot water for approximately 20 minutes. Drain and mash.

While the dates are sokaing mix the base layer ingredients with the melted coconut oil and spread over a grease proof paper lined tin. I used a 8 inch square tin. It will be fairly thin. Place in the freezer for 10 minutes to firm up.

Mix top layer ingredients with mashed dates and press over bottom layer, smoothing over. If the mixture is a bit too gooey just add some extra coconut to soak up the liquid.

Place in freezer for 15 minutes to firm up, and then cut into bars. I got 16 narrow bars, but you could make smaller bite sized ones and get 32 pieces. Place back into freezer for an hour to get hard. This makes it easier to coat and sets the chocolate quickly.

Melt the chocolate, and toss the bars into it one at a time, flipping out onto greaseproof paper. Put back in the fridge to set. You must use dark chocolate, the best you can get with bitter tones to it because the bar itself is very sweet. Also be quick to flip them out as the coconut oil will melt and the bar won't hold together very well.

Best kept in the fridge, but I doubt they will last long!

And to have a look at the game itself, head over here!

Pack of Heroes: Superhero Snacks

Image from John D-C

Hello dear readers, it's time for some shameless plugging on behalf of the amazingly creative Phil of Adventureland Games. He also just happens to be Mrs Bean's hubby. The sweet cheeks, as she calls him, has been designing a new game along with good friend and uber talented John D-C, artist extraordinaire! The game is called Pack of Heroes and is styled on a vintage comic book theme. Move over Avengers, you have nothing on the super powers of  the six awesome teams of Power City! If you love the superhero genre you will love this game, even for the concept and artwork alone. I've been lucky enough to get a few sneak peeks. Did I mention John has actually designed and made six action figures?! Wowsers! The two have worked very hard on it for most of this year, and I really hope it gets moving. To get it off the ground and distributed more widely requires quite a bit of financial backing, so through Kickstarter they are hoping to achieve this goal. To have a look at the promo and/or pledge to be a part of this super fun project go right here. And even if you don't want to pledge have a look at it and pass it on to someone you know who might!

Phil walker Harding and John D-C (photo from John D-C)

So you may be wondering what this has to do with a food blog. Well superheroes need super snacks! and you my friends, will need these snacks because when you get this game you will be playing it so much your own super powers will be depleted without them! So for the next little while I'll be running a theme on Superhero Snacks based on some of the heroes from the game. It's a fun light hearted little project for me, and at the same time maybe I can help Phil and John share their awesome work! I only wish the lunchbox did exist, because you guys would need it to put all these snacks in. Watch this space...