Posted August 1, 2024 by Alison's Wonderland Recipes in Book of the Month Recipes / 0 Comments
Today’s EMMA recipe is inspired by the scene in which the verbose yet lovable Miss Bates rambles on and on about baked apples. After receiving a gift of Donwell Abbey apples from Mr. Knightley, she can’t seem to stop singing the praises of baked apples, which made me think they would be a perfect addition to my menu.
There was a catch, though—I didn’t want to make a sweet version. I’ve made sweet baked apples many times (including for the Little Women menu in A LITERARY HOLIDAY COOKBOOK), so this time I wanted to try something different.
When I imagined taking the recipe in a savory direction, I immediately thought of sausage. Apple and sausage pair beautifully, and adding a protein would make these apples a perfect side dish. I seasoned the sausage with onion and sage, and voilà: super easy savory baked apples!
These turned out so good I did a little dance when I tasted one. The combo of sage, onion, and sausage reminds me of Thanksgiving stuffing, which pairs so perfectly with the sweetness of the apple. I’ll definitely be making these again!
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Posted July 18, 2024 by Alison's Wonderland Recipes in Book of the Month Recipes / 0 Comments
I know what you’re thinking, but don’t worry. There’s absolutely NO pigeon in this pie (it’s chicken!😁). Today’s recipe is a freebie from my new cookbook, A LITERARY PICNIC: EXTENDED EDITION, which includes a menu inspired by the works of Jane Austen. Pigeon pie was a popular meal in Jane Austen’s day and is served in EMMA, so I decided to make it the entrée for both my Austen cookbook menu and my EMMA blog menu.
In these mini pot pies, the shredded chicken is mixed with a few veggies and an ultra flavorful broth seasoned with garlic, lemon, sage, ginger, and . . . mead! Jane Austen was an enthusiastic winemaker, and the Austen family recipe for homemade mead survives today. If you want to be really hardcore, you can use it to make your own mead for your pigeon pies.
Let’s get cooking!
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Posted July 4, 2024 by Alison's Wonderland Recipes in Book of the Month Recipes / 2 Comments
Some of you may recall I finished my first Jane Austen book (NORTHANGER ABBEY) last year and loooved it. After finishing NORTHANGER, I was eager to jump into my next Austen read, so after careful consideration, I chose EMMA.
Is it possible I love this book even more? I can see why EMMA is so many people’s favorite Austen book. I think it’s where Austen’s strengths as a writer—wit, social commentary, dynamic characters, and realistic relationships—truly shine.
So of course I had to make a menu for EMMA! We’re starting off this menu with an homage to Mr. Robert Martin, who made what I consider to be one of the most underrated romantic gestures in a Jane Austen novel: walking 3 miles to gather walnuts, just because he heard Harriet Smith liked them. In honor of Mr. Martin’s devotion, we’re making walnut scones! I decided to add some honey and chopped dates too, since I love the honey-walnut-date flavor trio.
These scones are tender and buttery with a touch of both savory and sweet. They’d be perfect with a generous schmear of honey butter or blackberry jam!
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Posted June 20, 2024 by Alison's Wonderland Recipes in Book of the Month Recipes / 0 Comments
The moment has come! It’s time to wrap up this menu with a recipe from the titular book of the IF YOU GIVE A MOUSE A COOKIE series. Of course it was always going to be chocolate chip cookies, but I wanted a way to make them just a bit different. Then I thought: mouse-sized cookies!
This was my first time making mini chocolate chip cookies, but not my first time playing with scale. I’ve made giant chocolate cookies before (once for The Hobbit and another time for Where the Wild Things Are), but mini cookies are a whole different animal. For a giant cookie, you want it to be a bit more poofy and and cakey, since it needs enough structural integrity to hold up to being cut into slices. Mini cookies, on the other hand, should be less cakey to help them retain moisture, since it’s easy to over bake them.
