The Mounds of the Baskervilles Cooking Adventure

I know. You don’t have to tell me. I’m a horrible person.

I said (a while ago) that I’d have this cooking adventure up for all of you to enjoy and…well…it’s taken this long.

Earlier in February, I decided I was going to embark on a hobby of candy-making. I didn’t have just any candy in mind, though. I wanted to create a somewhat healthier (if that’s even possible) replica of the beloved Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup. And I succeeded. Ish. I made some lovely almond butter cups which were pretty popular with my coworkers, and some white chocolate almond butter cups which my family adored.

Eventually, I grew bored with the almond butter (I still have LOADS of it left) and decided to try a different filling. I happened to have a lovely bag of shredded coconut just waiting to be used. Combining it with some sweetened condensed milk created a nice textured filling for these sweet treats. They taste pretty similar to the Mounds candy, the one that I didn’t appreciate until I was much older. Believe me, once you try these decadent bites of coconut heaven, you’ll be howling for some of your own.

Check below for how to make these for yourself!

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The Cranberry Adventures of Robin Hood

Ooo-de-lally! We’re back for our final Literary Cooking Adventure of 2015. Embarking to the wilds of Sherwood Forest on this culinary tribute to Howard Pyle’s The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood, I decided to attempt a family recipe for a scrumptious cranberry coffee cake. It’s by far one of my favorite things to eat and by the end of the video, your mouth will be watering. You’ll want to try this one yourself!

Of course, this wouldn’t be a Cooking Adventure without some kind of catastrophe. Thankfully, there was nothing major. My only true aggravation came while trying to measure the baking soda. I lost my measuring spoon and resorted to using a regular spoon…which doesn’t fit into the baking soda box. Lots of cursing ensued and I ended up shaking the box like it was a maraca. As such, there might have been some extra baking soda and that might have made the cake a bit more solid than it was supposed to be. No matter.

It still tasted delicious!

Want to make this cranberry coffee cake for Christmas morning? Scroll down to see the magic!

Angel Food Cake and Demons Cooking Adventure

This week we take on the dastardly Illuminati as we pay tribute to Dan Brown’s Angels and Demons. I attempt to create a baking decadence that (for all in intents and purposes) probably shouldn’t exist. It’s called the Heaven and Hell Cake. A mouthwatering combination of Angel Food cake layers with Devil Food Cake layers. Smothered in between is an unbelievably delicious peanut butter ganache and dripped over it is a smooth chocolate coating. It has you saying, “Oh my ganache.”

…Well, almost.

My take on this fine cake was ruined by the angel food cake. This is my second attempt trying to make it and I once again failed…miserably. But I had to complete it so I resorted to the wonderful Hannaford’s Supermarket to supply me with a cake that was actually edible.

Somehow, whenever I try to make angel food cake, I always have the same problem. I get to the point in the recipe where I’m supposed to beat egg whites and sugar together until they form “stiff peaks”. And so I beat, and beat, and beat. I beat the heaven out of those egg whites until they are no longer angelic in the least bit. No stiff peaks form. Ever. When I try to go ahead with the recipe, I end up with this strange marshmallowy concoction of God knows what that isn’t even…real. It’s just a brick of gross goo with a hard crust. Eww.

Basically, what I’m saying is that if you want to try this recipe for yourself, you’re going to want to hop over and check out Whisk Kid for this recipe so that you make it the right way. Because by the end of this video…my cake looks ridiculous, even though it tastes amazing.

Stay tuned for the next Literary Cooking Adventure!

~KSilva

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Donut Literary Cooking Adventure

Okay, in all fairness…I didn’t actually make donuts! They were supposed to be donuts but I don’t own a donut baking pan nor can I find one anywhere. So, I used donut batter in a muffin pan and made apple cider …mo-nut/duffin things. But…they’re still really yummy!

This week, we’re celebrating J.K. Rowling’s celebrated Harry Potter series. In this episode, Harry manages to piss off Hedwig who is clearly trying to tell Harry he’s making mistakes while baking. This, in turn, upsets most of the other owls at Hogwarts. Lots of owls in this one. Lots.

I made a couple of substitutions in the video because there were ingredients I didn’t have. The first was substituting pumpkin butter for apple butter. In hindsight, I think apple sauce would have been a better choice, but the pumpkin flavoring gave the muffin an almost gingerbread-y kind of taste and was still delicious. The next substitute was for the sour cream. I used milk which made the batter that much more liquidy. Always stick to sour cream if you can. It keeps them moist. Mine are, unfortunately, beginning to dry out.

Interested to find out how to make these magical duffins? You can find the original recipe over at The Kitchn. Enjoy!

The Croissanting of Hill House Cooking Adventure

Fall is here! Fall is here! FALL IS HERE!

*clears throat* As you can tell, I’m really happy it’s finally autumn. This is my favorite time of the year to bake, do crafty things, and of course write. I decided to kick off the season by trying a different kind of croissant recipe with a square folded style vs. the traditional rolled style.

In this week’s tribute to Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House (which I mistakenly call “The House on Haunted Hill”) I made some Blueberry and Honey Cream croissants. They are extremely easy to make and can be varied to include different fruits (and probably chocolate, too). I’m probably going to end up making a number of them over the next few weeks because they were so delicious!

