Posted December 20, 2018 by Alison's Wonderland Recipes in Book of the Month Recipes / 0 Comments
I LOVE chocolate caramels. I don’t mean caramels with chocolate on top (though those are good too). I’m talking about caramels that have had chocolate mixed into caramel itself as it heats, so you wind up with this dark brown, lusciously chocolaty confection. It’s a weakness of mine, so when I started brainstorming ideas for a Veruca Salt recipe for my Charlie and the Chocolate Factory menu, salted chocolate caramels stuck firmly in my brain.
However, my experience with making chewy caramels is limited…and by “limited,” I mean I’ve never actually done it. I accidentally made soft caramel while making honeycomb candy for the first time several years ago, but I don’t think even that counts, since I’ve never been able to replicate the result.
Rather than try to invent something on the fly, I found a recipe from Taste of Home that looked both simple and reliable. The only change I made was adding a little kosher salt to the top, and OH YOU GUYS IT WAS AMAZING. So chewy, rich, dark, and not-too-sweet. The salt turned out to be the perfect addition, adding just the right level of complexity.
I will DEFINITELY make these again. Soon. Maybe tomorrow. Do I have baking chocolate…I do! I could make these now!
Now is good.
NOTE: This recipe needs to set for at least 5 hours.
Read More
Posted December 13, 2018 by Alison's Wonderland Recipes in Book of the Month Recipes / 0 Comments
Today we’re continuing our all-chocolate Charlie and the Chocolate Factory menu with a tribute to Violet Beauregarde. As most of you will remember from the book/movie, Violet snatches up an experimental chewing gum from a research room in Wonka’s factory and discovers that it’s designed to taste like an entire meal: tomato soup, roast beef, and blueberry pie. Unfortunately, when the gum starts to taste like the dessert course, Violet starts turning into a giant blueberry! It’s one of the most memorable parts of the whole story, so I knew it had to be in my menu…and like any Wonka recipe, it had to feature chocolate! 😉
This luscious blueberry pie is a combo of two recipes: the filling from Pioneer Woman’s blueberry pie and a chocolate version of the pie crust from my cookbook. Since I knew blueberry pies can be especially liquidy, I added a little lemon juice to the filling to help it thicken better. I also added a bit of salt, just because it seemed odd to me that the recipe didn’t call for it (most fruit pies do). I loved the final flavors. The filling was sweet and juicy with just a hint of tartness, and the crust had a deep, dark chocolaty taste that grounded all the bright notes in the filling. I couldn’t help but decorate the crust (after last month’s decorative pie, I think I’ve found a new hobby), but you can keep it simple you like. Enjoy!
NOTE: This recipe needs to set for at least 4 hours.
Read More
Posted December 6, 2018 by Alison's Wonderland Recipes in Book of the Month Recipes / 5 Comments
First, let’s just be real: hot chocolate is what fresh whipped cream was invented for. It’s the perfect fresh, bright, cool companion to a rich and steamy chocolate drink. So when I decided I was going to do an all-dessert, all-chocolate menu for my new book of the month—Charlie and the Chocolate Factory—I knew I wanted my tribute to Willy Wonka’s hot chocolate river to feature fresh whipped cream.
Not just ANY whipped cream, though. This is Wonka we’re talking about. It needed some pizzazz, something creative and fun to set it apart from all the other whipped creams. Then I remembered Storeroom #54, which the children and their guardians pass during their tour of Wonka’s factory. It is labeled “ALL THE CREAMS” and lists several strange creams, including violet cream. I didn’t have any violet extract, but I DID have lavender buds, which got my brain ticking. I learned while making lavender lemon eclairs that lavender steeps beautifully in cream, so I used that technique to created a lavender whipped cream that had a distinctive but not overpowering flavor. After all, I wanted the hot chocolate to be the star of the show. On a whim, I added a little purple food coloring for whimsy…since you can never have too much whimsy in a Wonka recipe. 😉
The finished cream went on top of a homemade hot chocolate inspired by two of my favorites: the Witch’s Hot Chocolate from my Narnia menu and the Hundred Acre Hot Chocolate from my cookbook. I loved the way the rich, intense chocolate flavor paired with the floral whipped cream. So much so, in fact, that I started wondering what other flavors would make awesome infused creams (Earl Grey! Cinnamon! Mint!). I may just have to start experimenting!
Read More
Posted November 22, 2018 by Alison's Wonderland Recipes in Book of the Month Recipes / 0 Comments
Can you believe I’ve never written an apple pie post before? I’ve made loads of apple recipes for my classic lit menus (homemade apple sauce, apple rose tartlets, and apple cider crullers—just to name a few) but never pie. Of course, when I decided to make one for my Sleepy Hollow menu, I knew it needed to be more than your average apple pie. I wanted to kick it up a notch!
I started with seasonal flavors, bouncing a few flavor combo ideas off the Mister, and we both agreed that maple and walnut were great seasonal additions to an apple pie. I decided to swap maple syrup for the sugar usually found in fruit pie filling, and since I’m not a big fan of chopped nuts in my pie filling, I decided to grind the walnuts up and mix them in with the pie crust. I used a basic version of the pie crust recipe from my cookbook, and the filling is just a slight variation on my family’s favorite apple pie recipe: the one from “How to Make Apple Pie and See the World.”