Using my giant cookie recipe as a jumping off point, I scaled down and adjusted the proportions to create a soft, chewy cookie–one that wouldn’t be prone to dryness, even if it’s over baked a minute or two.
I’m very happy with the flavor and texture, though I think they came out a little pale. I think I’ll try refrigerating the dough for a day or two next time. I’ve heard aging the dough like that produces a more golden brown cookie (and more complex flavor!).
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Posted June 6, 2024 by Alison's Wonderland Recipes in Book of the Month Recipes / 0 Comments
IF YOU GIVE A MOOSE A MUFFIN has always been my favorite book in the IF YOU GIVE A MOUSE A COOKIE series. It was the first book from the series my mom ever read to me, so it holds a special place in my heart. I love the autumnal setting, the adorable red sweater the moose wears, and the way his antlers stick out when he’s trying to hide behind the couch. It’s such a cute, cozy read!
As a nod to the book’s subtle autumn theme, I decided to make maple walnut muffins. I wanted to add a lil somethin’ extra to make them special, so I threw in some butterscotch chips. And of course, I made some blackberry jam to go with it! 😉
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Posted May 23, 2024 by Alison's Wonderland Recipes in Book of the Month Recipes / 0 Comments
Today’s recipe is inspired by IF YOU GIVE A PIG A PANCAKE, part of the classic children’s book series IF YOU GIVE A MOUSE A COOKIE. I’ve made traditional pancakes on this blog before, so I wanted to try something fun and different. I decided to combine pancakes with a classic childhood food: peanut butter and jelly!
The pancakes are traditional buttermilk pancakes with melted peanut butter whisked into the batter and a bit of peanut butter spread on top of each finished pancake for some extra peanut oomph. But the real star of this dish is the homemade strawberry syrup. It’s super easy, makes a whopping 3 cups, and is sooo dang delicious. The secret is to use frozen strawberries, which are cheaper than fresh and frozen at peak freshness.
This is such a fun way to combine two classic foods. And I’m am in LOVE with this syrup. I can’t wait to make it again!
P.S. I had some leftover syrup so I served it with French toast bites and oh man I can’t get over how good it is! The sweet-tart strawberry flavor is the perfect balance for rich French toast.
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Posted May 9, 2024 by Alison's Wonderland Recipes in Book of the Month Recipes / 0 Comments
Warm weather always makes me want to make menus for light, fun reads. I haven’t made a picture book menu in a while, so I thought it would be fun to make recipes inspired by each of the books from the IF YOU GIVE A MOUSE A COOKIE series. Let’s start with rainbow sprinkle baked donuts inspired by IF YOU GIVE A DOG A DONUT!
Originally, my plan was to make apple cider donuts as a nod to the apple juice from the story, but I’ve already make apple-flavored donuts multiple times before (like apple cider donut holes and crullers). I wanted to try something new, so I decided to make birthday cake flavored baked donuts, drawing my inspiration from the rainbow sprinkle donut on the cover of the book. Plus, I’ve wanted to by a donut baking pan for years, so this was the perfect excuse!
The recipe I use here is a variation on a recipe from Sprinkle Bakes, tweaked to suit my needs. The final product reminded me of a cupcake in all the best ways. If you’re someone (like me) who loves the cake part of cupcakes and would happily eat one frosting-free, you’ll love these donuts. In fact, although I put icing on top to match the illustration on the book cover, I think they’re better without it. If I make these again, I think I’ll leave them plain. And the rainbow sprinkles mixed through the batter are so much fun!
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Posted April 25, 2024 by Alison's Wonderland Recipes in Book of the Month Recipes / 0 Comments
At the beginning of JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH, the characters enjoy breakfast in an Icelandic village before traveling to Snäfell (a dormant volcano) to begin their descent into the Earth. Curious about what they may have eaten there, I started to research Icelandic breakfasts and discovered that skyr (high-protein yogurt) is a popular breakfast item. I’ve made homemade yogurt in the past, and I thought it would be fun to try a new variety. But what to pair it with?
