Black Widow Spider Truffles

What's more appetising, I ask you, than biting into a huge fat venomous spider? And which deadly spider is more instantly familiar than our cannibalistic friend the black widow? God they're creepy aren't they. Even looking at this photo below gives me the creepy crawlies. Anyway, I long thought it would be a fun idea to make chocolate truffles decorated to look like spiders. They'd make a nice addition to a spooky afternoon tea, a Halloween party, a children's party, or just whenever you feel like baking spooky sweets.

Black Widow with hourglass marking.
Source: Albuquerque Journal

Now I'm aware they don't look precisely like the real thing, but if you have the skills to make the red abdominal pattern more accurate to nature then by all means go ahead, just please take a photo and tag me so I can see it and be impressed. Widow spiders come in many varieties, but I think the red 'hourglass' shape is pretty easily identifiable. On real spiders it's sometimes underneath, but you can't see the underside of these truffles so that'd be a bit daft wouldn't it.

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This was fairly time consuming, but the hardest part was tracing around the spider stencils and cutting them out. If you're more artistically talented than I, you might want to draw spider shapes straight onto the black card instead of printing out an image. This recipe yielded enough for about 10 of my fairly large ones, but you can make them any size you like.

Ingredients:

• 100g unsalted butter
• 100g dark chocolate
• 1tsp cocoa
• 1 cup icing sugar +
• Cherries (morello, glacé, etc.)
• Rum, rum essence, or vanilla essence
• Black fondant
• Red fondant

For spider bases:

• Black card stock (fairly stiff, not paper)
• Cardboard
• Glue
• Pencil
• Scissors

Bases Method:

1. Print out the image at the bottom of this post.
2. Glue image into cardboard.
3. Cut around the image carefully to create a stencil.
4. Hold the stencil onto the black card stock and (this part is particularly fiddly) trace around it with a pencil.
5. Cut out your spiders! Arrange them on a plate or pretty tray.
   
   

Truffle Method:

1. In a pot, melt together the butter and chocolate on the stove, slowly stirring til combined.
2. Add half a cup of icing sugar, the cocoa, and the rum or vanilla essence. Stir, then add more icing sugar until the mixture is stiff and firm. 1 cup of icing sugar wasn't enough, so I added another half a cup, and a bit more cocoa for luck.
3. Let cool til it's comfortable to handle.
4. Using the spider stencil as a guide for how large the truffle should be, roll some mixture into a rough ball.
5. Mush a cherry (or two) into it, then roll the mixture around in your hands until it's pleasingly round. Place on a plate, it doesn't matter if the bottom flattens.
6. Repeat for as many truffles as you want, then put them in the fridge to chill for a couple of hours.
7. Flatten out the black fondant as thinly as you can, you only want it a few millimetres thick.
8. Lay the fondant over each truffle, and roll it in your hands until the whole truffle is covered. It doesn't matter if the underside is bare or untidy.
9. Flatten out some red fondant, and using a sharp knife (xacto knife or non-serrated kitchen knife) carefully cut out hourglass shapes.
10. Gently place the red hourglasses onto each truffle and pat to smoothen them down so they'll stay in place but not lose their shape.
11. Put each truffle onto the black card spider base. Serve!

Watch the video:

Here is the image I used for my black card bases if you want to print it out and use the same:

Thank you for joining me, and if you do have a go at making these, please take a photo, share it and tag me so I can see it! Til next time! x

17th Century Sack Posset

If you start talking about the 17th, 18th, or 19th centuries with me, you'll find I won't shut up for ages because I love those periods so much. For years I've done research on historical medicine, food, fashion, industry, traditions, politics, weapons, daily life, diseases, everything I can find to read or watch. Most of my research has hovered between 1650 - 1750 Britain and Europe, as this is when I've set my (I swear I'll finish it someday) novel. Also, several other writing projects in my giant unfinished pile are set then, and I like to be as true to history as possible so must therefore know everything.

Nearly every resource I've read on the 17th century references the diary of Samuel Pepys, so I thought I would just have to read that. And so I have been. Well, listening to it on audiobook through Audible, that counts as reading, does it not? It's 115 hours of listening, it's not a small undertaking. Everything mentioned in the diaries that I wasn't already familiar with, I looked up, and one of those things was "sack posset". I'm so glad I did. I think the mildly amusing name attracted me most, but I looked up as many recipes for sack posset as I could, written at the time. No two were exactly alike, so I combined the essential ingredients and rough ratios from every recipe I saw, and had a crack at making it. It was amazing. Warming, soothing, delicious, makes you all cosy and sleepy. Sack posset is generally served in the evening after supper, the last thing you give your guests before they head home.

I made an enormous basin of it on Christmas day for Mr Owl's family, and everyone enjoyed it verily. It's to be drunk hot, and is best enjoyed hot, but on boxing day, a couple of Mr Owl's cousins biffed the leftovers into an ice-cream machine and it was lovely cold, too! It felt like a Christmas-appropriate thing to make, but sack posset isn't a special occasion thing. It's for any day of the week, all year around.

But the fuck is it, I hear you ask? What is sack? What is a posset? This which we are making is essentially hot booze-custard. Posset started its life centuries ago as a strengthening medicinal drink, and over time became a sweet night cap. It finally evolved into such familiar things as custard and eggnog. Sack is a fortified wine which no longer exists. The closest modern equivalent to sack is sherry.