The result was a glorious pie filled to bursting with the flavor of sweet-tart apples, rich maple syrup, and a hint of nuttiness from the crust. I brought mine to Thanksgiving, where it was a big hit!
NOTE: This recipe needs at least 4 hours to set.
Read More
Posted November 15, 2018 by Alison's Wonderland Recipes in Book of the Month Recipes / 0 Comments
Since this is a Sleepy Hollow recipe, I had a grand scheme to serve this soup in roasted pumpkin bowls. It would be a perfect nod to the headless horseman’s jack-o-lantern; plus, it would look seriously cool in the photos! Alas, it wasn’t meant to be. Every single grocery store I visited in a 20-minute radius of my house sold out of pie pumpkins two weeks ago and won’t be getting any more this season. Ergh!!! So I shelved my dreams for the perfect Pinterest photo and bought a ceramic pumpkin bowl instead. Pretty darn cute, if I do say so myself…but I’m still considering retaking the photos next year when I can get real pumpkins again!
Dashed hopes of inspired plating aside, this recipe actually turned out really well. It’s a variation on the Milady de Winter Soup I made for my Three Musketeers menu. This time, I swapped the butternut squash for pumpkin, the red pepper for carrot and parsnip, the thyme for rosemary, and the store bought chicken stock for homemade. I liked it so much, I’m making another batch to freeze for after the baby is born in January!
Read More
Posted November 8, 2018 by Alison's Wonderland Recipes in Book of the Month Recipes / 0 Comments
Thanksgiving is fast approaching, and with all the preparations ahead, it’s no surprise I’ve had turkey on the brain…though this may also have something to do with the fact that our neighborhood wild turkeys have been out in full force lately. One strolled through the backyard just as I was about to sit down to type this! 🙂
Since this Sleepy Hollow menu is very Thanksgiving-centric, I wanted to be sure to include a turkey recipe. A whole turkey was out of the question (I’ve got an 8-month pregnant belly, an almost-2-year-old, Friendsgiving to host this weekend, and an author event next weekend. Cliche as it sounds, my plate is kinda full.). In short, I needed something simpler and faster than cooking a whole bird. I considered a turkey roulade, but I already made one for my Little Women menu. Then stuffed turkey breasts sprang to mind. They’re a great way to get all the traditional Thanksgiving flavors into a standard-size meal, and the process it quite similar to a roulade, though easier.
Using the roulade recipe as inspiration, I made some key changes to make this recipe unique: wrapping the turkey in bacon, swapping apples for pears and pecans for walnuts, changing bread cubes to Panko crumbs, and adding onion. Plus, I swapped out the seasonings for the thyme and rosemary you’d typically find in stuffing.
By the time all was said and done, it was practically its own recipe—a delicious one at that! The flavors were perfect for the season. They had me wishing Thanksgiving was tomorrow! 🙂
Read More
Posted November 1, 2018 by Alison's Wonderland Recipes in Book of the Month Recipes / 3 Comments
November has arrived and, with it, our brand new book of the month: The Legend of Sleepy Hollow! Normally I save spooky stories like this for October, but as I was rereading Sleepy Hollow in preparation for this menu, I noticed that pretty much all the food was perfect Thanksgiving fare: pies flavored with pumpkin and apples, dressed turkey, cider, and so much more! Thus, I decided to save this menu for November, when people would be hankering for classic autumnal flavors, rather than Halloween-specific recipes.
I’m starting things off with delicious apple cider crullers. When Ichabod Crane describes the delicious food served at the Van Tassel party, crullers are high on the list, as is cider, so I decided to make a recipe that combined the two together. I’d never made crullers before and originally planned to find a recipe online, but when I realized they’re made with choux pastry, I whipped up a batch of the trusty choux recipe from my cookbook, simply subbing apple cider for half the water. The icing was easy to improvise too: just make powdered sugar icing and use cider instead of milk for the liquid. These were scrumptious and fun, a big hit with everyone at our house. They were gone by the end of the day!
Read More
Posted October 25, 2018 by Alison's Wonderland Recipes in Book of the Month Recipes, Holidays / 0 Comments
Ghosts are an essential part of the Scooby-Doo cartoon (even if they do usually turn out to be just some guy in a mask 😉), so I thought it would be fun to make a ghost-themed dessert for this month’s menu. I loved the idea of making spook cupcakes, and I decided to tie-dye the frosting for some psychedelic 60’s flair, perfect for Scooby-Doo! I started with my go-to chocolate cupcake and vanilla frosting recipe from my cookbook and gave the frosting an orange, lime green, hot pink, and light blue swirl. Then I used this recipe to make my own homemade marshmallow ghosts (but you can totally go with store bought ghost Peeps, if you want). These sweet little specters are a perfect addition to any Halloween menu or Scooby-Doo birthday party!
Note: The marshmallow mixture for the ghosts needs to set overnight.
Read More
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
Read More
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! 🙂
Read More
