Posted October 5, 2023 by Alison's Wonderland Recipes in Book of the Month Recipes / 0 Comments
In EMILY WILDE’S ENCYCLOPEDIA OF FAERIES, a brownie named Poe gifts Emily with bread in exchange for her help. But this isn’t just any bread. This is faerie bread made with magic! Emily describes it as “perfectly golden and soft,” a welcome delicacy when she accidentally offends the nearby villagers, who start giving her burned bread and seaweed relish to eat. Poe’s bread appears frequently throughout the story, so I knew I had to try my hand at this magical loaf.
Almost every time Emily mentions Poe’s bread, she reminds us of how soft it is. This in mind, I hunted for the softest bread recipe I could find and decided on this Asian Milk Bread from A Day in the Kitchen. The recipe requires making a roux, but don’t let that scare you. The dough is still relatively easy to make, doesn’t require hand-kneading, and makes a delightfully soft and fluffy bread. I was nervous when I started, but I found the recipe easy to follow and pretty forgiving.
My kids LOVED this, especially my son, who is a major bread enthusiast. He ate a whole mini loaf for breakfast and ate another for a snack. I think I did Poe proud!
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Posted October 13, 2022 by Alison's Wonderland Recipes in Book of the Month Recipes / 1 Comment
Today marks the final recipe in my JONATHAN STRANGE & MR. NORRELL menu. This is one of my favorite books so of course I’m sad to be done, but I’m also SO grateful that I have a job that lets me bring fictional food to life. Living the dream!
Today’s recipe is inspired by the cherry almond tart Jonathan Strange eats while in Spain helping the British army during the Peninsular War. In the book, Strange eats almond tart with dried cherries, which I interpreted to be cherry almond tart using army rations. For my recipe, I decided to make what I felt the army cook was trying to recreate: cherry frangipane tart.
Since I’m new to making frangipane, this recipe is a bit of a conglomeration. I started with my standard pie shell recipe and made changes based on cherry frangipane tart recipes by Fresh Hunger, The Sunday Baker, and Kitchen Trials. I also used a combo of those recipes to come up with my filling. This was a really fun experience! I especially appreciated Sunday Baker’s tip to turn the cherry halves cut-side-up to prevent extra liquid from leaking into the tart.
Since cherry and almond are two of my husband’s favorite foods, I don’t think he minded at all that I had to tweak this recipe 3-4 times before I was happy with it. I hope you enjoy the results at much as he did!
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Posted October 7, 2021 by Alison's Wonderland Recipes in Book of the Month Recipes / 0 Comments
When I started reading the Nancy Drew series in preparation for this menu, I crossed my fingers and prayed one of the books would have split pea and ham soup in it. A little weird, right? Stick with me. 😉
For ages, I’ve been looking for an excuse to share one particular split pea and ham soup recipe with you guys, and I knew the Nancy books were my best chance (they were first published in the 1930s, when pea soup was especially popular). As it turns out, luck was on my side–Nancy eats split pea and ham soup in mystery #5, THE HIDDEN STAIRCASE!
So here it is, my go-to pea soup! This little beauty is called Wisconsin Split Pea Soup. It comes from Taste of Home, and it’s one of my favorite cold weather recipes (possibly even my favorite soup ever). I tweaked it just a bit to suit my preferences, but it was practically perfect already. It’s meaty, savory, salty, and oh so comforting. Plus, it’s SO easy.
Grab your favorite mystery novel and cozy up with this steamy bowl of goodness. You’ll thank me. 🙂
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Posted October 18, 2018 by Alison's Wonderland Recipes in Book of the Month Recipes / 2 Comments
One of my favorite things about Scooby Doo is its distinctive ’60s aesthetic. Who can forget Fred and Shaggy’s bell bottoms or the Mystery Machine’s psychedelic paint job? Even the iconic color scheme associated with the show—orange, lime green, light blue, and purple—has a fun, hippy vibe to it. I wanted to capture that vibe in today’s side dish: a melon berry fruit salad that would look right at home at a 1960s-themed shindig. I cut cantaloupe, honeydew, and watermelon into flower shapes reminiscent of those found on the Mystery Machine and added some blueberries for extra color and flavor. To finish, I tossed it all in a homemade lemon honey dressing. The Little Mister was definitely a big fan of this recipe. Most of the watermelon and blueberries didn’t make it past the photo shoot! XD
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Posted October 11, 2018 by Alison's Wonderland Recipes in Book of the Month Recipes / 1 Comment
Shaggy and Scooby are famous for their bottomless appetites, especially when it comes to sandwiches. They’ve been known to down two-foot subs in one gulp, and anything they make it always piled high with ingredients. A giant sub sandwich seemed like the perfect entree for my Scooby-Doo menu, but the question still remained: what kind should I make? With virtually endless options, I found myself staring at lists of ingredients in hopes of coming up with that perfect sandwich. I wanted something fun and a little funky to match Shaggy and Scooby’s quirky personalities.