So here is the recipe and method, it's quite easy and only takes about 15 minutes to make. Obviously this is 18+ or 21+ depending on where you live because of alcohol laws, but I've heard the sherry can be substituted for orange and lemon juice, though I haven't tried it. The mixture can be thickened with bread crumbs if you fancy eating it with a spoon instead of drinking it, but I've not tried that either. Some old recipes suggest adding mace, crushed almonds, rosewater, musk, or even ambergris. It's a flexible recipe, you could experiment with whatever ingredients take your fancy.

Let us begin! This yields about 3 coffee mugs full, but is best served in teacups. You can warm the cups beforehand if you wish.

Ingredients:

• 400ml heavy cream
• 300ml sherry
• 7 egg yolks
• 2 egg whites
• 1/2 cup sugar
• ground nutmeg
• ground/sticks of cinnamon

Method:

1. Pour the cream and sugar into a pot. Sprinkle a small amount of the nutmeg and cinnamon in, and stir. Some recipes called for a blade of mace, but mace is fairly expensive so I omitted it.
2. Separate yolks and egg whites. There are several methods to do this, I like passing the yolk between the shell halves. You might have one of these doodads. Put the yolks into a large basin or similar. If you don't want to waste the leftover whites, you could turn them into meringues.
3. Crack two whole eggs in, whites included.
4. Add the sherry to the eggs and whisk together until eggs are beaten. 
5. Boil some water in a pot that will comfortably sit the basin atop it. Place the egg-sherry mixture over the boiling water. If exposed to direct heat, the eggs will cook, yuck! Stir it continuously and test the temperature with a knuckle.
6. Put the cream-sugar pot on the stove at a medium heat. Stir this regularly too. The cream should be taken off the heat just before it starts to boil.
7. Once the egg-sherry mixture is warm, take the basin off the boiling water.
8. Carefully pour the cream into the eggs, pouring a little at a time, and stirring constantly until all is combined.
9. Ladle into teacups and enjoy!

I read that cushions were placed around the basin to keep it warm. It's important that it doesn't get too hot or else you'll end up with scrambled eggs, you want it at a warm, drinkable temperature. It's quite filling, you'll probably find that a couple of teacups is loads!

Watch the video:

Let us know in the video comments on YouTube if you try this out, and how it goes! Thanks for joining me, see you again soon! x

Gingerbread Krampus Cookies DIY

Gruß vom Krampus! I wanted to have a go at making some festive gingerbread, but little men and houses and whatnot are so prosaic, don't we feel? So let's make the half-demon half-goat Christmas fiend himself. I took the recipe from the Edmond's Cookery Book, New Zealand's favourite cook book, whose recipes are relatively fail proof.

Ingredients:
150g unsalted butter
70g soft brown sugar
70g white sugar
200g treacle
2 tsp ground ginger
2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground cloves
3/4 tsp baking soda
1 large egg, lightly beaten
4 cups white flour

For icing I used black fondant, white fondant, and red marzipan. You could also use standard royal icing, but I wanted the certain look that fondant has. However, fuck fondant, that shit was so hard to use. The marzipan was far more agreeable. But if you're already adept at using fondant, go ahead!

Method: 
1. Preheat the oven to 160˚C. Line two baking trays with baking paper.

2. Cut the butter into small lumps and place in a large mixing bowl. Place the sugars, treacle and spices in a heavy-based saucepan and stir with a wooden spoon until melted together and the mixture comes to the boil.

3. Add the baking soda and stir again until the mixture froths up and turns a pale gold.

4. Remove from the heat and pour the treacle mixture onto the butter. Stir well until the butter melts and the mixture is smooth.

5. Mix in the egg, then sift the flour and stir in, one cup at a time.

6. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured board and knead lightly until smooth.

7. Divide in half and shape each portion into a rectangle. Wrap in greaseproof paper and chill for a few minutes if the dough seems too soft to roll easily.

8. Roll out one piece of the dough at a time to 5mm thickness. Cut out shapes and place on the prepared trays. The dough will be quite soft to begin with and you may need to use a spatula to lift the biscuits. You can re-roll the scraps several times – the dough does not get tough.

9. Bake for 15–20 minutes until firm to the touch and just beginning to brown. Leave on the trays for a 1–2 minutes then place on a wire rack to cool. 

Video:

If you have a go at these, good luck, and have fun! I would love to see your efforts on Instagram!

DIY Blackaroni and Cheese!

The internet lost its shit over black ice-cream, and continues to do so as this weird black food trend marches on. Personally I am in favour of it, and decided to give it a go! I saw that YouTube channel Threadbanger made black macaroni and cheese, but it looked so hard, since they made the pasta from scratch.

I figured I could make an easier, and even cooler version, that even a non-skilled kitchen derp like me could achieve. My ingredients were...

• Black Skull Pirate Pasta, 250g 
• Butter, I would guess 30g
• Milk
• Grated Gouda cheese, 200g
• Plain flour
• Wilton black gel food dye, 1/3 tsp

I didn't actually measure anything, as usual. I measure ingredients in amounts of "that looks about ok". This made enough for two good sized servings. I boiled the pasta in hot water for 8 minutes, then drained it. I mixed the ingredients for the cheese-sauce in a separate pot, then when it appeared cheese–sauce-like enough, I added a small dollop of black gel food dye from Wilton.

This dye was amazing, it was such a deep colour, but it didn't stain the tongue, lips, or mouth. It is also flavourless. The amount needed was very small, roughly 1/3 teaspoon. I got mine here from German Amazon, but it is also available at the USA Amazon. It combined with the cheese easily. Would you ever try Blackaroni and Cheese? Here's the video of me making it, enjoy!