Month: October 2015

Little Belgian Truffles

Posted October 29, 2015 by Alison's Wonderland Recipes in Book of the Month Recipes / 5 Comments


Our official Agatha Christie dessert was a Miss Marple recipe, so it’s only fair that our bonus recipe should be a Hercule Poirot dish, right? Poirot is famous for his love of rich chocolate, and his native land of Belgium offers some temptingly easy truffle recipes. The recipe I use here is adapted from one I found on Zestuous. I love the different texture elements provided by the cocoa powder and creamy chocolate
. Plus, this is probably the easiest candy recipe I’ve ever made! 🙂

P.S. We’re taking a vote to see which detective is better, Poirot or Marple. Vote here!

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DELICIOUS DEATH: Super Fudgy Chocolate Cake, Dark Chocolate Frosting, and Easy Halloween Toppers!

Posted October 22, 2015 by Alison's Wonderland Recipes in Book of the Month Recipes / 9 Comments


Oh, Delicious Death. When making an Agatha Christie menu, is there any dessert more suitable? This decadent dessert plays a significant role in one of Christie’s most popular novels,
A Murder is Announced. The exact recipe isn’t shared in the book, but we know it’s chocolate cake “of a melting richness,” which, let’s be honest, is enough to make most of us drool already. I made mine from this delightfully rich, almost brownie-like cake recipe, topped with dark chocolate frosting and bats silhouettes made of powdered sugar. If death by chocolate is truly possible, this is how I want to go. 🙂

P.S. We’re taking a vote to see which detective is better, Poirot or Marple. Vote here!

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Ariadne Oliver’s Homemade Applesauce

Posted October 15, 2015 by Alison's Wonderland Recipes in Book of the Month Recipes / 6 Comments


As a super organized person, I love it when a post comes together exactly as planned. Then again, some of my favorite recipe posts have been the result of last minute changes. That’s definitely the case today. My original plan was to post a recipe from
Murder on the Orient Express, but I really struggled to find a good option. Sure, lots of foods are mentioned in the book (soup, chicken, cream), but they aren’t described and don’t have much significance in the story. A week ago I was scouring the book for anything that might work. To get me in the spirit, I decided to play an episode of the Hercule Poirot TV series in the background while I worked. The episode was Cards on the Table, which features Ariadne Oliver, Hercule Poirot’s crime writer friend who always speaks her mind. I kept getting distracted by Ariadne’s funny antics involving apples (her favorite snack), and I stopped all my work so I could watch my favorite moment in the whole episode: when she gets out of her car and half-eaten apples spill out all over the driveway. Then it dawned on me: I’d found my recipe—Ariadne’s Apples!

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Ghosts on Tour Part II: In which I review The Hollow Boy and Interview Jonathan Stroud About the Lockwood Series

Posted October 10, 2015 by Alison's Wonderland Recipes in Book Events and Tours / 0 Comments

 

As you know, a few weeks ago I attended a tour event for the new Lockwood & Co. book, The Hollow Boy…and I got to interview the author, Jonathan Stroud! Since I wanted to cover two general topics in my interview, I decided to divide my interview into two parts and publish them separately. The first was a mini interview about the book tour, which I published a few weeks ago with an overview of the tour event. The second part was a more in-depth interview about the Lockwood series itself. I just finished reading The Hollow Boy, so today I’m posting the longer interview with my review of the book. Enjoy!

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Mr. Stroud tells the tour audience about the first book he ever wrote as a kid. His shirt says “Fictional Character!” 🙂

Jonathan Stroud Interview Part II: The Lockwood Series

Before the tour event began, I got a chance to sit down with Mr. Stroud and ask him some questions about
The Hollow Boy and the Lockwood series as a whole. Here’s what he had to say!

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Pocket Full of Rye Sandwiches: Miss Marple’s Tea Sandwiches

Posted October 8, 2015 by Alison's Wonderland Recipes in Book of the Month Recipes / 2 Comments


Our first Agatha Christie recipe was dedicated to Poirot, but we’d be doing the famous mystery writer a disservice if we ignored her other beloved sleuth: Miss Marple. As much as I love Poirot, I’m a Miss Marple fan too, because her style differs from Poirot’s while still being masterful in its own right. One of her most famous cases is Pocket Full of Rye, and that’s where we’re getting our recipe today.

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Pick Your Poison: Who’s Your Favorite Agatha Christie Sleuth?

Posted October 6, 2015 by Alison's Wonderland Recipes in Uncategorized / 6 Comments

Pretty much every Agatha Christie fan I know has a strong opinion on whether Hercule Poirot or Miss Marple is a better sleuth. Me? I’m completely torn.

I LOVE Poirot’s little eccentricities and penchant for perfection (in Cards on the Table, he’s heard to say, “I am always right. It is so invariable it startles me.”). Then again, I love the simple, unobtrusive way Jane Marple always manages to crack a case just by reflecting on her own experiences with human nature. I wish I could trek through London with Poirot on a case, but I’d probably want to end the day sipping tea by the fire with Miss Marple.

 

What about you? Where do you stand? Let me know in the poll below, and you can leave an explanation in the comments!

 

WHO'S YOUR FAVORITE?
  • Add your answer
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Poirot’s Breakfast: Toast with Homemade Strawberry Jam and Mustachioed Hard Boiled Eggs

Posted October 1, 2015 by Alison's Wonderland Recipes in Book of the Month Recipes / 9 Comments


Happy October, everybody! Welcome to our new menu. Last year we spent the month of Halloween making spooky Dracula recipes, but this year we’re taking a murder mystery approach: an Agatha Christie menu! As many of you know by now, I’m a die hard Christie groupie…so I didn’t need much of an excuse to dedicate a menu to her.

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