My dear friend gave me shark sweets as a present, a combination of two of the best things in life! :D
And while I hate sharing sweets (even non-shark-shaped ones!), I couldn’t resist setting aside a few of them for my lemon shark squares. Our horror film group is watching a shark film tonight. It’s like fate is tempting me! Or my horror film mates are. Hard to tell, sometimes… ;)
I baked a small* lemon tray bake and topped it with coloured (surprise!) lemon fromage frais topping.
I realise I haven’t posted a recipe in a while; shame on me! Unfortunately I have to continue this trend, however, as once again I can’t give exact quantities. Or a method. This be madness, and there is no method in it.
But it’s the result that counts, right? I think the lemon shark squares are really nice and not overly sweet with a good measure of lemoniness. :) And they look better in real life than they do in the pictures.
Yes, my squares aren't really squares at all. But then again, neither are the sharks real sharks. All a pack of lies!
* Small tray bake equals fewer squares. Fewer squares equal fewer shark sweets to give away. Have I mentioned that I am greedy!?
Yes, I’ve put these into the category cute. They are. Even if you may not see it. :)
I am so happy with the way my zombie graves turned out! My zombie film group has become hard to impress (I do spoil them ;) but I think I succeeded once more, yay!
In case you are as mad as me and/or have friends as mad as mine, here’s a how-to:
Bake a chocolate chilli tray bake. (See recipe below)
When you chop up the chillies for the tray bake, do touch your eyes at least once. It’s how I did it, and I think it’s part of the whole experience…
Cut off the top of your tray bake so that it is nice and level. Crumb the tray bake top and top the cake with it. I used store-bought chocolate spread to make the crumbs stick.
Melt some white chocolate, and pipe zombie arms onto a piece of baking parchment. Make plenty of them because they WILL break when you try to stick them into your graves.
Make your own tombstone biscuit stencil using your zombie calendar tombstone as a model. (Everybody should have one of those! :)
Bake simple sugar biscuits for your tombstones. Scrawl RIP onto them with a bit of melted dark chocolate. (Or write your friends’ names – I must admit that I was tempted!)
Assemble your graves with lots of patience and care.
Ignore step seven because I only wrote that to sound mature. Assemble your graves with lots of sweating and swearing.
Present the chocolate chilli zombie graves to your mad friends! :D
Recipe: Chocolate Chilli Cake
This is the recipe for a round 26 cm baking tin. If you make a tray bake, adapt the quantities accordingly.
Ingredients
2 – 3 large chillies
250 g butter
250 g dark chocolate
4 eggs
250 g sugar
100 g flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
Method
Remove the seeds from the chillies and chop them up as small as you can (or as small as you can be bothered to). I’ve used 2.5 chillies this time, but I think the next time around I will use three.
Melt the butter in a small pan. Add the chocolate when the butter is almost melted. Stir over low heat until chocolate and butter are completely melted, then set aside to let cool a little.
In a mixing bowl, beat eggs and sugar until pale and fluffy. Add chocolate butter, beat again.
Sift and stir in the flour and the baking powder, then stir in the chilli bits. Stir well but don’t overmix. (Don’t you like these exact instructions? :-P)
Pour your cake batter into your baking tin and bake at 190°C for about 40 minutes.
You should know by now that I am a woman of refined taste. Especially, might I say, when it comes to cinema. I only watch really artistic films; life’s too short for anything less than … say …
LAKE PLACID!
For the uninitiated: shame on you. Watch this trailer and then go and buy the DVD so you can watch the whole film. Do it. Now.
So yes, this year’s feature cakes for our birthdays were actual feature cakes: creature feature cakes. :D I had more fun making them than should be allowed to have! :)
This cake’s a courgette cake, a family recipe and one of my all-time favourites. It’s very moist and lovely and slightly cinnamony. Yum. The croc is a toy, lazy me did not carve one out of marzipan or so … And the lake is made from water, sugar, food colouring and lots of gelatine. Not an easy feat for somebody with my capacity for patience but I pulled myself together and everything worked out nicely in the end!
