Are you all ready for dessert? Because I DEFINITELY am! Jiballian fudge cake is an iconic Star Trek Voyager dessert, and I knew I wanted its blue icing and rich chocolatey-ness to have the place on honor in my Voyager menu. I’ve made many chocolate cakes here on the blog, so I wanted to do something a little different. Then I thought: cake pops! I’ve never done them before, and the concept of a Star Trek-inspired pop intrigued me.
The cake in the TV show has blue icing with a few other colors swirled through (looks like purple and silver/white). I thought it would be fun to make galaxy pops reflecting this color scheme, and away we went! I had to try a few different decorating techniques before I found one I liked, but in the end I think these cake pops turned out super cute. What a fun way to end a Star Trek menu!
The round, green door of Bag End is one of the strongest icons in the stories of Middle Earth. It represents so much—home and journey, beginnings and endings, comfort and adventure—and it holds all these otherwise contradictory ideas in effortless resolution. It’s the door through which Bilbo greets his unexpected guests and leaves for adventure in The Hobbit. It’s a symbol of the home that Frodo longs to return to in The Lord of the Rings, but when he does, he finds that although we can go home, we can never go back. It’s a door that, when opened, leads to the promise of good company, a full larder, and a kettle of hot tea. It holds a special place in my heart (and that of many other Tolkien fans as well), so I knew my Lord of the Rings menu wouldn’t be complete without a tribute to it.
I’ve made giant chocolate chip cookies in the past, and I loved the idea of making one to look like a hobbit door. So here it is! The recipe is the giant chocolate chip cookie recipe from Tollhouse. I love how it turned out, though if I’d been thinking ahead, I might have tried to create a wood grain effect with my smoothing knife as I spread out the frosting for the base. I love the yellow doorknob and Gandalf’s rune in the corner. The quote around the border comes from Bilbo and Frodo’s traveling song, and it couldn’t be more perfect! 🙂
There is only one true dessert anyone could ever create for a Matilda menu: Bruce Bogtrotter’s Chocolate Cake! I’ve made my fair share of chocolate cakes in my day, but this one was almost intimidating because it’s just so iconic. It’s practically synonymous with Matilda. I absolutely could NOT get Bruce’s cake wrong. So I hunted high and low for a cake recipe that I new would stand up to the massive dimensions of Bruce’s cake. In the book, it’s 18 inches across, but since that wouldn’t fit in my oven, I went with the size of my largest pan: 10 inches. Still a pretty darn big cake, and one that I wanted to make sure would be stay moist despite having to bake longer than a small cake.
For the actual “cake” part of the cake, I used a recipe I found through Good Housekeeping. It promised to be super rich and moist, which was perfect. What surprised me was that, unlike many intense chocolate cakes I’ve seen, this one didn’t use coffee. I saw a way to sub out part of the buttermilk for regular milk mixed with instant coffee granules, so I made the change. And I’m so glad I did! The cake was that much more chocolatey, and even though you can’t taste the coffee itself, the added depth of flavor helps balance all the sweetness in the cake.
For the frosting, I tried a twist on my own chocolate buttercream. Instead of milk, I used sour cream, which added moisture while making the final product lighter and fluffier than milk would. Plus, I added a bit of cinnamon for a little somethin’ special. The final cake was just what I was looking for: a rich, luxurious chocolate cake with a frosting that matched it for intensity of flavor yet contrasted it with a smooth, light texture.
Of course, a 10-inch, 2-layer cake is too huge for just the Mister and me, so I sent half of it to work with him. It got rave reviews, especially the frosting, so I think it’s safe to say this cake is worthy of Bruce Bogtrotter. Enjoy! 🙂
Three cheers for extra Thursdays! Whenever a month has a 5th Thursday, I get to do a bonus post, which is especially exciting this month since this menu was inspired by my son’s birthday party. It was quite the bash! I made deviled eggs, fruit salad, and a giant chocolate chip cookie, and we ordered pizza for our entree. Plus, both the grandmas made delicious desserts too! My mom made cupcakes, and my mother-in-law made crown-shaped sugar cookies with gold sprinkles. Both were delicious, so for my bonus recipe, I decided to pay tribute to both.
These fun cupcakes come in two flavors: chocolate cake with vanilla frosting and vanilla cake with chocolate frosting (just like the ones my mom made). The recipes are easy, and the fun, whimsical decorations are inspired by my mother-in-laws cookies: white and gold sprinkles on some, fruit roll-up crowns on others. It’s a lot of variety without a lot of extra work, and the results were super delicious. Enjoy! ^.^
Say hello to our Where the Wild Things Are dessert: a giant chocolate chip cookie! This is the dessert I made for the Little Mister’s Wild Thing-themed birthday party. As a one-year-old, cookies are easier for him to grasp than cake, and he seems to prefer the flavor. Plus, a cookie is much faster to decorate than a whole cake, which was a big deal to me since I was already making deviled eggs and fruit salad for the party.
