Black Garlic Candles & Spooky Focaccia

This is the spookiest way to indulge in the butter candle trend. Also, the candles are infused with absolutely loads of black garlic - the sticky, jet black aged garlic that has been doing the rounds of late.

2 hours prep

45 minutes cook

Serves 10

Hugh Woodward
candles.jpg

Ingredients

    for the butter candles:
  • 2 bulbsblack garlic
  • 500gsalted butter
  • 2 tspactivated culinary safe charcoal powder
    • for the focaccia:
  • 313gwarm water, warm beetroot juice, warm spinach puree
  • 4.6gyeast
  • 1.3gsalt
  • 0.6 tbspolive oil
  • 400gbread flour

Add to that a visually stunning three coloured focaccia and we're heading the right way for a spook-tacular centrepiece for your halloween buffet. This recipe is the one to go for if you want that wow factor!

Method

  • Add all the butter ingredients to a food processor and blitz until smooth.
  • Use food safe wicks and a paper cup to make the candles - you can buy the wicks online, but we made our own by dipping cotton string in butter and allowing it to harden in the fridge. You should have around 3.
  • Leave the candles to set in the fridge for a few hours to harden.
  • Now, to make the focaccia doughs! You need to make three but the amounts are the same for each one so it's pretty easy.
  • Add the wet element (water, beetroot juice, spinach puree) to a mixer (or bowl) and add the yeast, olive oil, salt and flour. Mix until just combined, then allow to rest for 30 mins covered with clingfilm. Fold in the sides and allow to rest again, then fold the sides and let the doughs rise for around an hour, then divide each into four.
  • Preheat the oven to 180°C. Oil a deep sided oven tray and artfully arrange the dough blobs, then let it rise again until wobbly and doubled in size.
  • Oil your hands and stick your fingers in to get the dimples. Use ramekins to mark where you'd like the candles to go.
  • Bake for roughly 45 minutes until cooked through - you can check the insides with a digital thermometer (it should register 90°C for cooked dough).
  • Let it cool for around 40 minutes out of the tin, then inset the candles (trim the wicks if necessary). Light them, allow the butter to melt and tear bits of focaccia off the sides to dip with.

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    Hugh Woodward

    Hugh Woodward

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    Hugh's culinary life began aged 14 when he cooked spaghetti hoop burritos to impress girls. Since then his colourful career has taken him to performing in Skegness, making cheese in Peckham, running a wine bar on Columbia Road and reluctantly working in a (briefly) Michelin Starred restaurant. He likes fish, things cooked on charcoal, cheap dinners and London's rich cultural tapestry of food shops. When he's not cooking or eating he can be found mudlarking by the river Thames, buying bits in flea markets and hanging out with his cat Keith.

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