I decided to do a breakfast-y baked apple topped with skyr and granola. Instead of baking the apples whole and stuffing them with filling, I decided to make them hasselback style, cutting them in half and cutting thin slices into the tops. This way, the toppings can slip between the slices, allowing each bite to be more balanced. I developed my own hasselback apple recipe loosely based on the baked apples in my cookbook, A LITERARY HOLIDAY COOKBOOK. The granola is a crunchy, pared-down version of the granola bars in my latest book, A LITERARY PICNIC. For the skyr, I started with a recipe by the Jules Food blog and tweaked it to suit my experience.
These apples turned out delicious! They have just the right balance of sweet, savory, soft, and crunchy. The best part is, even though they’re super healthy, they actually eat like a dessert. So you could have them for breakfast, a special treat, or both!
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Posted April 11, 2024 by Alison's Wonderland Recipes in Book of the Month Recipes / 0 Comments
To me, there are two iconic scenes in JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH. The first is when the characters travel through a subterranean forest of giant mushrooms. The second is when they witness a deadly ocean battle between a plesiosaur and ichthyosaurus. These scenes jump out to me because they showcase Jules Verne’s exceptional skill as a science fiction writer.
I’m sure he was tempted to populate the center of the earth with plants and animals from his imagination, but instead he chose to take something familiar like a humble mushroom and make it fantastical. This was no accident.
To create an entirely alien ecosystem would have been to forget the premise of the story. This isn’t an alien world; it’s OUR world. It should be grounded in things we know. So Verne took aspects of the real world to wild extremes—giant mushrooms and living dinosaurs—to create a setting that feels otherworldly yet believable.
Inspired by this, I decided to make seafood-stuffed portobello mushrooms for this menu’s side dish. Drawing from recipes by Cafe Delites and My Gourmet Connection, I filled the mushrooms with a mix of crab meat, green onion, garlic, lemon, and cheese (mozzarella and Parmesan). I LOVE the zingy freshness of the lemon—it’s just what’s needed to balance the earthiness of the mushroom. I topped the filling with panko crumbs and toasted them under the broiler for a bit of crunch.
Sooo good! I can’t wait to make these again. 😀
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Posted March 28, 2024 by Alison's Wonderland Recipes in Book of the Month Recipes / 0 Comments
I’ve made French omelets many times before, so when I saw that the characters in JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH enjoy ham omelets for breakfast in Germany, I decided to try something different. After some research, I learned that there is a traditional German potato omelet called bauernfrühstück, which often includes ham. Instead of folding the fillings into a disk of cooked egg like you would with a French omelet, the egg is poured around the fillings in the pan, creating a hearty, one-pan breakfast.
There are lots of variations, so I got general inspiration from several recipes for basic bauernfrühstück (including recipes from America’s Test Kitchen, Kitchen Stories, and SBS Food). I changed the proportions to suit me and added a few small changes of my own (like mixing a bit of water with the egg to make it super fluffy).
I’m not usually a big egg-and-meat breakfast person, but I really loved this. It’s simple and satisfying without being too heavy. I think the eggs were my favorite part. Adding water to the egg helped achieve a delightfully light, fluffy texture. I also loved the kick of freshness from the green onion I sprinkled on top!
P.S. In the story, the narrator says the omelet was “garnished with spiced sorrel.” At first I thought this meant sorrel leaves, but when I looked it up, it turns out spiced sorrel is a beverage made from sorrel flowers! I didn’t make any for my omelet since I wasn’t able to source sorrel flowers (and I honestly have no clue why or how you would garnish a food with a drink). I’m wondering if the word “garnish” may have been a mistranslation of Jules Vernes’ original French text. If you know anything about spiced sorrel, traditional German omelet garnishes, or the French language, let me know! This is a mystery I’d love to solve.
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