Check out the recipe below the cut if you want to try it for yourself!

 

Rag-Lime Literary Cooking Adventure

What’s better than some old classic ragtime and a spicy flavorful chicken dinner? Nothing I tell you! Nothing!

Okay, maybe that was a bit overkill. But this Chili Lime Chicken was pretty damn tasty and relatively easy to make. There were of course a few obstacles here and there, such as the fact that my chicken was frozen, the pan was spitting oil like a cobra spits venom, and my fear of cooking with hot peppers was revisited.

But, in tribute to E.L. Doctorow’s classic novel, Rag Time, I pushed on through the obstacles and emerged victorious with a dish that I’ll most certainly be making in the future. Want to know how to make it for yourself? I’ll bet you do. Scroll on down and check it out! You can find the original recipe at Rasa Malaysia!

DING DONG! The Witch is Bread Literary Cooking Adventure

Wake up, you sleepy-head! Rub your eyes! Get out of bed! Wake up; the Wicked Witch is BREAD!

That’s right. This week on Literary Cooking Adventures, we’re celebrating L. Frank Baum’s classic children’s book, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, by making some utterly impressive chocolate chunk zucchini bread! Yes, it is as beautiful and delicious as it sounds.

In this episode, I battle a rather bendy zucchini, a mandolin, converse with the furry cat munchkins, and straight up kill the Wicked Witch of the East. Boom. Dropped a couch on you, witch. Didn’t see that coming, did ya?!

I found the original recipe through Simple Bites. The recipe there is a little more in depth with making the bread whole wheat and using freshly ground spices. I cut corners where I felt I could and the zucchini bread still came out well and tasted amazing.

Interested in making this wonderful, magical zucchini bread for yourself? Follow the yellow brick road down to the instructions below.

Thigh Robot Literary Cooking Adventure

The three laws of robot cooking are as follows:
One: Do not spill water on self.
Two: Follow all instructions exactly.
Three: Do not cook more than two things at once unless it conflicts with law number 2.

I broke rule #3 back in May when I decided to do my Jurassic Park Cooking Adventure on the same day as my I, Robot Cooking Adventure.

It was later in the evening, the lighting wasn’t as good, my hair was crazy, and for some reason, I developed a lisp whenever trying to say anything with an ‘s’. However, the recipe for this Lemon Butter Chicken was pretty spectacular. It’s a little more involved than I had expected but in the end, it was a sight for sore eyes, especially after a full day of slaving over a hot stove.

I had meant to have a newly filmed Cooking Adventure up this week but unfortunately my schedule didn’t allow much time to film this past weekend. Fear not; I will have a few new ones up my sleeve for the coming weeks.

Interested in the recipe for this yummy winner chicken dinner? Shift and shuffle down the page to check it out. It’s made of stuff every robot (or human pretending to dance “the robot”) desires. The original and beautiful recipe is from Damn Delicious and yes, yes it was.

The Old Pecan and the Sea Literary Cooking Adventure

Once again, we return to the kitchen in a brilliant effort to create another pie. This time, I attempted to tackle the very precarious Butterscotch Pecan Pie. I had some trouble the last time I attempted one several years ago and it almost turned to goo before I froze it, capturing its saccharine essence in solid form. I was hoping that this pecan pie would be a bit easier provided my extensive and disastrous history. I was proven wrong.

As with the banana cream pie, the pie crust decided to be the most obnoxious part of this Cooking Adventure. I had to roll out, shape, pin-prick, and bake 2 in order for it to work. There are apparently very detailed steps one must follow in order to get the perfect pie crust including thawing, unrolling, pressing, pricking, chilling, weighting, and baking…and I didn’t follow them for shit. Sorry, but all of that kagatha just to pre-bake a pie crust seems ridiculous. I should have just done it. Maybe then I wouldn’t have ended up with something that looks like it was made out of sand.

The other thing that really set me off was my inability to open the bag of pecans. I wish I was joking. There’s a segment in the bloopers where I struggle with the bag of pecans for almost a full two minutes before succumbing to rage and hacking it open with a pair of scissors. Then, I couldn’t open the bag of butterscotch chips. It wasn’t my day.

As a tribute to Hemingway’s classic novel, I decided to take a break and cast a line, hoping to hook something good. Instead, I managed to capture the rare but ferocious Lemon Jelly, a cat with an insatiable appetite and primal rage.

Interested in the recipe for this disastrous pie leviathan? Scroll down and behold!

Just When You Thought It Was Safe To Go Back Into The Watermelon…

LITERARY COOKING ADVENTURE: Jaws

Yes. I realize that Shark Week was indeed last week. Do I care? Not really.

Last week, I held my third annual Shark Week Party complete with bloody chum-like cocktails, shark-shaped cookies, Goldfish, Sharknado 2, and of course, the Sharktermelon.

Every year so far I’ve carved a shark out of a watermelon following steps that I’ve found on line. This year’s attempt was sadly done in haste as I had run out of time to do it. Nevertheless, it came out looking ten times better than last years, which looked more like a Critter than a shark.