I used the Tollhouse giant cookie recipe in conjunction with my own buttercream recipe to make this dessert. The words are made by dipping Trader Joe’s cinnamon schoolhouse cookies in colored icing. I LOVE how it turned out, especially the Wild Thing in the middle. We ate it up, we loved it so! 😉
I made a gingerbread house last month for my Grimm’s Fairy Tales menu, so at first it felt weird making another gingerbread house so soon. But how could I not when the house of Wuthering Heights is so iconic AND gingerbread is the most prominent dessert in the book? 🙂 Plus, I loved the idea of trying a different look for my next gingerbread project. I didn’t want to just copy and paste the structure and style from my last gingerbread escapade, so I decided to increase the challenge by adding detailed icing work, putting “glass” in the windows, and making the house two stories high. I thought of making it a HAUNTED gingerbread manor, but the ones I looked at for ideas were pretty elaborate. I didn’t think my skill set was there yet (this is still only the second gingerbread house I’ve made as an adult), so I stuck with a more classical design. I loved the thatched roof effect of the Mini Wheats on my last roof, but this time I went with chocolate Belvita Bites for a more traditional shingle pattern.
Like last time, I used a dough recipe from Sprinkle Bakes (this time a double batch) and an icing recipe from Make It and Love It. This time I incorporated Pretty Cake Machine’s advice to use brown icing for all the structural work, and I LOVE how much cleaner all the edges look.
Throw in a gingerbread ghost and a scowling gingerbread Heathcliff, and you’re all set for life at Wuthering Heights!
Here it is: the pièce de résistance of our Grimm’s Fairy Tales menu! When you all voted in December on which fairy tales you wanted to see in our Grimm menu, Hansel and Gretel easily snagged the most votes. Since I knew this particular recipe would be highly anticipated, I wanted to make sure it was something special. Luckily, gingerbread cottages are about as special as they come. 😉
This was actually my first time making a gingerbread house as an adult, and my very first time ever making one from scratch. Since I’m planning a gingerbread house for another menu coming up as well, I decided to use this gingerbread cottage as a chance to test out cookie and icing recipes, along with tips and tricks from the pros. I wound up using Sprinkle Bake’s gingerbread recipe, which I loved. It was flavorful with a pleasant texture, while still sturdy enough to make a structurally stable house. I used Make It and Love It’s icing recipe, which came together in a snap. I also relied heavily on the gingerbread expertise of Katharina from Pretty Cake Machine, who shares a lot of her gingerbread tips and tricks here.
I was bummed when I saw that December doesn’t have a fifth Thursday this year, which meant I wouldn’t be able to do a Grinch Who Stole Christmas bonus recipe. Still, when I sat down to decide whether I should make Who Pudding or Green Grinch Hot Chocolate as my dessert this month, I simply couldn’t choose. So I made both!
The pudding is based on a delicious homemade chocolate pudding recipe from Moms Need to Know (I also used some tips from Bunny’s Warm Oven). Of course, you can just add some food coloring to instant pudding if you want, but what kind of a food blog would I didn’t give real, from-scratch chocolate pudding a try? As for the hot chocolate, it’s a peppermint version of the white hot chocolate that’s going to appear in my cookbook next year!
So if you’re not quite ready for Christmas to be over, cook up some rich, chocolatey Who pudding and steaming Green Grinch Hot Chocolate for a sweet winter treat. 🙂
Stranger Things bonus recipe time! I always love when months have a 5th Thursday, because it means I get to make a bonus recipe. I really enjoy the freedom I have with these since, unlike my standard recipes, they don’t have to fit a particular course of the meal (for example, my first recipe of the month is always an appetizer, so I have to make sure whatever I make could feasibly be used that way). But bonus recipes can be anything—a cocktail, snack, extra dessert, etc. Anything goes!
Strangely enough, I’m not sure what inspired me to make an upside down milkshake. I’ve made a lot of cocktails for bonus recipes, so maybe I was trying to avoid more of the same. Or maybe I wanted something kid friendly since the main characters in Stranger Things are kids. Either way, as soon as I realized I got to make an extra recipe, the words “upside down milkshake” sprang right into my head.
Of course, since it’s a tribute to the Upside Down, it’s literally turned on it’s head—with the cherries and whipped cream at the bottom with the shake poured over the top. But what flavor to make? I wanted something dark and rich, and I love the way chocolate and blackberries go together. A cool unexpected side effect was the fun way the berries made clusters of dark circles on the side of the glass. It reminded me of the giant spores that float in the air of the Upside Down.
Sheriff Hopper loves him a good doughnut, so there was no doubt in my mind that they’d be the dessert in my breakfast-themed Stranger Things menu. And I knew exactly what kind I wanted to make: apple cider doughnuts! I got the idea while watching the very first episode of Season 2. When Hopper walks into the police station in the morning, he goes straight for the doughnuts, but the secretary takes it out of his hand and swaps it for an apple. Hopper spits it out and tosses it after the first bite. So I thought it would be fun to use apples in a way he’d actually enjoy: doughnuts! Plus, they’re super festive, considering today is Thanksgiving! (Don’t worry, I’m not slaving over my blog today. I’m off visiting family and enjoying having a restful holiday. Yay for scheduling posts in advance!)
I’m kinda new to cake doughnuts (though I’ve made raised doughnuts before), so I used a recipe for apple cider doughnut holes by Lori from Recipe Girl. I decided to go with doughnut holes instead of full-on doughnuts because I lack both a doughnut cutter and doughnut baking pan, and I didn’t feel like buying one. Plus, making holes meant more surface area per bite would be covered in cinnamon sugar, which—c’mon, let’s be honest—is half the fun of apple cider doughnuts.
So fry up some festive goodness! These are perfect for dunking in your morning coffee as you contemplate the mysteries of the Upside Down. 😉