However! Crocs are obviously not the only creatures who eat humans on the big screen.
Therefore, ladies and gentlemen, behold
SHARKTOPUS
Again, if you don’t know Sharktopus, your life is not as cool as it ought to be. Trust me. You know that you want to watch it.
The sharktopus is a vanilla biscuit rather than a cake but it looks cool and it’s yummy, AND it’s deadly on both ends! :D
I used my shark biscuit cutter and my octopus biscuit cutter for these cool little creatures, then cut off the biscuit dough shark tails and octopus heads and stuck the rest together before baking. A slightly tedious job, but it helps if you giggle maniacally.
You and whose army? – Me and my sharktopus army!
The third creature feature baking project was actually where the original idea for this theme came from. Last year I baked a snake cake together with a friend, so the only logical next step was …
Snakes on a Plane!
It’s actually called “Enough is enough cake” because I’m cool like that, dropping famous film quotes and all. :)
The plane is a lemon tray bake with LOTS of lemon sugar icing and seriously unyummy rice paper for the windows – but it was the right colour, and I think the taste is not strong enough to spoil the cake.
I baked a cocoa and coconut cake for the snakes and covered them in white chocolate cream cheese icing with lots and lots of added food colouring.
Right, that’s it for today. I’m off to plan next year’s birthday cakes… ;) All that’s left to say is:
This is the end. I’ve used up all the pumpkin which my friend gave to me. With this cake I officially declare this year’s pumpkin season to be over.
However! The end of the pumpkin season means it’s (almost) the beginning of the Christmas-themed baking season! I am usually seriously strict when it comes to my ban on all Christmas foods, decorations, etc before the first Sunday of advent. But this year everything’s different. Actually, this may very well be the only time I’m baking anything remotely Christmassy this year!
For all of these reasons, this cake had to be special. I went and came up with my own recipe – yes, there are thousands of similar pumpkin bars recipes but this one’s mine. My precioussssss!
And I am happy with the result. Not entirely – when am I ever entirely happy with anything!? Unless there are dinosaurs and/or sharks and/or zombies involved. I am as happy with the result as it’s possible for me.
Reasons why I like this cake:
You can taste the pumpkin. This is essential. You cannot have a pumpkin cake with other things overpowering the taste.
The gingerbread spice and the cinnamon work nicely with the rest, and while with other recipes I often think they are a bit much I have found the perfect amount for my taste.
It’s so soft and moist! The texture is awesome.
It uses orange zests. Oranges are cool.
The honey icing! I am not even that big a fan of honey but I could eat this icing all day long.
The colour and the sliminess of the pumpkin-egg mixture. Never fails to make me happy.
Enough reasons? Good. Now have the recipe:
Gingerbread-spiced Pumpkin and Walnut Cake with Honey Icing
Ingredients
5 eggs
350 g sugar
300 ml oil
530 g puréed pumpkin
250 g flour
3.5 tsp baking powder
1 tsp gingerbread spice
0.5 tsp cinnamon
2.5 tsp orange zests
1 dash salt
100 g chopped walnuts
250 g mascarpone
130 g butter, softened
260 g icing sugar
3 tbsp honey (feel free to use the most intense one you can find!)
Method
Line a 38 x 25 cm baking tray or tin with baking parchment.
In a big bowl mix together the eggs and the puréed pumpkin. Enjoy. :) Add the sugar and the oil and whisk until well combined and fluffy. In a second bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, spices, zests and walnuts; then fold the dry ingredients into the pumpkin mixture. Spoon onto the baking tray.
Bake at 180°C for about 27 minutes.
Let cool.
For the icing, combine mascarpone and butter, sift the icing sugar onto it. Then add the honey and stir it all well until smooth. Spread the icing onto the cooled cake.
This weekend’s cake was baked especially for my brother-in-law because it was very subtly suggested that he might like it.
