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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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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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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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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Posted October 1, 2015 by Alison's Wonderland Recipes in Book of the Month Recipes / 10 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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Posted September 24, 2015 by Alison's Wonderland Recipes in Book of the Month Recipes / 8 Comments
Run away! Our Monty Python dessert is coming straight for you! Then again, maybe this isn’t such a bad thing, since these Flying Cow Milkshakes are absolutely delicious…and royally decadent! Made with homemade coconut ice cream, Oberweiss milk, and Oreos—they’re a sweet, refreshing reward after a long, hard day of being taunted by Frenchmen.
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Posted September 17, 2015 by Alison's Wonderland Recipes in Book of the Month Recipes / 7 Comments
This Shrubbery Salad was commissioned by The Knights Who Say Ni! They instructed us to make something that “looks nice and isn’t too expensive,” so we whipped up this delightful recipe from With Salt and Wit. The base is composed of thinly shaved Brussels sprouts, light and tasty enough to make you regret every bad thing you ever said about a Brussels sprout. And the cranberries, bacon bits, toasted walnuts, and homemade vinaigrette bring it all together to create a perfect balance of sweet and savory. Ni!
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Posted September 10, 2015 by Alison's Wonderland Recipes in Book of the Month Recipes / 9 Comments
Watch out—this rabbit’s dynamite! For our Monty Python entree, we glazed chunks of red pepper, bacon, purple onion, and rabbit meat with Center Cut Cook’s spicy bang bang sauce to create kebabs with some kick. It’s our tribute to the Killer Rabbit!
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Posted September 3, 2015 by Alison's Wonderland Recipes in Book of the Month Recipes / 5 Comments
Bring forth the Holy Hand Grenade! September is here, and we’re cooking up our 2nd Movie of the Month: Monty Python and the Holy Grail! I’m a HUGE Monty Python junky, so I’m super excited for this menu. What better way to start it off than with holy hand grenades? These little beauties are white cheddar mini cheese wheels studded with peppercorns and chive, topped with a cross to give them that authentic Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch look. You can throw them at your enemies if you like, but we recommend eating them.
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Posted August 27, 2015 by Alison's Wonderland Recipes in Book of the Month Recipes / 3 Comments
Cotton candy, candy floss, fairy floss: whatever you call it, it’s the perfect dessert for our Odyssey menu. I thought of it immediately when I read about Odysseus’ clever use of sheep to escape the cyclops, Polyphemus. But homemade cotton candy can be intimidating when you don’t have a machine, especially when every recipe you come across requires you to cut the end off your balloon whisk. I knew I didn’t want to go chopping up perfectly good utensils, so I did some experimenting…and I’m proud to announce that no whisks were harmed in the making of this recipe! I recommend buying a special kind of whisk called a ball whisk with silicone ends (available here). You get the same results as a trimmed balloon whisk, and you can use it like you would a regular whisk in most other situations.
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