Then I thought about pizza. Shag and Scoob’s abiding love for pizza is a little less iconic than their love of sandwiches, but it’s still a big part of the cartoon. Why not bring the two together? I started with a 2-foot-long sub loaf and added a layer of pizza sauce and fresh basil. Then came smoked ham and two layers of sandwich-style pepperoni and mozzarella. Top it off with oil-and-vinegar dressed tomatoes and red onion, more basil, and more sauce, and you’ve got yourself a pizza sub! It was a big hit at our house. Even the toddler was a fan! 🙂
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Posted October 26, 2017 by Alison's Wonderland Recipes in Book of the Month Recipes / 2 Comments
I first heard of opera cake almost a year ago, and I’ll never forget how floored I was by the elegant appearance. It’s traditionally a thinly layered torte composed of joconde sponge cake, coffee syrup, coffee buttercream, and chocolate ganache. The delicate, refined style and the rumor that it was created in honor of the Paris Opera House had me transfixed. I knew when I got around to making a Phantom of the Opera menu, this HAD TO BE my dessert.
But truth be told, I was thoroughly daunted by the time and energy required to make such a cake (we’re talking joconde, flavored syrup, buttercream, and two thicknesses of ganache!). I had no idea how I’d manage it will a little baby on the verge of crawling, and I had a feeling a lot of my readers would consider it too much work as well.
I searched online for an easy version and couldn’t find one, so I decided to create my own! I went with a chocolate strawberry theme, in honor of the red, black, and white motif so closely associated with Phantom of the Opera. This recipe uses frozen pound cake from the grocery store, strawberry jam, vanilla buttercream, and chocolate ganache. I made my own buttercream, but you can even use the stuff in the can to save time. So in the end, the only thing you HAVE to make from scratch is the ganache! The final flavors are a delicious combo of sweet buttercream, rich pound cake, sweet-tart jam, and bitter-sweet chocolate. Sooo delicious!
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Posted October 3, 2017 by Alison's Wonderland Recipes in Reading Kits / 1 Comment
Halloween is peeking it’s head around the corner, so in the spirit of the season, our new Book of the Month has a spooky vibe: The Phantom of the Opera!
There are so many iconic items from Phantom: masks, roses, pipe organs, chandeliers, sheet music, magical lassos—the list goes on! So naturally, it was pure fun to put this reading kit together. It features cozy Phantom throw pillows, perfectly themed snacks, and even fancy abstract sunglasses made to look like the famous Phantom mask.
Read on, Wonderlanders…and be sure to keep your hand at the level of your eyes! 😉 Read More
Posted November 2, 2016 by Alison's Wonderland Recipes in Book of the Month Recipes / 1 Comment
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Wow! Maybe it’s because I’ve been cooking like a madwoman all month, but I feel like October just zipped by. One minute I’m just finishing up my London Fog Lattes for Sherlock at the end of September; the next I’m posting a Poe-themed cocktail for Halloween.
…but the zippiness may also have something to do with the fact that this month we had a wedding, Friendsgiving, the Mister’s grad school graduation party, and a friend stay the weekend. Busy as it was, it was SO GREAT to spend our weekends with family and friends, especially since schedule conflicts have made it hard for us to visit ANYONE the past few months.
But anyway, on to food! Let’s take a look back at our October menu before I share our next Book of the Month hint…
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Posted October 31, 2016 by Alison's Wonderland Recipes in Book of the Month Recipes / 1 Comment
All Hallows Eve is here, and with it, the end of our Edgar Allan Poe menu! Even though I don’t normally post recipes on Mondays, I thought it would be fun to share one on Halloween…and when I found a “The Raven” cocktail recipe a couple months ago, I knew I’d found the perfect way to bookend our Poe menu.
The recipe below is my interpretation of The Raven cocktail, which was originally developed by Ashley at Smarty Had a Party. The cocktail below is a delicious combo of 3 of my favorite flavors: blackberry, pomegranate, and mint. With a little white rum, it makes for a refreshing, darkly sweet (but not too sweet) drink. Enjoy while reading your favorite Edgar Allan Poe poems!
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Posted October 27, 2016 by Alison's Wonderland Recipes in Book of the Month Recipes / 4 Comments
Back when I first decided to make an Edgar Allan Poe menu, I knew I wanted to include a tribute to The Masque of the Red Death, but there were almost TOO many options for how to include it! Should I make red velvet skull cake? Pan de muerto? A grim reaper cocktail? Then I saw a recipe for skeleton cookies on Pinterest developed by Donna Hay, and I knew I’d found my inspiration!
Instead of using a ginger cookie recipe as my base, I used this awesome chocolate cookie recipe from A Baking Moment and added red food coloring to turn it into red velvet. Once I’d baked my “red velvet men,” all they needed was a little icing to give them skeleton bones. Easy and tasty!
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