A while ago, I saw this recipe (German!) and I found the combination of flavours quite intriguing. So I gave it a go, and I must say I was not disappointed! I guess the hint of mint is not for everyone but it’s for me, and surely that’s what counts, right? Also, the mintiness is what gives this recipe a certain twist. And twisted minds like twisted recipes.
I have hardly changed the original recipe at all, which could be interpreted as a compliment, I suppose. :) The main change was regarding quantities because I used a 38 x 25 cm baking tray.
Minty Cherry and Chocolate Tray Bake
Ingredients
200 g butter or margarine
100 g sugar
1 packages vanilla sugar
1 pinch salt
3 eggs
180 g flour
2 tsp baking powder
3 tbsp milk
100 g mint chocolate
350 g cherries, pitted
50 g plain chocolate
Method
Mix together butter, sugars and salt. Beat in eggs one at a time. Sift in flour and baking powder, then add milk. Beat. Chop the mint chocolate and fold it into the cake batter. Spread batter onto baking tray lined with baking parchment, then scatter cherries on top.
Bake at 175°C for about 40 minutes.
Melt the plain chocolate in a small bowl over a pan of simmering water. Sprinkle cake with melted chocolate.
Obviously the degree of mintiness depends on the kind of chocolate you’re using. I like Ritter Sport Peppermint.
One more tip: if nephews are involved in the eating of your cake, use all your clumsiness when sprinkling the melted chocolate so that there are pieces with massive dollops of chocolate on them. The kids will love it!
The other day, I found wasabi paste in a shop, which made me think of … HOT WASABI MINI MUFFINS! And as you can see from the picture and the title of this blog entry, that’s EXACTLY what I made.
I cannot give you a recipe but here’s a really useful plan:
Step 1: Make up recipe for Hot Wasabi Mini Muffins. Prepare your mini muffin tin.
Step 2: Bake a batch of Hot Wasabi Mini Muffins. Be disappointed with the result. Revoke the capitalisation and set your hot wasabi mini muffins aside.
Step 3: Add sesame to the remaining batter, spoon the mixture into a baking tray and bake it.
Step 4: Combine the leftover wasabi paste with cream cheese, a few drops of green food colouring for good measure and a few spices to make a nice and spicy topping for your Wasabi and Sesame Squares. Cut the tray bake into said squares. Try one. Be disappointed with the result. Set aside your wasabi and sesame squares, but not as far aside as the muffins.
Step 5: Ponder.
Step 6: Combine squares to make little towers, sprinkle with sesame. Be slightly less disappointed.
Step 7: Take pictures, write your blog entry, serve them to your mates as squares nevertheless (because there aren’t enough to make a nice number of towers), and never bake them again.
Enjoy!
PS: They weren’t that bad. Just not as exciting as I had hoped. My mates still liked them, and the mini muffins are edible, too. Again, just not that exciting.
The rest of the courgettes has been used for square baking. Unfortunately, I cannot remember exactly how I made the chocolate courgette squares – they are yummy though, in case you were wondering. ;) But I can give you the recipe for the lemon courgette squares!
Lemon courgette square
Ingredients:
150 g grated* courgettes
100 g grated apple
juice of 1.5 lemons
2 eggs
75 g softened butter
100 g cream
150 g sugar
1 dash salt
380 g flour
15 g baking powder
1 dash cinnamon
150 g icing sugar
juice of 1/2 lemon
Instructions:
Mix the grated courgettes, the grated apple, the lemon juice and the two eggs. Beat in the butter, the cream, the sugar and the salt. Mix the flour, the baking powder and the cinnamon in a separate bowl and then slowly stir them into the courgettes mixture. Spoon into a 20 x 30 cm baking tray lined with baking parchment. Bake at 190°C for about 30 minutes.
Mix the icing sugar and the lemon juice to make the icing. Spread it onto the still warm cake.
* Grating is much more fun if you do the voice of the courgette, first pleading you not to let it die this gruesome death and then screaming in mortal agony.
